State of the In-game Community

Greetings

I remember when I first started playing GW, couple months after it's release, still fresh and new, people were friendly and helpful and thowing a PUG together was relatively straight forward. I finished all 3 compaings on multiple characters, enjoyed every second of it and made more than a few friends in the process.

I've just now come back to the game after a few years off (anniversary email peaked my interest) and spent the last week playing through eoth for the first time, replaying regular missions in HM, new to me, enjoying festival events and a few zaishen m/b/v's which are also new to me.

The one thing that struck me like a slap in the face is the current state of the GW community in-game. It sucks. Spent most of the week PUGing and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal or not the current FOTM you get ridiculed and laughed at instead of offered advice. And if you have the brass balled nerve of actually making a mistake you get labeled a "f***ing noob" and subsequently kicked from the party. Asking questions in local or party chat has also mostly yielded insults and finger pointing at the state of my noobishness.

Now I understand that GW is an old game and that most players know their way around by now. But for a new player, or a returning player, it's hell.

The alternative is using heroes and henchies but I find playing solo massively boring and in my opinion it defeats the entire purpose of an MMO. There are are dozens of single player RPGs on the market and if playing alone is what I wanted I would follow that route instead.

Browsing around these boards I see much worry over the future of guild wars, with it's dwindling numbers and especially with GW2 on the horizon. One would think that the community would greet new or returning players with open arms to bolster the ranks, but what I've seen so far (in-game) is a bunch of elitist pricks stroking their epeen and making life generally miserable for anyone who hasn't kept up with the million intricacies in GW.

Join a guild for new players, make your own guild for new players or join a guild that have people that like to help new players.

Don't make generalizations - generally when I see people asking questions in chat, I for once, answer them amd seem other people do the same.

PUGs always sucked - don't let the blurred memories with the marvel of the discovery of a new game fool you.

Guild Wars evolved - these days GW is a single player game as much it is a multi-player game, if not more.

Get a real life friend into the game to play with you or befriend someone in game and try to have a character that you guys only play with each other - the game is quite enjoyable in a 2 player setup.

Well the thing is that most likely the people actually bothering to group up are super elitists that wants to get it done with as fast as possible that's why they want people to use specific builds.

I'm fairly certain that most players just do stuff with heroes because... well because they can, there is no real reason to pug.

I don't think those people are representative of the community, I'm guessing most people posting here would help newbies if they had a hard time doing something... at least I would. (and I'm not calling you a newbie it was just an example).

(damn I need to learn how to use commas).

join a guild that does things together or isnt afraid to offer positive advice on a build. and welcome back .............need help PM me here.

if an MMO game becomes a single player game i wouldn't call that evolving... maybe GW degenerated covers it better...
OP: I too remember better days when PuGs did fail (they always have and always will), but it was pleasant playing with them, there was little to no raging, and even failing was a bit frustrating, but more fun when there were no so many ppl swearing you for minor mistakes... (or calling you noob cuz of your build or smth)

Sounds like you've just been unlucky and grouped with some of the stupid GW's kiddies, stay away from the caps lock

Best bet is join a guild, I mostly only group with alliance and guild members. Occasionaly I'll join a random bunch for the zaishen things if it's one of the longer ones and no guildies or alliance members doing it.

Some people also think the sun shines out of PvX's rear end and any builds not from there or discord etc. etc. will be fail, their narrowminded loss imho.

Welcome back anywhoo's and hope you have better luck

Im sorry to hear you had an unpleasant comeback, however not everyone is like that.
There are friendly helpful guilds out there, that allow you to make mistakes or use less "eliteist" builds.
Also I often answer questions in all chat in a friendly manner, if I know the answer ofc. so not everyone is rude.

Then I (and many others) just don't pug anymore, for more minor things heroes will do, for other stuff Im glad to have a guild and/or friends to join.

Game is old. Most people have done most content at least once, and now they're repeating it for titles / alts, so they want to do it as efficiently as possible. That's just the way of things. Now, that should just mean that people play with heroes more often instead of PUGs; if you're getting rude players in a PUG at this point, I think you're just having some bad luck, because my recent experience is that PUGs are more well-behaved now than they've been in years, precisely because they're so rare (relatively). I was in a PUG with a guy for the last two missions in Factions, and after killing Shiro he actually said "Thank you so much for partying with me!" and paid me 4k! That is how grateful some players are just for you to play with them.

My advice: start your own group. Get some heroes so you can take charge of filling your party's gaps (always best if the leader takes this role, imo) and you don't have to wait too long to get going. Don't demand much of your team; skills are so OP-ed at this point that, save for some HM stuff, it really doesn't matter what you bring as long as it's functional. Anyone who demands specific builds for basic NM content is a loon, and you shouldn't party with them.

Actually, I don't think that most of these type of players are "bitter vets". Most vets (like me, for example) have been playing long enough to have a full compliment of (Mercenary) heroes, so they have no need to form groups - and when/if they do form/join groups, they do it for fun and are not so dictatorial.
What you are running into are the "mini-vets" - these are the players who, for whatever reason, still need to form groups, but think of themselves as "leet". They don't have the skills/gold/experience to make their own builds or heroes, so they rely on pre-packaged PvX crap and insist that others do too. It's becoming harder to avoid these creeps because fewer and fewer real veterans are doing PUGs.

Sorry but, my response to your entire post is: Why spend time teaching a new player (who will most likely not listen to you) when you could get your mission done quicker, easier, and more efficiently by using 7 heroes. It's not that the community is bitter an angry, the players have just gotten better at the game.

As a rule PUGs are bad, rude, and a waste of time. If you're really interested in playing with other people instead of NPCs I'd advise finding a good guild. Playing with people you've become friends with and trust as competent players is infinitely superior to playing with pugs.

This tends to happen in almost all games. Guild wars is especially bad because of GW2. New content is being developed to allow players to experience the events in-between the 2 games, the only other thing to do is grind out titles.

honestly just got here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/g...ment-f265.html

look for a pvp or pve guild and go from there. get vent and taadaaa. don't really need to even have local chat on with a friendly guild/alliance.

I am a long time player and after playing LOTRO as well I now totally agree with what you are saying. GW for the most part has a really bad PUG population. BUT, my favorite people to game with came from GW. Double edged sword imo. I don't pug in GW but I totally pug in LOTRO anytime. Heck, even if you wipe a few times in LOTRO, people are still really cool.

If you find anyone who says he/she is bored, they probably just stand around talking in local chat for up to six hours a day without any real progression in their gameplay.

Evolving doesn't mean becoming better, it means becoming different and surviving the environment conditions.

Guild Wars did that pretty well and it is quite a good single player game considering it wasn't designed as one.

A lot of my builds aren't really quite "meta" or what not. I generally don't get any sort of fuss or complaints. Sometimes someone throws out "Panic" or "UA please" but I know why my build is just as good if not better. It's pretty rare that it ever turns into a problem. Paragons seems to be the main one that has this issue, but there's a lot of reason behind that.

Don't confuse a suggestion of a skill or pinged build with a command.

There is literally nothing else worth playing this game for, other than titles.

They want you to run the optimal build, because here's a hint, it's the best. People don't want to spend 20mins playing with other people only to fail because someone decided to bring flare instead of res. Why do that when they could just do it with heroes and hench in 30mins and not fail?

Everything was better 6 years ago when this game was brand new, but it's old now. Everyone else has started to accept this, you should too.

Don't hate the game, hate the players.

If I may add my 2 cents as they call it. The community seems pretty good to me. Ok yeah am in a good friendly guild that is very helpful and fun. Even those that are not in the guild are very friendly but that might be cause am in a guild. So far I can say I have not ran into anything to say that is was bad in anyway. Even when running in a mission and dieing several times. All laughing it off. I can understand that die hards might be douchies. But hey like Chrisworld said not much you can do than just accept it. Ignore those that wana be like douchies.

Same as other people have said really, I can't imagine what it's like for new players. Must be quite bad. I never do pve with a PUG group, and always do things at my own pace. Not because i'm slow, but the same as others have said, purely because i'm maxing my own titles.

Think then if you will, that others are maxing titles and you have the reason why people are so picky. People want to max titles; want to speed through areas and missions and generally aren't interested in slowing down with make shift builds. It sounds sad and bad but that's just the way a game evolves after so many years. Quite simply, it's old.

Join a guild of new players of as bad as it is, you'll have to accept that. Gone ae the days of acceptance, and it's the same as any other 5+ year old MMO. Speaking honestly, it's what scares me about joining other MMO games etc. The learning curve is usually high, not because of the games engine etc, but because of being able to play the game as good as other veterans.

Pretty soon you'll be telling the kids to get off your yard.

All "optimal" builds show is that a person can cut/paste from pvxwiiki. Personally I simply ask for a person to ping their build, I may make a suggestion or two, and if it's in the ballpark, it's good enough. Shockingly, some of the best builds I've ever seen haven't been posted to PvX. Skill > build, always has been, always will be.

Do you get the early bird special too?

So Disillusioned, after all that, my advice is the same as most of the others; find a good guild, and one that's part of a good alliance. The one I'm in typically has 95+ people. Our alliance owns a town, groups for for stuff all the time, and no one forces you into cookie cutter builds, even for the elite stuff.

evolving means improving in order to survive the conditions, and you can't call MMO a good MMO if it is played as a single player game. GW isn't marketed as a good single player game,but as a MMO and it isn't 1 (practically) at this time so...

Actually, GW claims to be a CORPG, not an MMO. Besides which, it's on the packaging that you can play with people or npcs...

Trust me, many of us bought GW specifically because it could be played without other humans in your team. The fact that "LFG" bullshit you get in other games is optional is a big plus point. As is not having to wait an hour to get a group for a mission...or failing repeatedly because some people don't listen. As is being able to go AFK whenever I please because heroes are my bitches and don't complain.

Fixed that for you.

The basic problem is that GW tried to be all things to all people, and ultimately distinguished itself at none. In the MMO/RPG genre, successful games have distinguished themselves in a unique way. WoW succeeded as a hybrid of social experience and cooperative gameplay. BioWare's games have succeeded on story (and particularly character writing). The Diablo games succeeded as a gameplay experience. Deus Ex succeeded in providing unmatched problem solving flexibility to the player. I could go on, but you probably get the point by now.

Guild Wars started out with a unique and rich competitive experience, but ultimately threw maintaining that advantage under the bus in the pursuit of a broader and less demanding target audience. The endgame content was supposed to be PvP, but PvP success cannot be achieved through casual play. The result was that ANet introduced scarce items and titles to serve as endgame content.

Unfortunately, running on those hamster wheels gets tiring after a while, and many remaining players are exhausted from running on the wheel but still desire to achieve goals before GW2. Most players not primarily motivated by moving title track bars or acquiring more loot dropped out of the community once new content dried up. There are still some people worth playing with out there, but you have to get fortunate or be patient to network your way to them in-game. Most of them don't hobnob with random PuGs for the same reasons that you're not enjoying the experience.

You're forgetting a few things:

- Whether or not I am personally a jerk to you will not have any bearing on the success or failure of GW or GW2.
- If I give you a job, and you say you can do it, and then you can't, you're wasting my time.
- In a mature game, there's a large quantity of resources out there that can provide you the information you need to succeed at the game. The result is that as long as the community retains critical mass, there isn't any need to instruct you on how to do the job. A replacement can be found easily enough.

Despite that, there are still a few patient, highly skilled people that are willing to teach people the ropes. I hardly play this game any more, but I'll be the first person to tell you that I am not one of those people. I'm happy to help a player already functioning at a high level to improve their game, but at this point in the game's run I'm not willing to teach people the ropes because the process just isn't fun for me and I don't have to do it in order to play.

To me, a good cooperative experience is one where I learn things and you learn things in the process of playing together. A one-sided relationship is just that: one where I'm not getting anything out of it. I can get that from heroes.

If your attitude is that people should extend a helping hand to you, then perhaps you need to change your attitude and start thinking about how you can contribute more effectively to groups. Improve that, and you're likely to get a lot more assistance from players around your skill level; iterate on that, and you can become highly skilled very quickly.

Ya it is awful also in pvp like fort aspenwood for example people act like big shots looks like it will be like this in gw2 also.

Actually Anet never marketed GW as a MMO... ever.

Well, I don't think I entirely agree with this assessment. WoW played their cards right and mostly thrived on being the biggest one out there so it was easy to find friends who play it. Most people like to join the winning team...but they're on hamster wheels just the same. Bioware USED to have great story/character writing but we all know they have a turn around to make after ME2 and DA2.

But I digress...the main issue I have here is this hamster wheel thing. All online games suffer from this. All MMO's do and most of them start to get in trouble after about 3-6 months tops because that's how long their endgame content usually will last for most people. GW1 was not meant as a full MMO and yet people started playing it for hours and hours and some still do....as if it were an MMO. So they must've done more right than you seem to give them credit for.

Is the game perfect then? Of course not, but I do feel that your assessment doesn't take into account that all games either have to end up on the shelf or get into hamster wheel mode at some point, except for the staunch core of players that will love it till they die (like D2). MMO's act like they are long term games but they don't really distinguish themselves and frankly they don't deliver...I haven't played an MMO yet that didn't get boring after a few months. It's all variations on the same hamster wheels in the end, just with a different paint job slapped on it.

I also do not believe that the vast majority of MMO players are big PvP'ers. Most MMO's out there need to build on a smaller community or accept that there needs to be casual play for having a big enough fanbase to make the game a big success, which generally is needed considering the money spent on creating a game. This is at least true in the western world. Asia may be different in that, but that's not where we live and play. And Anet have stated from the beginning that the game was geared towards casual players.

What I will agree with is the casual play is more casual than it was 6 years ago. NM is easier than it was and that was unnecessary for me, but perhaps necessary for having enough clients. They still spend millions on creating a game and they need to earn them back.

So, to each their own opinion but I do not share your reasoning here also because what you list as causes for the changes are your own ideas and not facts, so it remains in the realm of opinions: maybe you're right, maybe not...and well, my opinion happens to be somewhat different

There's definitely an advantage to be had by being the biggest; it's the one prospective players' other friends are most likely to already be playing. I wholeheartedly agree about DA2; to me ME2 was like most of their games - some interesting characters and some not. For me, Mordin was murderously funny, Miranda, Legion and Thane were compelling, and Jack was flat but well executed. Other new characters weren't so good, and I've never been a big Tali fan. The plot was a bit trite, but middle installments tend to have that problem.

The fact that your opinion is not consistent with the reasons I've heard leaving/gone players give for leaving does not falsify the general trend. I can't rigorously prove that the general trend is what I say it is, but the design choices that ANet made had pretty obvious behavioral incentives.

Your point about the hamster wheel actually bolsters my argument, because it shows that the trend I posited for GW has happened elsewhere. WoW survives today by releasing new content and through having developed players' expectation that there will be new content. The GW community is a pale shadow of what it was a year ago, much less two or three. ANet kept things fresh for a while after content dried up with content changes to endgame areas and skill rebalances, but that only worked when meaningful, regular changes were still being introduced.

We know that GW is a money loser for ANet at this point. The only reason that GW doesn't go offline like many MMOs is because ANet is using it as a marketing tool for GW2. They don't want to offend potential GW2 customers during the last phases of development.

Generally bad rhetorical form to assign your motivations to others when making an argument. We can agree that the population is declining, but can't make any definitive statement as to the root cause(s). Correlation != Causation.

How do you know that? Not necessarily disagreeing with you, just would like to know your source.

Inform me of this in-game community, please. I wasn't aware there was one.

As someone pointed out, this game has clearly become a predominantly single-player experience with social interactivity via trading and chatting. For me, it's great because I'm just one of those people not really able to devote time to group missions but I can see that if you are someone use to group play, it's going to be frustrating.

Absolutely the other way around for me. My guild rarely has less than 15 people online at any point in time. The reason I still play GW is because of the social interaction I have with long-distance friends.

Also, I almost never trade in-game, preferring to use GWGuru auctions or the forums. Why waste time in Kamadan when you can be playing?

Again, back to the OP; Guild Wars can still be predominantly a social game. Just join an active guild.

I think Martin and cthulhu have summed things up nicely. The way I saw GW (and one of the reasons I bought and still play it), was that it was designed to be ANTI-MMO-like, which included the ability to play like a single-player game.

One of the reasons that WoW and others of its kind did (and continue to do) so well is in fact that in the "normal" MMO genre, significant content updates are needed and provided in order to maintain a stable number of subscriptions. As many have pointed out here, GW no longer benefits from meaty content updates - most of what we have had since EotN (which has been almost four years ago) have been new ways to play the same content (WiK and WoC aside). That problem stems from the fact that GW's "content updates" were by design supposed to be new buyable campaigns every six months.

It really didn't take all that long to figure out that such a business model would be unsustainable in the long term. Without having significant new content produced for the game, this is how the in-game community is going to play the game and what it is going to evolve into. When WiK debuted, I noticed that grouping sort of returned to what it was in its hey-day. I suspect that when WoC is released, the same will occur. Once the majority of players have finished that content, we'll be right back to where we are now, until next time.

Hanok

Do we? I missed that report. This is the sort of thing I mean. To me this is an assumption, perhaps there is evidence of it but I haven't seen it. If I look at the financial reports from last year on the ncsoft website, they are still making money. Positive numbers means profit. GW2 is on a separate budget I'm sure but it seems that GW1 is still doing something in sales. Here's a link for you: http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

The thing I always have a hard time with is how quickly people come to general conclusions based on feelings and ideas. I have no problem believing that what you heard from people around you is indeed what they told you. That this group is representative for the rest, well, I have serious doubts about that.

Also, I don't think for example that Anet tried to make GW1 the game for everyone and to please everyone. Man, have I been mad at them for some of their decisions and yet they stuck to those decisions. They do listen as much as possible actually but I don't think that's a problem.

What I do instantly agree with is that the lack of actual new content is a definite item that can cause people to get bored and leave.

You see, for me it's a bit the question of the chicken and the egg. Did Anet change things and make people leave or did people leave (changing the composition of the player base) and then Anet made changes?

Interesting as your points are (and they are), I find the foundation for them a bit wanting still. But as I said, without evidence it's opinion and we are all entitled to one

They're all in Spamadan and on the forum ^^

I call BS. There are still new players coming in thanks to GW2 hype, as evidenced by our Q&A forum, and a simple stroll into Ascalon will confirm that. The ingame store is, apparently, doing better than they expected it to. The only costs associated with GW1 at this point are the salaries of the Live Team and the servers that keep the thing going.

Thank you, everyone who keeps posting about how the game is completely dead. Thank you for the laugh I'll have when WoC comes out.

1-The game was much much better in 2006 or even pre EotN than it is today to be honest.. Heroes might have looked like something not nice in the past , but imagine today if we didn't have any hero.... Most of the game would be unplayable like PvP during 2/3 of the day....

2- The answer is quite obvious : consider the delete of HB + TA and the very high lack of updates in HA during 1 year.... Pretty sure players left as a consequence of it... There were plenty of players there although they said ascalon academy was far more popular

Joining an Alliance with a good active player base will help.
I am an ok player in PvE. To some who need help with a mission I am awesome, and to others I am still a noob. In putting a party together I just assume you will play a decent role of your Char/playing style and dont ask for your build.
There are many friendly helpful people in local chat, and pick up groups to form a party is still a fun time.

That still doesn't mean they weren't trying to please as many people as possible. I see this as Martin does - why else have HM and annoyingly difficult "Elite" areas in a game that was supposed to cater to a more casual type of gamer? As someone else mentioned, PvP was supposed to be the end game content, yet that changed very quickly. Much of what has been added or changed in the game at least appears to have been implemented to satisfy one portion of the playerbase or another.

I don't think it's that simple of a question or concept. I think it's a matter of players leaving because changes didn't happen; leaving because changes did happen; and leaving just because. Many PvPers left because of UAX, then it was later implemented. Many players left because of the OPed PvE skills, then UB was nerfed, which probably caused a handful more to leave. I'm more have left because of SF, and if it's nerfed some more, others will leave. Players have left regardless of what did or did not happen in the game.

Hanok

Well it depends on which period of time you are talking about. Introducing HM was quite some time ago now.

Of course any change makes some people leave and other people stay. Anet knows this like anyone else. They wanted it broad enough for various types of gameplay and interest but every time you go one way someone also doesn't like it etc.

To say that they try to cater to everybody is just not the same thing in my book. So let it be a definitions issue. Skills get nerfed because the balance was gone because of certain skills so they do something about it. That to me has nothing to do with trying to cater to everyone because you know a number of people will not be happy when you do it.

People just talk to easily in generalities and vague terms. In the end I think most people don't actually say what they mean but something more or less close to it.

Anet tries to please as many people as possible within the limits of their tools and budget and without losing the balance within the game on various levels. To me that's quite a difference from "trying to please everybody"...that's just another unfounded generalisation based on feeling, opinion and certainly not fact.

And yes all games suffer from this. Create a game and changes, updates, expansions have to come. Anything that changes gains you people and others lose you players.

The only real thing, as I also indicated, is that there are no significant content updates anymore and over time that will lower the interest of any game to the broader audience. Anything else is just pure speculation, presented as some sort of pseudo-facts because people heard it five times. That's where I draw the line personally, but again, everybody is entitled to have their own opinions. As you have yours, I also have mine but as I see it, I prefer to stay away from jumping to conclusions and using shaky generalisations. It just irks me sometimes when people so casually do this when there is no obvious evidence...just didn't want to get to nasty about it. So let this be my rant for today and I'll be done with it.