To everyone who says Anet has killed then fun.

"Common Sense is the Least Common of the Senses".

I know I shouldn't bother, since you will probably not understand anyways, but I have nothing else to do while I wait for someone else, so, let's give you 5 minutes of my time:

- BG can be played in both single and multiplayer. When you play in single player, there are NEVER other players, when you play in multiplayer, when the game is done, it is done you can export the character to BG2, but you cannot continue playing that game. You may start the game again with the same character, but you can't continue the game. The game ended. In GW, when you come from an instance, you may find other players in outposts. Even if you can play 'alone' in instances, you are never the only one connected to the servers and playing the game, so it's never a single player game. While in single player, it doesn't matter if you use a cheat code to generate unlimited Superior Vigor runes and sell the to the trader. No one else is affected. If anything even remotely like that is possible in multiplayer, other players are affected, even if you don't see them, and the game doesn't end. The game continues on, and on, and on, until they close the servers, or until the end of the world in 2012. Whatever comes first.
- GW is not designed in that way. You can't compare NWN and GW. Even when NWN can and has massive multiplayer capabilities and has persistent worlds, most of them require unique characters used in those servers. Characters that you can't bring to other worlds. In GW, each character can go anywhere, anytime. And mods require legal changes and control that would limit the game coverage. You should try asking a community manager of any game.
- I'm a completionist myself. I had 99% of the map revealed in Tyria even before the Cartographer titles existed. I did that because I had fun exploring and enjoyed the scenery. NOT TO FILL A BAR. The bar didn't even existed. People were getting to level 20 in pre-Searing way before they added the LDoA, just for the sake of it, or to show off they high level, NOT TO FILL A BAR. Completionists have fun. Bar fillers don't. They are just zombies, zombies that eat high numeric values instead brains. Zombies don't have brains, and you need brains to have fun.
- That woman is sick both in mind and body. And any decent doctor would advise against what she is doing, and those enabling her should be ashamed of themselves. Just because someone did something that doesn't mean it should be done, or that it's right. That's VERY BASIC common sense.

There is intolerance, and then is lack of common sense.
If some guy wants to rape my daughter and I'm against that, I'm not intolerant against daughter rapists. I'm against harm being done to my daughter.
If some guy wants to fill a bar and expect everyone to behave just like them, I'm not intolerant against bad fillers. I'm against me having to play like them.

So, if I say "I play, therefore I fill bars. But not the other way around! ". I mean that "I play, therefore I fill bars".
And you are welcome to do as I do. Since I found it way more fun that shackling myself to a filling bar.
You want to just fill bars? Suit yourself. You can go hammer your head against the wall for I all care. I'm just giving advice, not ordering around.

So, as Charles Foster Offdensen says: "For the record, I tried."

Saw SC make people into flipped out ecto bots. Not sad to see it go away.

I played for a long time filling bars, then wondered if I had gone completely mad and quit.

Problems of GW can only be solved by GW2, which either I or my grandchildren will play some glorious day.

Oh thank you for your five minutes, you're so magnanimous... /sarcasm

Again, you've let the point fly completely over your head. The only effect the multiplayer component of GW has is trading for gear. A person could spend their entire GW career playing nothing but single-player with H/H. Functionally, this is NO different from a completely single player game. Even if there are others connected to the server, if you're not playing with them, then you're not "multi-playing." Basically every player is their own island. Just because others are connected means nothing to the player playing alone. If you can't understand this basic premise, then you're ignorant of the issue entirely.

Now you're confusing semantics with reality. Each NWN server is its own game basically, just as GW is its own game. You can't take a GW character into Dragon Age for example. You're confused over the issue of scale.

For someone who advocates tolerance, you sure are not. Bar-fillers have fun, as you said yourself, for the sake of it. I could contend that someone who maps all of Tyria without any sort of recognition is crazy, but I won't because to each their own. To call someone a zombie just because their playstyle is not the same as yours is the height of intolerance and arrogance.

No. again you're confusing your opinion of what's right with objective reality. The woman may garner a reality television show, make millions of dollars and then make more by losing the weight, which one woman is already doing on Lifetime I believe. So your "basic common sense" only applies to your highly skewed perception of morality, which in itself is flawed because you're basing THAT on subjective opinion.

And yet this directly contradicts your zombie statements above. You ARE very intolerant of others. Also, your daughter rapists example is highly flawed, since filling bars doesn't affect anyone but the player, whereas your example invokes an exterior force causing change in your life. Neither relate to the other. You should probably study logic and reason before engaging in such flawed premises and conclusions.

But according to the rest of your post, you're casting judgment on all those who play just to fill bars, which is fine if that's what they enjoy. Perhaps you should stop and think about the contradictory nature of your stance before posting?

And failed, miserably. And your "try" was built on false premises, flawed logic, and intolerance of others.

More weapon and offhand shield skins keep games alive

This is stupid. You stereotype people who farm for money unskilled. So you're saying people who resort to farming for money can't be skilled? What should they do then? Power trade? Perhaps maybe have a full team of 8 players repeatedly beating the shit out of the same dungeon over and over? Oh wait that's farming too never mind. I know! We should all PvP and win. That can't work either. Can't have everyone winning without someone losing.

If everyone took your advice and say for example we all went out and started power trading instead what exactly would we be power trading for? There are no farmers. It's the farmers who introduce "gold items/platinum" into the economy. Power traders don't create squat for no one. Only thing power traders do is move money/items around with a commission. This is merely an example and power trading was the first thing at the top of my head. The principle is there.

If you're not farming whether it be solo/duo/full team you're not contributing anything to the game. You're just piggy backing off of someone else' hard work and profiting off of it. Whether you choose to play or not will make no difference since your impact on the game is non-existent. No one will notice you've left. Where as if farmers stopped farming, I can assure you the whole community will take notice. You need farmers more then farmers need you. They are the bottom of the GW food chain and they provide a foundation for everyone.

That wouldn't be you.

Look at you, acting all serious about how important you are. I bet you're so proud. By the way, who said anything about power trading?

Well your face is ugly!

I'm important? Is that what you got out of my post? Awesome.

I don't farm for money either. I'm a dirty rotten scumbag who profits off of other people's hard work too.

Thanks for the reminder that I'm important. Damn straight.

Know me before you blow me.

Aww, that's cute.

By the way, why did think that my advice involves power trading at all? You're a big meanie to put words in my mouth like that.

Read again. In case you miss it a second time. Reread. Power trading was an example. I could've used anything. I did say that did I not? Your running out of plausible arguments. Lunch break is over. Thanks for the amusement.

What you said was:

"If everyone took your advice and say for example we all went out and started power trading instead what exactly would we be power trading for?"

You're using an example that really isn't the kind of advice I'd give. The answer to that question is "Don't know, don't care". The notion of amassing wealth in a game like GW makes no real sense in the first place. Why do something that take no skill and gives no real reward.

I am curious however, since when was my arsing around considered arguing?

Wrong, you can save your character from an online NWN persistant world and take it with you to any other online or offline persistant world of NWN that has "no restrictions". I did this numerous times by saving my character and stats from one world and porting them over to another. Mainly because every world uses DnD 3.0 rules and thus everything will port. From character attributes to classes and artwork. Most restrictions applied to how you could or had to "roleplay" on other severs but nothing to do with attributes or rules of dnd 3.0 Some others merely had level restrictions but once again no stat or attribute restrictions of the dnd 3.0 rules beyond the level restrictions of them.

ANET owes me nothing for the hours of game play I have gotten. I play GW mainly for the RPG aspect of the game and that is where my main complaint with GW arises. It may be because ANET really never intended GW to be an RPG, but the CORPG they envisioned. The RPG rewards from chests and kills never seemed to progress as the game did. I like an RPG that has the ability at any time to get a rare drop and GW just has never seemed to have that. There is no blame being pointed here as it could have been me thinking the game was one thing and it really wasn't. Anyways, DAMN you GW you have hooked for almost 5 years. The only thing that has kept interested longer is my wife.

anet killed the fun


seriously in my guild I even took a 2 year hiatus from guild wars and we're all burned out as hell and considering just doing PvP or quitting

Why cant you people just leave britney alone??????????????

Let's make a new guild name!

Anet Killed The [Fun]

*Taps microphone* Hello,

I have been playing for over 3 years. And while I only started using SF with in the last year I do not have a probelm with them removing its power as long as they did the same to the other super builds 600/smite and the like. I remember when I started I could find people alot more in the misc outposts and H/H wasn't as needed. As a game ages it has ups and downs. I do not think GW is dead per say just starting to wind down, especially as GW2 will be out relatively soon.

Yes some people fun was killed, but it also opened up areas for others to have fun too in a group like the original UW/FOW.

Anet cannot make everyone happy they try their best. Some don't like their actions I'm sorry but thats just your opinion. They do their best to make sure the fun is for everyone. They will never be able to make everyone happy but they do try what do you do but QQ. They have a small Live group as to opposed to whet they used to have cut them slack and let them do their job. Maybe they wern't able to keep up with their expansions, so what stuff happenes you act like you've never broke a promise cause something else prevented it, it happeens in life. I'll say it again Appreciate what they do and try to do, they could have just ended the game after GW:EN and aything you had at the time would be your HoM. And you could have been doing nothing while waiting for GW1. Appreciate their work. You're not paying a subscription.

With the exception of not being able to get the Deep on my Paragon (I'm a completionist she is my title monger)) I don't have any regrets about GW. It's a game don't take it too seriously you'll get an ulcer.


Basically people complain too much. Appreciate the work someone else has been put into a great looking game and great bussiness model. I know I do everytime I see GW and see other Free games or trial versions the quality is unmistakeable.

Just wanted to point out that you could do that before. They didn't "open up" anything.

Not to mention the whole "more groups" thing was entirely false to begin with. Dungeon outposts are pretty much empty on non-z quest days. ToA had "more people", but mostly because it now takes 30 minutes of LFG and figuring out groups only to fail because its a pug. I wonder how long it'll be before people just think that those areas are just as worthless as DoA.

Guys, guys, guys. Let's be honest here.

Some people had fun SCing. So yes, their fun was affected.

When certain options exist that make all other options completely worthless, that affects other players, because it forces them to either run the overpowered build or suck, neither of which is fun in the case of many players. So, yes, overpowered builds do affect other players, and the fun of those players. As an example, my dervish was not nearly as fun once I discovered that the class was worthless.

The debate here should not be over whether the fun of certain people has been affected by the nerfs (every update affects someone's fun). The debate should be over which group is more important: the group that wants to farm stuff quickly, or the group that wants balance.

once you get into SC, or farming you have already stopped playing the traditional Guild Wars. You started playing the "Grind Wars" expansion pack where it is all about banging your head against a wall to get money, buy items and show them off.

If you earn 10k/h fair and square, or if you earn 100k/h trying every trick in the book does not matter, the result is the same. The game you play is the same. It is not PvE, it is not PvP, it's Bling vs. Bling. You fall for that and you gametime spikes, because unlike the main story line, there just is no end to this mode.

Assuming that there would be a "skill balance" which brings those Bling-Players back together with the rest is outlandish. The bling brigade will always insist on playing that one build which is faster. Those player who are not part of this scene will always hate them. Much like the ongoing conflict between PvE and PvP players in the early days, ArenaNet is caught in the crossfire of this conflict between Blings and Non-Blings.

1: That's not why we're angry. We're angry for the precise opposite reason to this.

2: I guess you're new?

There should be NO debate over which paying customers are more important than other paying customers.

I'm glad to see that at least a couple of people are HONEST about it being solely about the e-peen. Want balance? Find a friend and flip a coin all day or stand in town and play Rock, Paper Scissors. If people wanted to play a balanced team, there was nothing stopping them from doing so. Nobody buys the "balanced teams" or the "way the game was intended" crap. Blow smoke up someone else's butt.

The only thing that has changed is that the folks who have stacks and stacks of ecto/shards became much richer overnight. People who want to play a balanced team are just as frustrated now as before the skill update. See http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/n...t10430234.html for an example.

People who piss and moan keep ruining the game. At least you can sit back and keep your mouths shut while patting yourselves on the back.

What you're saying is without SC, balance teams will take their place (so you can get in a group). When I mean take their place I mean literally, "take their place" not just the random balance groups who would've otherwise done it balanceway anyways. That isn't happening or is it? Got any proof because I don't.

Been on this forum for a long time. This argument has come up before in many different forms. Good example is Ursan. Balance groups did not replace the Ursan abusers. Everyone just left when Ursan got the nerf bat. What you have now are guild groups, 1-3 man farmers/runners and ZBounty day. So yes you're right that "overpowered skills" limited your accessibility but when you remove them you're still stuck with limited accessibility because now no one wants to play. So you're still stuck with the same problem albeit a lot worse. I don't need to make this stuff up. The proof is in the pudding.

[edit]
Just out of curiosity I logged on and wandered around ToA (all 3 districts) to see what's going on. It is March 22, 2010 at 4:52pm pst.

There are exactly 3 FoWSC groups forming.
3 people in party search looking for UWSC
4 people in party search looking for FoWSC
0 people doing balance in any way, shape or form.
0 people LFG for balance in public chat
8 people buying/selling
countless others standing around (could be guilds/alliances in balance groups but unless they're looking for PuGs you nor I will be apart of this so it's deemed irrelevant)

If you remove the groups that are actually visibly doing anything at the moment (ala SC teams) in ToA the place is literally a ghost town.

[edit]Been about 15 minutes now district hopping in ToA. Only thing happening is 2 of the FoWSC teams had entered in FoW. Other than that there's really nothing much to talk about.

I was thinking the same thing.

Balance is so 2005-06. We can blame the overpowered skills all we want but at the end of the day it's the people who decide how they want to play. Speed Clearing is the NEW way of doing things. Remove Shadowform, remove Obby Flesh, remove 600/Smite, and remove every bloody overpowered skill in the game. You can't remove Speed Clearing. It's not just the skills involved but also the tactics, abusing the stupid AI and the player mindset. There's NOTHING stopping people from splitting up into small groups to complete a task. There's NOTHING stopping people from skipping/running content. There's NOTHING stopping people from thinking outside-the-box. Lets face it, since the introduction of speed clearing it's become part of the PvE meta. Instead of thinking how to beat an area via balanceway the community is looking for ways to cut corners instead. Always in search of the path with least resistance.

You need not look very far for evidence. With each subsequent nerf to Shadowform people just went out to try a new method to SC. They didn't stop SC'ing and change to balance nor will they if Shadowform ever gets Smiter's Booned. They'll just find a different way to do it. It may be slower but it's still gonna be a SC (faster then balanced).

Lost interest in the game not too long ago. Still log in every now and then so I don't get /gkicked even though it's pointless.

What really killed it for me was carrying a pug through Frostmaw's HM and then getting an error and getting kicked out while trying to load into the fifth level and having 2/7 get a silverwing recurve bow drop. Wasted a good hour and a half of my life that one day.

Hey, isn't that what the autistic, stubborn, ignorant, unskilled, snotty, mindblinded, relentless, spiteful side of the community wailed at Anet for? They wanted ToA all to themselves so they can has heroes/henchies and try to heal-breeze/mending their way through it all, followed by drowning in their failure. They're also the ones that wished death upon PvPers with the Dishonorable Combatant System. Nowadays, Random Arenas is super empty. ToA is also now empty. Soon they'll motion for even harsher, stupider changes that'll cause enough disinterest in the very little playerbase that remains to make them want to leave.

This is the sad, honest truth.

For the high-end player, SC has become the standard. This is because there were so many issues left ignored near the start of the game (AI against a soloer, "tanking") that have snowballed into what we see now.

How did it end up this way? Hard to tell. Maybe ANet felt that players would rather do what's fun rather than what's most profitable. Maybe it's because they felt the issues were minor and wouldn't affect the overall endgame, which is untrue (least resistance >>> anything else).

Either way, this is the end-product. I only hope that ANet is able to plot through history of GW1 so as to completely avoid it with GW2.

Now, in regards to whether or not ANet should nerf anything more or take further action? Generally I'm pretty indifferent to it. Vocal minorities will in no way impact a game's success, and this is another brutal truth (example). I guess nerfing and fixing a lot of things "could" set a message for what to expect for GW2, and it might get a few old-time "respectable" players to give rep to ANet...

Yes .They did in way they didn't have to buff SF so much they way they did when it got buffed as split skill from pvp.They buff SF to much as to give way for anyone with a Sin to be able to farm as much as they wanted.This was even more stronger than the first generation of Monk 55 builds (protective bond).This one class could solo pretty much all it wanted as well as run. I won't say much about Ursan as I wouldn't want to monk Ursan party.It was nice to use once in awhile though.

Balanced teams are usually only guild teams. And Random Arenas has never been empty ever at any give time you will join a match without a restart 95% of the time.

I think it ended up this way because the people at Anet do not acutally play the game. How many times have you heard a newbie say, "I just want to earn enough gold to get my xxxxx armor, or buy xxxxx weapon." That is what the game is about: 100% epeen or vanity. To get that epeen it should be fun, and fun is not wasting your real life time. So in Anet's stupid quest for more balance, they are increasing real life time needed, which means less fun. Fortunately for most players who have sins, the idiots swung the nerf bat at SF and hit us monks instead and killed 600. So the result is nothing changed except the monk class became no fun so people quit, sins kept speedclearing with their new ele OF bretheren, and balance groups still cant figure out why they are left unloved in outposts since everything got "nerfed".

My observations as I stand in DOA and waste the last of my gold buying up gems to finish off some braces: I get 3 or 4 requests to join a pug and heal. I cancel, they request several times. Finally they pm. I tell them unless Anet reverses the nerfs to my monk, I will never heal for another group again so good luck and bye. After 15 minutes or so, I keep an eye on the request and I see their numbers drop from 6 to 5 to 4 to 3 to .... {poof} another pug disbanded. In the meantime, a lot of people come and go from DOA in speedclearing guilds using SF as the key players. Balance way is forever dead. Like Byteme states above, speedclear is the new meta and it doesnt matter what the skills are, balanceway is toast. GG Anet, you accomplished nothing with the skill changes except changed a few classes from fun, to not at all fun.

Anet should admit they really dont know what the hell they are doing and let everyone just play the way they want and have fun until GW2. To let everyone have fun, my idea is roll back the idiotic nerfs all the way back to ursan. Balanced teams are NEVER coming back, at least then any class could participate in a speedclear if they wanted and have the choice of picking which type of speedclear they want: ursan, vor mesmer, SF sin, 600 monk, etc, etc, etc. If they want to waste their time on balanceway, nothing is stopping them. It's is not like they are getting into groups now either, so nothing will change except more opportunity for everyone.

The Sword of 1000 Truths!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But why would they play for months on end to get stacks of ectos, a tiger emote, a gold trim, nice gear... when they created all of those?

They can never fully understand why many people play, and what they go through.

When compared to a bit before Anet stopped caring ...

... yea, it's pretty empty. Maybe not 'literally' empty, but ... it's empty.

If the population has decreased because of Dishonor, then it basically did the job of getting rid of all the glad farmers who would /ragequit if they got on a team without a monk, didn't it?

The problem with that is people are like sheep. They see something that is declining/dead and they stop playing because everyone else has stopped. Funny thing is they don't even realize it and often citing boredom/difficulty as the main factor. But where did this boredom/difficulty contrive from?

So ya even if all the bad players, rage quitters, and cheaters left may "seem" good it really isn't. You want a healthy size population to play your game regardless of what you think of them. These people along with all your regular goodie-two-shoes type players help contribute to a successful game.

Good example is WoW. Large population. People see this and they think to themselves, "WoW must be a good game because lots of people play it". I mean with millions upon millions of players playing daily they can't all be wrong right?

I personally would have left GW on my own if it didn't turn out to be as successful as it has. If GW did not have the population that it did at the start I would not glance an eye ball at the game no matter how well it was made. Especially given the fact it's a multiplayer online game. Regardless of all the flaws and broken mechanics etc... the mere fact a ton of people play even to this day leaves me to conclude to myself that the game was done right. As the old saying goes...

"You can please some people some of the time"
"You can please all people some of the time"
"You can please some people all of the time"
"But you can't please all people all the time"

After playing this game since day 1 I can honestly conclude at this late stage in GW that anything that contributes to a population decline in any way shape or form is BAD. We've seen Anet attempt to tamper with the game many many many times over the years and it's never fixed anything. Only thing accomplished is pissing off more players. In the early stages of GW sure tampering, fixing bugs etc... was necessary. But this late in the game when these problems should have been dealt with already, tampering now is futile.