How is the Guild Wars Community Today?

So I have had a break lasting about 5 years now. I am about to buy the Guild Wars trilogy and try get back into the game again. I was warned off Guildwars 2 by a few friends I used to play with. They told me it was a completely different game and that I would not be a fan.

What I wanted to ask about was the current state of the original Guild Wars community. After ten years and the introduction of Guild Wars 2 has the community declined considerably? Does Arenanet still introduce regular updates? Are outposts empty and do you find yourself doing missions alone? Are there as many servers as their used to be? I just want to know if I would be walking into a ghost town. Do any new players seem to arrive? I have noticed on the forums here people trading tend to only advertise items in exchange for ectos rather than platinum which would lead me to believe a lot of people frequenting these forums are fossils from the original era, mainly interested in completing collections and rather than saving platinum to buy elite end game armour. Any feedback would be beneficial.

Regards
Liam

old fossil here

the game has declined greatly since you left, yes gw2 took many away, but 10 years (and many other newer games) also had that effect as well. Most outposts are pretty empty unless its a zaishen quest/bounty/vanquish day--other than Kamadan (great temple of balthazar and occasionally lions arch). There are still loads of guilds playing thru the game so you dont have to play alone--though many now prefer that to playing with pugs (nothing changed there )
The ONLY updates that are done are for major issues---no skill updates, etc, just major crash-type fixes.
The servers are now on the gw2 side, sharing space together (gw doesnt take up that much we are told).
There are many new players as well as bunches of returning players.
The reason many items you are seeing are selling for ecto instead of plat is due to cost--many items being traded here are items that people are taking their time to sell, though there are also plenty of items that are still only plats instead of ectos (or armbraces...)

so welcome back to the game!

Thank you for answering all of my questions so efficiently and thank you for the warm welcome It is a bit of a shame when people move on but it happens. I only stopped because I haven't had a computer for years and my friend took over my old account.


What about the PvP side of the game? Is it still competitive enough to enjoy? What is your personal opinion on EOTN? I quit before its release and wasn't sure of what additions it bought to the series. Sorry for all of the questions.

Regards
Liam

Every PvP format besides Codex is playable to some extent. In general, most of the active playerbase is European, so if you can't play outside of those hours it might be tough.

• Fort Aspenwood and Alliance battles are usually empty, but on Zaishen quest days, double reward weeks, and the odd player-organized day, there may be enough people for several hours of matches.
• Jade Quarry is popular for botting, so there won't be a whole lot of actual PvP going on, but you can grind faction there easily.
• Random Arenas is usually lively enough to get matches in for most of the day, although the lower population means that you might run into a strong team repeatedly (or, if you're on a streak with a good team, play against the same people repeatedly).
• Heroes' Ascent is sort of active during European primetime hours, but outside of those, the only matches you're liable to get are against the syncers' alt accounts. It's still feasible to grind out fame if you're interested in getting a r3/r6 emote, but holding for hours at a time is impossible without syncing yourself.
• GvG is active during the daily Automated Tournaments, especially the daily C which occurs in the evening in Europe every day; the other two have actual matches infrequently. Ladder is used only by the syncers.

GvG is certainly still competitive enough to enjoy watching (see the September monthly thread in Riverside), although it might be unrealistic to make a fresh start in trying to play at the moment - it'd take both a lot of luck and work. I'd suggest some RA for your PvP fix.

You should find some way of buying EotN. It's pretty cheap on the secondary market and important for both PvE (more content, heroes, PvE skills) and PvP (essential skills like Patient Spirit and Shell Shock were only added in EotN).

I live in England and I mainly used to do RA or Alliance battles anyway so that is not too bad. EoTN was always going to be an option at some point. I just planned on trying to work my way through each campaign before adding it. Thanks Lemming.

Welcome back. But if you can get EotN cheaply I'd get it earlier than later. You can go to the North at level 10 via a quest in any of the three main port cities and gain cool heroes there right away. And since you can now use 7 heroes in your party it makes the game both more fun and easier (once you gain skills for them) to play.

Also Factions and Prophs players can pick up Nightfall heroes once they can transit to Kamadan. Kamadan is super important anyway since it is the one lone trade city and a place where you can likely find guilds to try out easiest.

Heroes btw is how a lot of (most) players play PvE these days. Solo with the 7 hero parties. Or maybe with another person with the rest of the party being heroes. So if you want to play with other humans more joining a guild is totally essential I'd say. And since you seem interested in PvP it is just as essential there I'm guessing. (Don't play PvP myself).

I always enjoyed PVP but I won't be doing it from the beginning. It is too hard without any skills unlocked. I see what you are saying about getting EOTN. Shame you need to take 7 heroes in with you now but I do enjoy giving them different builds and weapons.

Well you don't have to use heroes. You can still use henchmen and until you get the skills you need for some of your heroes, henchmen mixed in may be a better option at times early in your game.

But I think it's great you can use 7 heroes. I think Anet made this change so that the game could remain viable as the population in game decreased. I personally like playing alone so I guess that reflects my style of play too.

I confess EotN is my favorite part of the game anyway so there is more than heroes to get. Also great way to level up your newer characters you create at Kilroy's. Kilroy's is also a good rune farming area too. With some runes like Survivor and Superior Vigor through the roof it's always nice to score some of them for free and in NM as well.

Even Major Vigor is way too expensive though I wrote up a way to get free Minor Vigors for your characters and especially your heroes in another thread here. See the thread "Help an oldish player ..." under Questions & Answers in the sub-forum above this one (Forest of True Sight) regards that if interested.

Even when the game was active I used to try and do missions on my own. Some of the later missions were a struggle without player assistance though as the AI didn't use the skill bar effectively. I will check out that thread! Thank you for your advice.

If you have any interest in GW1 (Prophecies) I would recommend playing it pretty much the same way you played during your first play through. So:

- complete all or most of the quests you find, especially the skill quests.
- when you get out of pre-searing, don’t go straight to the Zaishen chest and give your character green weapons and/or elite skill tomes to make them overpowered. Also, don’t take money and crafting materials so you can craft anything you want and buy all the possible runes on you armor. Just use whatever you find during your play through: monster drops, collectors, crafters.
- don’t “cheat” with the skill trainers. The wiki page lists all the skills each skill trainer sells so buy skills only from those lists.
- when you get to Lion’s Arch, don’t map travel (or go to Eye of the North) to get max level armor or heroes. There just wouldn’t be any challenge left after that…
- don’t use runners or running builds, fight your way to your destination instead. At least that’s how I always used to play.

Over the last three years or so I’ve had two of these old-school runs and yesterday I decided to start once again for “one last time.” I was listening to the Prophecies soundtrack and just couldn’t help myself. The biggest challenge in these old-school runs is that for a long time you’ll be using crappy builds with weak or perhaps really poor weapons and armor and it’s a bit annoying at times.

I’m level 11 already after completing the first three missions in Ascalon. I’ve managed to craft my Mesmer the best armor in Old Ascalon (armor level 30) and buy two runes. That’s about it. I haven’t even bought those Bag of Holding thingies because they are so expensive. Rune of Fast Casting costs 2700 gold so it’s gonna take a while before I can buy that. Rune of Minor Vigor costs 3400 or something btw and I haven’t seen a single rune drop so far…

I was surprised to see a bunch of people online yesterday btw. At about 8 or 9 pm GMT there were about 10 people in pre-searing Ascalon (European district, English) and a few others in other outposts as well. Last time I played through Prophecies I hardly bumped into anybody…

“As a boy I spent much time in these lands. Look at them now…”

The game looks quite an empty land, nevertheless occasionally i jump into random arena, and suddenly all the good memories come back, and even that simple random pvp galvanize me like anything else, i'm quite surprised that ppl keep to apply for RA matches :O

I would say it is not to bad if you can get res signets in pre still.

I see there is still activity in the trade forum.

Just reinstalled GW1, should have done -image and downloaded it all at once.

I am going to look at my chars and see if they still look as in char screenshots from 2010.

As "Juliette" from Grimm is now "Eve", I remember that pale Necro that was the cover of my Guild Wars 1 box and felt like downloading and taking a look at the game again. I fondly remember my time in the GW1 Tyria!

its always nice to see people coming back to the game... ecto prices are high like old times 12k so we all good