Thinking about coming back. Couple of questions

I haven't played GW for a good while now and was thinking of coming back. I just recently quit WoW for good because it was just getting way to damn easy. And also I am waiting for my support ticket to be answered on what my character name is because I have forgotten. It's going pretty slow, haven't had a response in a day. I have a couple of questions about what GW is like now.

How's the PvP been? Is it active?
How are the guilds? Are there a good selection of them or are they all just small guilds with barely anyone on?
How's the PvE now? What's there to do nowadays?
How's the Economy?
Is there still a good amount of people still playing GW?

Basically just give me a run down on what the game is like nowaday's. Like what is most of the population doing and etc.

Thanks

* hard to pug into serious HA without nice rank and usually one has to wait a longer while for AB, but other than that, well - worse than it used to be ~2 years ago, but the worst is yet to come i think

* depends what are you asking - there are lots of highend/sc pve guilds, there are active pvp guilds, there are 'communities' as KISS and there are faction-based guilds that will help you max out your kurz/lux title really easy. i wouldn't join any other group tbh, as there's high probability of joining a small circle of old friends rather than an active guild, but it varies.

* they've added a new boss at the end of the underworld as well as uw's general difficulty for balanced teams got up. i don't know if you have played eye of the north yet, nice bit of entertainment there.
i've been playing for over 17 months now, got gwamm on one character, been to doa/uw/fow/etc with it and now rerolled to another char, and i still enjoy the pve. i guess it's just me, but if you like the game, it's hard to get bored anyways (<3 fallout 2, fk bethesda :<).

* unstable. a serious nerf to popular farming methods has been announced but it's yet to be aired. ectoplasms raised from ~5k to ~8k and the price fluctuates now. unless you're going for high-end skins (as ugly bone dragon staff), obsidian armor or rare minipets, it wouldn't affect you that much.

* i think so. i never was a social player too much, i was able to do everything i needed with heroes and henchies, but nearly all outposts have people at american districts. there are up to 70, at peak hours even more, districts in festival towns. european districts are a tad more deserted out of festivals, but major towns still have people.

people usually run speedclears now, grind up their titles, farm, or enjoy the game - so nothing has really changed

I was never really a social player either. Yes I have GWEN but I never really got to play it because, back before I stopped playing I was hacked and lost damn near everything. I tried to recover from it but losing everything you worked for was pretty bad. I figured I'd stop for a while and come back later as I am now with nothing really on my account, maybe 1 or 2 20's, I don't remember. During this time I went back to WoW but when I realized that gear, raids, etc. were just way way to easy I quit that for good and decided it was time to come back to the good ol' Guild Wars that I've played since 2007. I'm starting out basically brand new. Not much money, good nice gear, etc. Whenever I get back into playing we shall see as I am waiting on the a-net support answer my ticket and give me the name of one of my characters so that I can log in.

Run and don't stop. It's not worth it,continuous failed promises from the devs have stolen all hope. It's a stale game fixated on grind and farming, where high PvP is basically impossible to get into.

My opinion.

How's the PvP been? Is it active?

Well it's nothing compared to 3/4 years ago. They also deleted 2 useless Arena's and added another fail arena.

How are the guilds? Are there a good selection of them or are they all just small guilds with barely anyone on?

there are plenty of active guilds left. You won't have a problem finding a nice guild. But for pve this is much easyer, then for pvp.

How's the PvE now? What's there to do nowadays?

Well after the story lines, You can grind titles or do end game missions. The endgame missions are not hard anymore. Becaause of the overpowered skills/consumables/summoning stones ETC. they added to the game

How's the Economy?

Very bad (imo). One of worst economies I ever seen in a game. Because people farm the elite missions within a half hour (because of the added imba skills). But there are more reasons, why the economy is bad.

Is there still a good amount of people still playing GW?

Pve has gained alot of players. And it has alot more compared to pvp. There are still alot of people in the game yes. Not as much as it used to be tho.

Come back if your priority is PvE and you dont mind grinding titles, farming dungeons and stuff. If your priority is PvP, wait for GW2.

As usual the most vocal are the ones who are unhappy. I have been playing for almost four years and have not run out of things to do (9 active characters). I have a large guild (40-50 members) though most of them seldom play, but they can't all be like mine. Check out the Guild Connections section for guild possibilities or post your own looking for thread.

The "Nicholas" (check wiki) and Daily Zaishen Mission/Bounty/Combat keep a few places busy that would otherwise be deserted, but there are still many people actually playing.

i don't think it's the worst aspect of the guild wars economy. actually, when analysing the gw eco as a whole, i don't really see why farming elite missions in 30 minutes is bad (don't get me wrong: talking ONLY about economy here, NOT being fair with other players, keeping the balance etc). more good stuff in the market means lower prices, while there's never enough highend stuff to get the price totally low. gw has, generally, a stable, self-adjusting system. the only variable is if that obsidian armor you bought 2 years ago is now 400k or 900k, when you count the money, but since it doesn't give you any real bonus, it's just for your own entertainment and the awareness of your set's 'real price' is kept in your very own head to keep entertaining you and let you say 'i bought it back when ectos were 12k each...'.

i feel that my request may go off the topic and we should use another one (no idea which one, as no one really stood up to any merithorically proper economical debate, at least recently), but nevertheless - elaborate, please.

Debate what? The ingame economy isn't very complex; I don't see what there is to take sides about. Weapon prices fall in the long run because they only become more plentiful as items never degrade or disappear (supply increasing), while other, newer alternatives appear (demand decreasing). Ecto is subject to speculation just like every commodity known to man.

My only real gripe is that the market itself is inefficient. Having to stand around spamming WTS/WTB/etc in a port city is not my idea of fun. Instead of having to turn to third parties like this site, it would be nice to see an ingame process for expediting willful exchange.

I wouldn't really bother with the game, unless you're coming back to play for the nostalgia and then leave after you've satisfied yourself..I really wouldn't bother. You are probably just going to get frustrated with what GW has become, than what it was meant for. (IMO) Speedclears (UWSC) + pure hax & godmode (SF) were fun the first time, maybe twice, but it's just old and ..OVERabused now.

@OJ: debate the ingame economy, of course. it's much more complex than you think it is and would be easily exploitable by a dedicated group of people, as proven at several occassions i can't share here now. the common problem about gw economy here, in guru, is that people only whine about it, say it's shitty, crappy, it's stupid, there's no economy etc, usually failing to support those views.
i agree about the spamming, i'd like to see afk shops similar to the ones in lineage 2.

anyways, i've just asked about details of other reasons why the economy is bad, as just writing 'there are other shitty things, too' is quite failed, imho.
gw economy isn't bad; it's just specific. once you grasp it, you can easily exploit and predict it's behavior.

People seem to think that it should be possible to spend 10 minutes farming an item and then sell it for 50ectos. It's hard to explain to them why it's not.