UPS, FedEx, Factions

Maybe it gets better after you get out of the ghetto. I may not have hair by then. Or fingernails. Or sanity.

The running back and forth, delivering messages, delivering items, ad nauseam, has been grating my nerves since I got this game. I don't think it was ever this bad in Chapter 1. Sprint stays on my skillbar, just to save time. And some quests can't be skipped, whether you need skill points or not.

Now there are NPC's in explorable areas, but the hench AI / pathfinding is just as bad, if not worse, than ever. Those "circular" groups of peasants, whom you can't walk through even though there's enough space, get henchies stuck every time.

It's just maddening. I find myself cursing vehemently at this game way too much. "Passing the Buck" wasn't even an exception- it was the rule. Almost all of these quests have you talking to 3 or 4 different people in remote corners of explorable areas, then finding the quest-giver again for your reward. "Find Kira," Mhenlo says. Fine, I find her. Does she join up so I can get on with the game? Nah, she sends me on another quest. Factions doesn't have less grind. It has a different type of grind, and probably more of it. The pain, the pain.

But still I play on, just hoping for that shining moment that makes it worth my $50, when I smile and yell out, "damn, I'm glad I bought this!" Of course, 10 minutes later I'll probably be doing another delivery quest.

Try just doing the primary quests / missions for a while. I've done a couple of normal quests but mostly the primaries and missions. It hasn't been too boring so far...

Reading the OP i cant help but laugh because its so true.

I got so frustrated playing my assassin with the hencies in Cantha, i finally decided i am gonna skip all these Fed Ex quest and head toward Tyria after getting max armour. Once in Tyria (Lion arc) run back to ascolon and get skills for my secondary via skill quest (like how god intended skills in guild wars to be) and play through the tyria missions and quest with my assassin and maybe even get his armour infused. XD

Funny thing is i am having more fun doing this than the time i spend in Cantha running around a small plot of land as a delivery boy strangely, i guess it says alot about Factions.

I find Tyria to be complely boring after playing in Cantha! See if I ever go there again!

I am glad you find Cantha exciting Branskin. I like the new environments, missions and items/mobs but the gaming mechantics dont really promote character building (not that it was that much in GWP either). GWP has captured the hearts of many gamers all over the world as it has mine, and will always have a special place on its own but this also mean that inevitably, all expansions or future chapters standalone or not will be compared to GWP on all levels.

Enjoy Cantha if it fancies you. Each to his own. As for myself i will get to it eventually but thats my own way of playing the game for a long long time by doing things slowly

Edit for grammer

turn on sarcasm detector

lol i wasnt being sarcastic this time :P

Edit: nm if you refering to OP

Heh, I was just noticing the same thing yesterday. The thing is, I seem to remeber Areanet telling us about how guild wars is going to avoid doing fedex type quests because of the client technology. I really think Areanet is being quite conservative with the client , The world stays about the same and with the client they set up you could really change things greatly in the guild wars world.

It does get somewhat better after you leave the city. Primary Quests are, however, almost invariably "walk 100 kilometres ant talk to a random guy somewhere out there".

I think the City is the most universally loathed location of both chapters, I haven't seen anyone enjoying it yet

/signed

the "fight on the rooftops of an overbuilt city" idea sounded great on paper. but to me at least, the threedimensional maze of this city is infuriating. the city map is inadequate for it, i never know which exit points apply to which map exactly, and without the upgraded quest pointers, i'd probably have given up an questing in frustration.

as it stands now, i'll need a long time before i start another character. the thought of doing all the city quests again fills me with disgust.

the excessive amount of running required for the quests is also annoying me =/ especially when i have to do it three times, and probably another 1-3 times once my other chars at have reached the same point.

it's resulted in me running my chars around entire towns just to be sure i've got every possible quest and clearing out the entire map before going after the needed NPCs just to save time on running back and forth on that one map. only to get pissed off when the next lots of quests requires running between 2-3 maps T_T sure the exp reward is nice... but for that much running/mob killing just to be able to get to the next mission is excessive.

i wonder why this is bothering people. Most "real" MMORPGs are nothing but fetch and deliver quests (ie: WoW).

They are just trying to squeeze out as much work out of the maps as possible. You're lucky the map is so small.

i find it's mainly because it's so different from the Prophecies style quests, which were more of go there, kill that mob, come back and get reward. and when it was a running quest, it's usually between towns/outposts that you could easily warp to.

with Canthan ones, it's go there, find that NPC, find another NPC, fight a mob, go back to NPC, get reward. however, the NPCs are now not restricted to towns/outpost, instead they can be in the explorable areas which adds to the time needed.

the map might be small, but the layout when you first get to Cantha from Tyria is a complete maze and full of dead ends or paths that aren't visible on the map. when i first started exploring, i got a headache from the difference in navigation x.x