The essential reminiscing of good times 'thread'...

Got nostalgic today at work of past times playing Guild Wars in it's infancy. Just thought we could share some good memories of playing the game not for the grind, but for looking forward to getting online and playing late into the night with friends after a hard days work.

Things I miss:

HoH favor of the gods..fighting to help your PvE buddies get into UW/FoW and having them message you to get a group together for HA to go fight for it

Seeing people you grouped with in the previous town make it to the new and unexplored towns (first chapter of the original Guild Wars..when all towns were new and hugely populated)

Droknar's Forge runs..the thrill of dying off the bat but seeing your fearless runner run your dead-ass to that town so you could get some nice new shiny armor.

Populated LA in all of it's glory..Halloween event and the ultimate frame-lag you would get because of the amount of people playing.

Helping new people any chance you got and grouping up with other real players to explore new areas.

Farming Ettin drops for rare runes, or SF for green weapons, or FoW/UW for ecto's, shards, and other fun and exciting things.

tl;dr, just a random rant on what I miss about the game.

Ahh the GOOD OLD DAYS of playing Guild Wars will always stay in our memories as FUN and exciting it EVER was ! We had so much FUN playing this game that after a hard days of work you come home and you just can't wait until you complete the next mission and you get to the next town. Trying to run to Droknars Forge to get max armor. Then get to Granite Citadel so you can get your WAR the ELITE PLAITMAIL armor dyed yellow so it looks like GOLD ahh good old memories ! After you got there, there were so many people there trying to tun to the Caves and farm ICY DRAGON SWORDS the best cool looking skin at that time. Then you get a group of Warriors and we all run up there to kill these IMPS one by one lol. How about doing SORROW FURNACE to get the unique GREEN DROPS with your RANGERS. Getting a group for FOW and UW was a fun setup back in the day with a SPIKE team with ELE's and OBSIDIAN WARRIOR TANK which would take us 4 HRS to complete. Once you completed all of PHROPHECIES you felt you accomplished so much and you get to show off your cool TITLE " GUARDIAN OF TYRIA ".. When NIGHTFALL CAME OUT and you get there we were so excited to get 3 PERSONAL HEROS we can use to put any builds we want on them and upgrade their equipment. MARKING a DERVISH and a PARGON ohh man two new TOONS to complete everything again ! When you completed NIGHTFALL and got to DOA was so much fun. OBSIDIAN WAR TANK and then later to play with URSAN SPEED CLEAR. I think I got Cantha Campaighn last. I was so excited when I made my ASSASIN and RITUALIST ohh boy all the new places you could farm with SHADOW FORM you could farm anything you wanted anywhere you WANTED !! THE GOOD OLD DAYS YOU WILL BE WITH US FOREVER !!!!

USA is an English speaking country right?

I had good times with 55hp/SS duo UW teams. Good times for lots of reasons.

I remember when me and the same 10 ppl would chest run Hell's Precipice on our warriors back when Magmas Shields/Sephis Axe/Dead Bows were uber rare items. We meet in international district, join up and do the run over and over hoping to cash in and hit the big lucky item! I remember the run was "a secret"and we werent allowed to tell anyone about it! Ah the good ol' days!

chest runs
teaming up with real people to do missions and quests when that monk was so hard to come by.
Deep/ urgoz
sorrow furnace/ topk
Before this whole HoM crap
WHen playing the game was just for playing the game, not caring about how much money you have, or how rare your weapons are.
I miss when towns were filled with people, and when it felt more like and MMO.

Team Arena and 10 wins for a Gladiator Point

Doing Gloom with SF while partying on teamspeak.
600/smite in CoF with guild.

Chest running at the start of factions and getting hundreds of decent r8's.
The unlocked chests in dreds which dropped crystalines and dwarvern axes.
Ettin and Griffon farming when weapons/runes used to be worth something.
Trapping in the UW, 2/3 man.
Iway.

yep it was some good and bad but most dont recall the bad only the good

I remember seeing Necromancers produce more than 10 minions. Way more than 10.

Haha..yep, I remember that. Frame lag would get so bad watching minion masters command an army of like 20-30 minions.

Correct:

i miss doing urgoz and topk with b/p team

Memoires of a bad player:

Getting lost in the Maguuma Jungle. Frequently.

My Wammo unable to pass THK for three months.

Discovering Sorrow's Furnace, thanks to the above.

Spending far too long running Kilroy chests for that rare chance of a purple crystalline. Never got one, but plenty of Dwarven grapes.

Popping into Tombs with 7 henchmen - then wiping and popping out again 5 seconds later.

The delights of Tombs with a good B/P team.

Echo Dusting Stygian Vale - to this day, the only farm that I considered myself good at.

So many memories

This is going to probably come off incredibly odd, but...Grenditch Courthouse. Specifically, finding it. I had heard through my friends (who had picked up the game about a week before I did, back in 2005) that there was some remote outpost far north in Ascalon that had a few neat skills that you couldn't get anywhere else. No quest pointed you there. I set off with my 3 henchies into a blank brown map of nothing, and the feeling I got finding that little yellow line of text and climbing up those stairs was fantastic.

That's what I remember fondly: that sense of not knowing where things were, and being able to go out and find them.

Just shouting out LFG and PUGS falling over themselves to get someone because the area was so busy.

Ursan when it first came out and for the first time totally pwning an area

What about the time Lions Arch for some reason had the amnoon oasis textures and all sorts muddled up.

When no one liked Assassins (not that I hate them, just I'm referring to the time before Shadow Form took over the game). Best time of my GW life honestly...

Finding new stuff, especially the far-flung temples to the gods in Prophecies.
First time hearing the Crystal Desert music. Still just as haunting today.
Randomly seeing a warrior wearing Platemail in Ascalon City, and vowing to fight my way to Droks if it was the last thing I ever did.

Basically, Prophecies when it wasn't "Prophecies," but simply "Guild Wars."

The campfire log-in screen.

Dye remover (aka, when every armor set had a default color).

First 15k armor. Had to farm the bejeesus out of Anvil Rock to earn enough.

Being poor.
No, really.
When every gold weapon was like a gift from God, when you experimented with armor dye combinations for HOURS because you thought you'd never be able to afford to replace the dye you used, when finding superior runes felt like finding the most awesome powerups ever, etc etc.

Actually ROLEPLAYING.

When game updates occurred.
(plz fix paragons to make them playable)

What I miss most.. the amount of players that used to be in this game. I won't bother posting the countless nostalgia moments because I'm sure everyone else will do that for me I'll just /agree to it all haha been playing almost since release.

Oh, running the Crystal Desert for tips for weeks, and making a ton of money doing so.

When clearing FoW was an epic 5 hour event. It was quite a challenge to complete FoW before any of the expansions, skill changes and new classes.

Chests with no keys, Monk Strike, the first Halloween/Christmas/Festival/etc. Getting my first gold drop and not knowing if it was worth anything... ALL of the beautiful scenery all over the land of Tyria... AHHHHHHH

The first time I made it to Yak's Bend was the best moment for me. It felt like I was really starting to get somewhere in the game, and then when I zoomed out on my map and realized how much of Tyria was left to see...ooooh it was EXCITING!

When I first entered Shing Jea Monastery on my very first char (Warrior obviously) is one of those moments that I think I'll never forget. Factions was the first real online game I played, and the impact it made on me was enormous. To this day, Factions is my favourite campaign, just because I started my adventure there back in the day.

Regular updates, balance every now and then, promises of making Rangers viable... before PvE/PvP split, we had to adapt constantly to both contents. Then after they were supposed to balance one and then another, instead used the split to balance just a handful of skills...

Also, GvG battles were fun. HA, although never succeeded at it, was fun too. Spent many days in Alliance Battles. Good times... Still have a screenshot I made on my first Me/N character in 2005, which along with many others was deleted after few weeks. Didn't play much till Factions came out, bought it on my birthday in June, then played a LOT. Also a few screenshots saved from HA and GvG with my favorite guild, nobody is playing the game anymore. Probably don't even remember each other...

People farming sorrow furnace/tombs for green items, and essentially for their own equip. Today, it's mostly like " YAY 200 ectos " instead of " YAY a crystalline " .
Linked to this point, i would add that the game sounded better when it wasn't entirely about farming.

PvP used to be fun, especially when there were not unfun builds, terrible skills ruining random formats( cough * ele skills mainly ). I got to say that iway was considered " lame " and " joke" but it still was a fair build in my opinion, especially compared to bbways, invoke spikes, or esurges. Even bspike is quite a fair build since it generally had no defense at all...

Heroes in PvP which were a way to have quick matchs in no time. Hero Battles system was unique, gave quick matchs( 10mn) with tournaments and a ladder. A unique mode in game that was unfortunately deleted for no reason

People used to know who was good who was not thanks to PvP titles, guilds, etc.. Today, 80% of players with gold capes or wearing a r10 title are called " cape leecher noob", " nice bbway r10". Forgot to add the usual " lol gratz on red resign" when i'm wearing my r8 commander( followed usually by a troll when i'm giving the MAT results link)

Pre-title GW. When PvP was actually fun.

HoH IWAY was epic lulz - Before people knew not to kill the pets, 8 pets dying x +6 health per second..add in fertile season, symbiosis..so much health. Used to love see people QQ'ing when the Ghostly Hero was on the alter with upwards of 2k health haha..

B-Spike with Serious Pain In the [Azz] and Gods Trusted Assassins [GTA] until Elwin got arrested and hauled off to jail for stabbing someone (RIP lol).

Funny guild names... Rosa Parks Stole My [Seat], The Shiverpeak Stole My [Bike]..things like that.

I concur with the epic FoW runs..4-5 hours..groups wiping and raging..doing chest runs in FoW (do people still do this?)

Came back this weekend after being away for four years to find no one in HA, small towns and outposts deserted, and interest just fading away. I'm not sure half the people playing right now were even around for the Proph release...

Did manage to catch up with an old friend on Ventrilo but he hadn't been on the game in a couple months.

I feel like a total scrub now in PvE when I don't understand half the acronyms for groups LF people since it wasn't around when I played heh.

Sounds so lame and loserish (lol, I know some of you will say no and relate to me which makes me feel better) but man, the summer of 2007 and 2008 were some of the best times I had in an online game..just coming home from work and grinding out HA..and then PvE'ing spamming my tiger back when it meant something to someone.

My first character was a warrior who used a bow and had a pet. Go figure.

Understandably, same character stuck at Thunderhead Keep for a long time.

Entering Yak's Bend for the first time and getting all of the quests being offered. Step outside into Traveler's Vale and....HOLY SH**!

Spending 2 hours completing Althea's Ashes quest.

Discovering Dry Top and liked the out-of-the-way zone being there for no particular reason.

Made a video of the odyssey though the Prophecies story. Can be found at http://youtu.be/9VRd44JgStQ

Looking forward to GW2.

The first time I got to watch a replay of our gvg match on observer mode. I remembered a bunch of us making fun of our GL for eating dshots on more than 1/3 of his eviscerates.

PvP:
War Machine, The Last pride, Idiot Savants
GW Factions championship , the only time it looked like GW would be an esport
Ether Prodigy midlining in GvG , when spikes were eviscerate + shatter/orb for support
Boon prot monks
Air Spike in HA
Eating diversion for the first time monking in GvG
the Rifts (Tombs!)
AB before it was trendy
old Eviscerate that smashed face
teams playing balanced
Having glad points when it took 10 wins to get them...
Making a PVE character for swapping armor in PVP

PVE:
Getting 15k armor in May 2005 after 2-3 weeks of saving up ingame
Blowing stuff up before scatter was implemented
UW as an SS necro paired with a 55 monk
20 minions on my necro
old soul reaping with unlimited broken energy
FoW for the first time (4-5 hour runs...)
running from Droknar's to Beacon's perch with all henches
First greens ("uniques")
-2/-2 shields
First Halloween 2005
First Wintersday 2005
First Dragonfestival
First rollerbeetle
Day of the Tengu
keyless chests (especially in the Dreadnought's drift)
My first time through the Presearing in beta
My first time through Sorrow's Furnace
Factions Preview Event
Doing quests for the first time with all hench teams
Capping every elite before the title was out
"Mommy told me not to play with fire, but mommy's dead now." - Gwen during the end of one of the betas
Infusing armor by piece

GWGuru:
Inde running it instead of Curse (not hating, just saying.)

I think things went to garbage after Nightfall's PVE skills and the location lockdowns, honestly

edit: I think this thread was accurate, the good times are going to be reminisced upon since GW2 is out August 28

Things I miss:
Campfire login screen
4-man Oro runs
Old MM'ing: No cap on the number of minions, Veratas Aura
Griffon Farming at Augury Rock with my Wammo
No aggro breaking/scattering
Monk strikes (not really, but they were fun tho)
The thrill of discovering new areas
Running Book/Master gear b4 the release of Factions

Been playing since May 2005 and what I love about this thread is that I remember all the things people are talking about. Many of them I participated in and many I wanted to but never had the time. Really brings back some fun memories especially when it was just prophecies.

I still settle on that the best times of the game are when you're totally new to the entire world and every second, minute and hour that passes yields new land you haven't explored yet. Then you beat the game and play it again but it loses something after one play through. I could still play for nostalgic reasons but I've already done everything I wanted to. Pre searing was my favorite place hands down forever.

The beauty and music of Pre-Searing thinking its going to be like this for the rest of the game.

Ah the good ole days. Where do you start!
It seems many people have the same emotions about prophecies, Its what got us all hooked.

I remember so well when everyone was a nub and we all helped each other try to get around.

And oh dear god the first time we all played thunderhead keep and realized: Man that sucks we have to do this all again because we got uber pwned at the end.

Fondest memories:
1) When all monk superior runes went to 45k and I was a broke nub and realized i had two in my inventory that i could merch and become an insta-millionaire in my eyes.
2) Getting that smexy gladiator armor for my first Warrior (He is still wearing it today), even though it makes him look like a ghetto stripper.
3) Looking back at my builds that i used to make and laughing at myself (W/Me, Backfire Sword,Focus Warrior) :P
4) All the stuff i merched back then that is worth a fortune now, q8 max weapons of all kinds.
5) First Trip to UW and getting Ganked by Aatxe in first 45 seconds.


Loved the times that GW gave me and plan on doing it all again with GW2.

Doing a 2Man/6Hero full clear of Fissure of Woe for the first time (for either of us, so we were taking it very carefully)...and after 6 hours discovering that the Tower Mage was stuck in the spider cave and wouldn't go and open the Tower of Strength. Then trawling the GWGuru forums/google for an hour and a half, and discovering that we could lure that mage back out of the cave to his normal place using minions to fix him, so we finally finished FoW after 8 hours.

Doing solo A/Me runs through the first 1.5 levels of ToPK when SF wasn't permanently maintainable and before they nerfed damage done while using it.

Finally getting an E/Me sliver armor raptor farming build working for the "Farewell to Gaile" weekend, and earning enough that weekend to buy my second set of elite armor. Then hanging on to Saurian Bones just in case the collector for them from that festival came back in another celebration. I've still got about 2 stacks.

Doing the epic-to-me chain vanquish Solo+Hero/Hench from Temple of the Ages through to Yak's Bend, hitting all areas in between - and discovering that the Materials Crafter guys were also merchants so I could sell stuff every 2-3 maps. And the frustration of spending 45 minutes running in circles at Anvil Rock trying to find that ONE LAST minotaur patrol (everything else was dead), just to discover they'd been running in the same direction I was that whole time, so we'd been circling each other.

Finding the Falls the first time...

Stumbling across Maguuma Stade while vanquishing the adjacent area, having never known it existed prior to then.

Making 6k vanquishing the two maps prior to Majesty's Rest (from Temple of the Ages, solo+hero/hench)...and then spending it *all* at the shrine next to the bridge in Majesty's Rest to get rid of death penalties incurred from Rotscale and his pals, because I was in no way, shape or form prepared for that fight. It was the first time I'd been in that map...and holy crap it was nasty if your build/heroes were not tailored for it!

Pugging the Ring of Fire mission, and failing it several times - each time due to those fire-spitting spiders around the so-called "easier" way through. Finally succeeding by NOT following the Vizier's advice to take the back way, and instead going for the full frontal assault.

I remember doing missions the first time through by joining PUG groups. I remember one of the jungle missions where you use giant seeds to make bridges form. The first time I did that one, I was in a PUG group and we did missions and stuff consecutively. I felt like the kid in the movie Time Bandits being taken on a wild ride by the short time travelers. And it happened a number of times. That feeling of being taken for a ride by a group in which some members had more experience and knew what to do.