Old player coming back. Stuck!

I use to play Guild Wars non stop back when Prophecies was only around. Since the world beta happened I was hooked, played for hours on end. But then I got a job and hardly played

So now I'd like to come back, I do own all of the expansions. The only problem is, I don't know where to start now. I had a monk at 20 and a dervish at 20 but it seems like things have changed so much. I can't find out where I'm suppose to go or where people hang out, and unfortunately the community in game doesn't seem to want to help either. It seems like most casual players have left and now it is full of the elitists.

I'm just looking for something to do and people to play with, can anyone point me in the right direction? Should I just recreate a level 1 and replay?

There's so many zones now, I'm lost . Help!

Thanks.

I don't haven your answer. Just wanted to thank you for the heads up in the game.

Doesn't really matter where you start but it doesn't hurt to start off being self sufficient and to do they you need some heroes.

Start a character in nightfall and start leveling up your heroes as you get them.
When you reach lvl 20 maybe go across to eye of the north gain more heroes and start the mission tracks there.

That should get you some interesting skills enable you to be your own party and get by in most of pve.
You will of course have to move through all the games to open up the skills you need for your hero builds.

I find the American districts the most active, but finding players still doing missions isn't always possible this late in the game.

The only thing I can suggest is to get a very active guild. This will probably help you trough everything and keeps you informed about everything that has changed while you were gone.

You can add me ingame: Ss Heretic. I've been gone for 7 weeks, came back and even now many things have changed.

Hold on there champ! Take a deep breath, there we go. It is easy to understand being overwhelmed after so long of a break. Guild Wars is not a small game, and learning it all takes a long time, with many of us still learning even after five years of continuous play. It's not just you who is a little lost!

Your first question is pretty easy to answer. Where are you supposed to go? Well, where do you want to go? Do you want to blast through the games and get to high end content so that you can get phat lewtz? Or maybe hunt some titles and get 50/50 with your hall of monuments? Perhaps PvP? All of these take different paths, so there is no one right answer for where you should be pointing yourself. My own personal suggestion would be to finish off some of the campaigns. Take your favourite toon and have some fun in Nightfall, then Eye of the North, after that maybe factions and prophecies. Check out the Underworld and Fissure of Woe for some higher end content, though you will likely need specific character setups if you want to Pug.

The rest of your concerns all boil down to the same problem: where have all the nice people gone? While it is true that the population of Guild Wars is not as high as it used to be, there are still a huge number of people actively playing this game. Back in prophecies, there was only one continent, now there are three and an expansion, spreading everyone out. So where do I go to find the cool people who will play with me? you ask. A guild! We respond. Drop down to the Guilds Looking For Players forum on this site, or post in the Players Looking For Guild forum. That should get you on your way to finding the right group of friends quite quickly.

Check out PvX and the official wikis. They are great resources as well!

For players who have been gone for a long time, I usually recommend starting a new character. This lets you get back into the game at a slow pace and relearn the basics without having to know how to take out high end mobs.

Where to start that new character? You can do Prophecies which might kickstart your memories and take the slow trip up the learning curve, or Nightfall where you can start gaining heroes from day one. Factions is a quick and dirty campaign, but the learning curve is very steep.

If you've finished the storyline missions and you're not into a) title-hunting (which is what most people do), or b) rolling an alt (which is what you really should do if you only have two lvl20s and you're getting back into the game), then your best bet for finding a PUG to play with is to follow the Zaishen Quests. Go to Embark Beach, get the quests from the green signposts there. Sometimes you'll find a party forming in EB, sometimes you'll have to go to the outpost where the mission actually starts from. Either way, there's almost always at least a few people forming groups for those things.

Just make sure your builds are decent and no one will say much. If you don't know, well, that's for a different thread.

As for "casual" vs. "elitist"; casual players aren't bad, they just don't have much time to play. Honestly, that can make a casual player even more of a pain to play with, because they know that they don't have more than an hour or two to play and if you waste their time they'll be annoyed. The game is almost 6 years old; no matter how casual a player you are, if you've been here for a few years you've finished almost everything and you just want to do content quickly and achieve whatever other goals you've set for yourself.

Start a new character but do not delete your old. Then just play the new character for a while until you get the hang of it, go back to your old ones if you like.

Builds have changed over time. I think in terms of that you may have to just read up more and look around a bit.

I see a lot of new players these days at the bigger towns like Lion's Arch and Kamadan. I have not seen anyone not being helpful yet, so it might just be your luck that day?

If you have trouble with certain places, you can open a tread here and ask for help on how to finish it. Lots of players here will offer to lend you a hand too.

But the truth is, with the 7 heroes update, I think a lot of people now is playing solo to build good 7 hero team builds. Everyone is experimenting around and having fun doing that.