im thinking of starting again.

i played back in 08 for about 9 months, never really farmed so i didnt have fow or anything, but if i was to start playing during the 5th anniversary for some practice for GW2 i would want to know how good the community is, because im guessing its gotten even worse since when i last played.

also, if you could let me know how good the economy is that would be great.

I've been playing GW on an off since around 2006. Honestly I don't see any difference in the community. People always get nostalgic and say everything was better back then but really people are the same. The things that have changed is H/H have made pugs very difficult to find for most missions, and people have moved away from older content to more profitable farms.

If you go where the crowds are though, you'll find the community is pretty much the same. PvE only skills, consumables, and various other things have changed the game in a pretty big way though. If you wana do "serious" PvE be prepared to grind a lot of titles and expect to run the FotM cookie cutter. PvXwiki and templates have also had a big impact on what people expect from other players in the few areas people do still form groups for.

This pretty much sums it up 100%.

To add my own comment - The game is still worth playing. Come back and enjoy it!

Thanks, thats actually good to hear, ide just do a farm where i could get 100k every oncer n a while, when i used to play i never made money, i could only affourd elite canthan and asome nice weapons. on my warrior after a few quest drops. so thats all im really looking for.

Wow I'm really seeing alot of these coming back to guild wars threads lately, I guess there's high hopes about the 5th anniversary.

Because there's nothing else decent to play. I've tried to play Aion, but quitted after 3 months (too much grinding and scarce content).

Aion was good in concept, however poor in execution. Badly optimised engine, troublesome hack prevention system, very poor/non-existent support to NA/European players, a lot of grind (despite claiming to create friendly environment, where you can ... wait, grind quests?), questionable balance of pvp, lack of serious end-game content. As I see it, decent game for weekend gamers willing to spend some money for a MMO game on a regular basis. However, nothing spectacular. I wonder what's the reception of people whose first MMO has been AION, though.

Yes, in some ways the community is worse. As the game goes on without new content, more and more players acquire more "stuff" and become "leet". This naturally leads to more of the less mature players calling other people noobs and/or insisting that you must have the latest build-du-jour.
But, the good news is, there are still lots of new and/or helpful players out there, and, of course, Heroes (and Henchmen) mean you don't have to play with anyone if you don't want to.

Um, whuh? I dunno, what's a good economy? You get drops, you sell drops, you get gold, you buy stuff. Rinse and repeat.

just find an active guild and that is all the community u should need ;-)

as for economy, is that really important since u don't farm and prolly dont have much money?

yes it is, as i would start to farm as soon as i got a build together.

i also dont want to have to spend 300k on a chaos axe.

Infanta is right about the PUGS. During Zaishen Missions (And sometimes Zaishen Bounty) People are always looking for HM goers that are taken fr granted like monks, discord and sos. Sure i bet you are thinking "why not H/H it?" but in the early missions in Prophs ppl were looking for the mentioned above! And I am talking about Nolani Academy, where I saw this

I've also been playing since 2006 and things have not changed at all as far as the community goes. As for the economy, ectos are still a fairly stable commodity, along with zaishen keys.