IMHO.. my take on Faction's PvE

You got be be joking, I hench Faction to the end with no problem. You try henching THK or Fire Island and you'll see GWP is so much harder.

Done and done. Its not that hard.

Though one thing I have noticed, people tend to like the valley alot more after spending so much time in the city. I do think Anet designed the city in a way that is intentionally boring and cramped. Something that you would want to get out of.

Factions has 13 storyline missions, but often people forget that there are primary quests between those missions that often take just as long to complete as the missions themselves. In addition factions has 5 competative missions to partake in.
So
13 missions
5 competative missions
Lenthy primary quests:
Closer to the Stars, To T. Temple, The aid the kurzick one, luxon side, defend the city, the lux or kurzick quest before the hachery or the eternal grove, travelling to unwaking waters
thats 8 primary quests that behave like missions, though you only have to do 7 of those, and 12 missions.
So that ends up being the equivilant of 19 required missions with 7 optional ones for a total of (gasp) 26.

Prophecies: You could skip alot of this content
In prophecies the only missions you had to do were: Sanctum cay, 4 desert missions, 2 southern shiverpeak missions and the 3 fire island missions.
Thats 10 required missions, 25 total with 2 sort of long primary quests for a total of 27.

Thing is in propecies you were often dumped into the next mission without any sort of explaination. I really like the jump from Divinity coast to the outpost, that one made a lot of sense. At least in factions the jumping around makes sense.

oh I understand and appreciate what peoples opinions are! But I also understand that peoples opinions change.

people were saying exactly the same thing about Maguuma this time last year! and now look, everyone says they love it

I too hated Keieng, just as I did the jungle.. but actually, when you stop, look around READ the storys and quests and do them with friends.. its great fun, atmospheric.. and actually, 3/4 hours is just so insignificant to the amount of hours ive played on GW that I fail to see how it can be boring.

When you have a group of good friends and guildies together, nothing is boring, unless you have boring friends

I think Prophecies got me used to being "outside", versus being in that whole city area in Cantha. But since I've finished the storyline missons, I plan on doing some exploring in the city (as much as I can stand, anyway), and definitely more exploring in the wooded areas...

Kern Wolf, to me GW is an outdoors game. I had a negative reaction to the city also. Too late now, but I wish that ANet had broken up Cantha into several smaller cities and put them into a geography somewhat like that of China.

Cosy, you should have just a touch more respect for your mesmer. My mesmer is the only character I've had so VERY LITTLE trouble with in Cantha. Luned seems to bulldoze absolutely all opposition. Sure, getting a group to take a mesmer can be a pain, but I discovered soon enough that mesmers can take henchies into the majority of missions and survive.

That'd be doing only mission and bypassing the quests. Which by far are the majority of PvE content of the area.

I seriously don't see how anyone can say that the quests in Kaineng don't suck. The *missions* are OK, but the *quests*... Jeez. "Luxury Goods" and "Passing the Buck" are actually worse and more tedious than "Red Cloaked Deserters" in Tyria, something I didn't think possible.
"Luxury Goods" is typical of the Kaineng quests in that it's designed to force you to run back and forth so it'll take longer to do: you have to give the Homeless Canthans their mirror in the order furthest, closest, middle, because it'd have been to quick to let you do them in the order you find them.

That, that every single Kaineng quest is designed to contain back-and-forth running in a maze in order to take as buggeringly long as possible to do, preferrably requring changing map and fighting the same mobs twice or thrice, is why I hate them.
That kind of quest was mercifully rare in Prophecies. "Blood & Smoke" is the only one which comes close to how the average quest in Factions play out.

EDIT: And I still hate the Maguuma jungle.

So... let me get this straight... I'm the ONLY one here that thought I was going to claw my eyes out if I had to look at one more moment of post-Searing Ascalon's sand-blasted... sand?

I known people who have quit and had to have anti-depression therapy before ever seeing the snowy peaks of Yak's Bend.

Okay, so I haven't, but still, nuked Ascalon has got to be the dreariest place ever!

I do actually like it. It has a certain grandeur. I notice that, however, when going back for short visits. Being TRAPPED there was utter Hell.

Compared to that, Kaineng City is a wonderful, many-colored tapestry of incredible sights. I love it.

Only thing I disliked about the jungle was all the pop-up bugs.

Blood and Smoke, you just kill the boss on your way there then you don't have to run back and forth. There was no such Fedex/UPS quests in Ch.1

Well, throw in "Dropping Eaves" and you're at least getting close. (Also there's the "Helping the Dwarves" quests in the northern Shiverpeaks, but IMO that one isn't as tedious, even though it entails zoning three times.)

Hey I like jungle too! Where's this jungle-hate coming from?

I didn't really hang out in the city that long on my Tyrian characters. Just did the primary quests and moved on. I have 11/13 missions completed with master status on my monk, I have been shooting for the Protector title of course(all with PUGs). Just about to do the Kurzick stuff. None of it has been boring so far, just ocassionally annoying. I am looking forward to going back to the city to finish everything I rushed past.

Since I have started doing the Kurzick quests I noticed something that I didn't before. Aidian, Cynn, Devona, and Eve are all available as henchmen on the Kurzick side, but not the Luxon. I found that somewhat interesting.

you guys can have devona if you wish.

I find the city a bore

Everything looks the same, and you seem to travel over the same areas over and over again, ive run through it with 3 characters now, i dont even find it challenging, just a "watch the tv whilst playing game". And some of the quests are just silly, anyone done the "help the poor by giving them mirrors quest", lol id rather have food please.

nuke it