What's the rush?

Apparently the majority of guild wars players have the shortest attention spans in the world. They play the game through, make a new character, but decide to skip all of the content. Get some runner, guildie, bam get a level 20 ascended character through "power-leveling" or whatever term you wish to use for it.

It bugs me because I made a new character (monk), and I'm having a harder time getting/forming groups than my warrior in the ToA. At least 1/3 of the people in the ascalon areas are level 20 w/mo offering their 'taxi' services, another 1/3 looking for runners, and the rest looking for groups or trading. When I went through the game the first time with my warrior, I played alone to get a handle for the game and not be branded as a newb with endless questions and comments. But as a monk I don't want to play through the game with henchmen because I need to get the feel for taking care of compotent players (or least breathing players). Were it not for the fact that a few other guildies decided to also start fresh I'd be going solo again.

I know that partying up in the early stages isn't necessary, and I figured when I got into the mountains the problem would go away somewhat. Hardly the situation, more people looking for runners, even fewer doing missions, just pathetic. I'm hoping now that I'm into Lion's Arch this situation will rectify itself.

To all the people who do get runners and what not, consider a few things. Have you ever played a console game through more than once? Did you get bored halfway through and just give up entirely? Do you ever read a book and skip a bunch of chapters because you already know whats coming up? Do you constantly go skip scene on a DvD till you get to the good parts? Hopefully one of those analogies will get through.

If you're so bored with the PvE content, just make a level 20 PvP character so you can avoid all the hassle. Need to unlock skills? Just switch your secondary and buy the skills you need.

It's also displeasing to know that Anet doesn't oppose runners, and that Lornar's Pass is meant to be a challenge.

FYI in Lion's arch i couldn't find anybody at all willing to party, but at least i had some luck in Piken square and Ascalon.

I've almost finished the game with my primary (Iere) and I'm working at playing it with a necromancer, a mesmer, and an elementalist.

I don't understand why people want to be ran; I don't mind replaying missions, if only because it's a different role. I can understand if you want to make another W/Mo and don't want to play through the game AGAIN as a tank, but whatever.

I don't really MIND people running- I wouldn't- except those people who run, get a capture signet, and bring all their drok's armor and end-game skills to Ascalon. I mean, it's an empty victory-- so you managed to pay quite a lot of platinum in order to get your fancy armor and in order to get yourself ran everywhere, but it's not bragging rights because you beat some person just out of Pre-searing with your Droknar's armor and your elite skills. Argh.

/rant.

Edit: I've never had problems with finding a party; I actually find that it's easier in Ascalon, even if you don't really need to. It's harder to find a party as a necromancer the further you get in the game =( Until, that is, you get to about Ring of Fire and people start needing faster energy regen.

I have started a new game with my third character and so far haven't seen need to skip everything I can and rush to level 20. It is so fun to play with new main professions. Each profession defines different role in the party which keeps it interesting at least for me even I have completed the game.

On top of that, the newbies in the game haven't a clue and with all this spamming of running, it's easy to be lulled into believing that it's the only method of getting around. The fun is then taken out of the game for those newbies and they soon get the mentality that money will get you everywhere in game.

Then it comes back full circle and hurts everyone else when you get these players on your team who have no idea how to get through Ascalon properly and screw up YOUR play time because they ruin the mission for you.

they need to beat the game before school starts so they can breg to their school friends, I beat GW!!!11omgone

Yes
Only with one, out of the hundreds of RPGs I've played.
Nope, defeats the purpose of rereading a book, and I can't see how you could possibly skip chapters in a book you're reading for the first time (talking narratives here, how-to's etc don't count ).
Only when watching the most recent Star Wars movies.

My point is, yes, you buy an RPG to play it through. It's a genre in which the journey, not the end result, is the most important thing. However, Guild Wars somewhat fails at this level. After playing through its transparent plot twice, I would have either gotten a runner or stopped playing altogether. If I hadn't gotten a runner at that point, you wouldn't have gotten one more potential teammate. Instead, you'd have gotten a person who put away the game and probably forgot about it (not to mention any future expansions).

The very fact that I can play my favorite parts (pre-sear, all shiverpeaks, and the desert) and somewhat skip the agonizing parts is a giant plus.

Before anyone takes this as a flame or a post meant to be combative, let me stress that I do understand where the OP is coming from. I sympathize with your point. Its unfair that people coming late to the game are having trouble finding groups to play through it with. However, there is a reason that people who have thoroughly gone through the plot multiple times stop coming back to that particular aspect of the game. If you've seen it once, you've seen it a million times. You're not likely to find some new insight, some new perspective on the world, by your 3rd or 4th time through.

Telling someone to just go play PvP instead of hiring a runner is somewhat short-sighted. Just because I don't like playing a certain area of the game, doesn't mean that I don't like playing other areas. I loathe Kryta and Meguuma, but adore the desert. What do I do with my runners? Use them to get me to the desert faster so I can enjoy the stuff there and beyond. Once I get to my destination, that's when the journey begins. That's where you'll see me asking for groups or joining in groups asking for help.

Just because someone uses a runner doesn't mean they're diminishing PvE play.

PL'ers are the most annoying breed of human on the earth. They RACE to get to the level cap and then complain that there isn't anything to do.

not all PL'ers. only the PL'ers that whine

I finished my first character completely and did every single quest I could find. I didn't want to do the exact same stuff over again so I never grouped once on either of my other characters going up.

I didn't hire runners though. I think that wastes as much time as it gains over all. I did all the skill quests in every area and then the missions with Hench. I'm not saying it's good for the game but I'm not willing to fail at missions that I've already done on my own character and helped others do for theirs or re-do quests that are exactly the same.

Well I made my way through with my first character... with my second I got run from ascalon to droknar so I could buy the armor, then I went back and continued on doing all the missions in order. I must be the only one.

But everyone plays differently. I moved my 4th character, a warrior from Pre to Post Searing last night. Was grouped with 3 others in that PvP event against 4 others, so 4 on 4. I was lv 8 with my warrior, everyone else was lv 3-4. we won 7-5. I was killing them easy till they ganged up on me while the others on my team were being res'd. People seem to be in a hurry to get out of pre-searing. I'd have stayed there if there was more to do but I had done all the missions...

Do I plan on getting run to Droknar? you bet! Will it diminish the game for me? Nope.

I have 3 characters that have essentially finished the game, covering all 6 classes -none of whom were run through the game.

That was to unlock stuff - having finished up, they have run out of skillpoints, though I have done all the quests that grant skills. 3 full characters through the game and I am still missing points for skills. That's a good reason to rush a character. I can have a character levelled up and in Droknar's in no time with a rush, earning me a ton more skillpoints on the way, and then I simply buy the skills I need. I want all my skills unlocked, as it stands I will be short about 50? or so when I spend all my skillpoints on these 3 characters. That's a fair number to bother grinding for, given that I could simply run a character out to Droknar's, then whip through the missions for more skillpoints and spend those in far less time.

So I haven't done it yet, but unless they add a pile of skill points suddenly that's what I'll be doing.

Running is not the problem, if a newb with their first character is dumb enough to waste their first few hundreds of gold to be rushed places, that's their own damn loss. Running your 2nd or 3rd character through by guildies or "pro runners" is another thing though, and I can see why some people do it. Unlocking skills so you can be flexible in PVP is a pain in the ass once you realize what exactly it entails.

Still, I don't like when people go into Ascalon arena with their twinked out ubar lvl 10 Mr. Platemail W/Mo and beat newbies around with skills they've probably never even heard of. I just disagree with that on principle.

You think you can get all the skills through experience and skill points before doing the skill quests? Most of the skill quests are quick and easy and you keep all your skill points and get more while they give you a free skill.

I'm not complaining mind you. To each his own and all that. I know I finished the game on my 2nd and 3rd characters so fast and did the skill quests and then had a bucketfull of skill points to use on skills when I know I want them.

I don't want to wait 100+ hours to reach droknor Forge, so for both of my PvE Character (level 20 w/e, and level 14 mesmer/necro, i pay someone to run me from beacon perch to forge for 2k each)

But as for quests/missions, i usually play them through without running it with either guildmates or with random players.

Ractoth, did it ever occur to you that some people enjoy the game in different ways?

did it ever even pass your mind that, just maybe, being ran and playing the game with the upperhand (as opposed to playing it through and doing each and every mission) might make the game more enjoyable for some people?

Sure it might not be enjoyable for YOU, but for others it might be the only way to enjoy a game properly. I personally have the attention span of a 8 year old when it comes to games and unless i can do things really quickly, it simply gets boring far too fast.

different strokes for different folks mate.

Unlocking, so you can play PvP, is the rush.

My-excuse: Yup, it has occured to me that some ppl enjoy having things easy. The ones who lack skill. Maybe you should drop by a local kindergarten and play basketball with them and feel good about yourself.

Skullcrasher: Why do you need to get to Droknar's? It's easy enough w/o the best armor. I was running around beating missions and bonuses on the first try with henchmen or PUG when my armor was 31 in places where towns were selling 50+ armor and ppl in mission outposts were complaining they've failed multiple times. I'm guessing you fit into excuse's category of liking games with no challenge. Maybe reading a book or watching a movie would be better for you two since there's no challenge on your part at all.

For unlocking purposes only after having played through is arguably ok though.

I don't have an issue per se with runners, it's up to the individual how they want to play the game. It's much the same with groups that insist on doing the bonus missions, it's changed quite a lot from what it was like at launch.

I actually enjoy seeing how the missions play out differently as the different classes, some that were hard with an E/Mo are incredibly easy with a N/Me and vice versa. Doing thirsty river (or whichever one the crystal shards one is) as a W/R is a completely different experience to doing it as a E/Mo.

not everybody is a complete dork and has tons of spare time, alot of people beat the game normally and now want the most fun out of what time they spend playing the game.
being rushed is a 1000x faster way to unlock skills then going through the game normally

i would never replay the game 100% like I did with my first character, runners save me time, so i use them. simple.

i get ran because i want to skip the boring part,to the fun part(fow,uw,pvp)so i can have fun and make money or use new builds.after the first time going through again isnt that fun.

Runners are for lame people who can't enjoy a game after it has been beat and are too lazy to do it all over again.. overall rushed people probly make up about 50% of the people playing.. 35% are taxies, 10% are Mo/W soloers and 4% actualy play the game 1% are pvpers

Like others have said, people can run their second -> infinity character all they want, but it's sad when beginners run their first character just because it's now easier to find a taxi than to find a PUG.
I don't think there's anything one can do about it, or should do about it, but it's sad because they miss out on game content.

I might say...get a rush to forge and beyond for an elite that i need, but i found it's really more fun when the enemy can actually damage you.

If content, skills and PvP were actually accessible then runners would virtually cease to exist. Imagine if you could PvP with any of the skills you wanted, travel to any town you've been to before on any character, etc.

Running does ruin the experience for any newbie who tries it. However, how are they to know that isn't the thing to do when all the veteran players are doing it?

Running is just symptom of poor game design that makes the things that players find fun too inaccessible.

What Grimpaw said. While my Roleplaying character making/skill unlocking days are pretty much behind me, I'd have to say that the ability to unlock outposts to your account instead of your individual characters would be awesome not to mention give the running industry a much needed kick in the crotch.

Explorable Areas actually feel Explorable the first one or two times you go through them, after that they turn into the same old sloggin' through mob after mob Endurance Match Areas.

Some of us like missing out on game content. Guild Wars PVE is - to me - about as fun as eating sawdust. Anything that lets me spend less time on that and more on the PVP is a good thing, in my eyes.

I'm all for outposts unlockable for new characters under an account that has cleared them all at least once. Of course... whats to prevent someone from pre-searing to join the acadamy, end up post-searing, take money from storage and go off to to get stuff and so forth... so some of the problems people are having would still exist.

Now I PvE only so I don't have any problems going from ascalon to droknar, buy some armor and go back to ascalon and play through the game. Sure the areas are the same but a lot of the missions are different depending on the character your playing. Which over all breaks up some of the same ol grind.

Make a lvl requirement to go to the towns you've unlocked. So forge will still be lvl 20, but remote outposts will be accessible. Say, if you grind to lvl 8 or 9, then you could go to yak's automatically. It will make runners totally useless.(except maybe froge runs, but i can't wait til they just add lvl restrictions on armour instead). Lvl requirements just need to be added. This will fix ascalon and shiverpeak arena problems as well kick forge runners in the nuts. I'm suggesting a lvl 16 req on forge armour and elite skills. That way, no-one could use those things in the easier arenas.

I understand that people play the game differently and have right to do so. However, you seems to be a person who thinks "my way is the only way".

I could say same about you. Skipping game parts even after the game has been completed, is very stupid and those who do that have no idea how to play games like GW. How that feels?

Don't worry, the thought has passed through my mind. I did waste many hours on Diablo II, and anyone who has played that game knows all about rushing. Coincidently enough, I actually wrote an article about it for a site, discussing the community in that game and naturally I got the same response you have given me.

Why do I care?

Guild Wars is a lot about the community, at least that is the understanding that I have for it. If the growing population is constantly falling into the same trends the game will probably become less enjoyable. There seems to be more advertisement for these services in the trade chats than actual trades.

Although, I'm probably only posting about this now because when I made the new character, two of my guildmates did the same thing and we were going to go through the game. Sadly though, one decided to get a rush to droknars and buy the armour. Completely ruined the bond between the few members we have with him. So now my monk has moved ahead, my running friend is bent on getting his FoW armour for his warrior because his monk is too good, and the other completely deleted his character altogether.

This is probably the reason why I started two elementalists and a ranger before finally sticking to my goal of having another level 20 character (albeit still in the making).

Yes, I dislike the Kryta area as well, but regardless I will play them through. If Anet wanted them skipped, they wouldn't have bothered with all the effort of storyline, graphics and NPCs in those areas.

But, as you said, different strokes for different folks.

It's not so much the repetitive missions that get to me. It's the frothing masses of total idiots that must be dealt with in the repetitive missions. After playing through the game four times to grind up some skill points, I made a fifth character to get the last remaining Necro and Ranger skills I needed to finally have them all. I got that character run because I could not stomach doing all those missions again and dealing with all those morons. I did quests and only did missions when I needed to.

I would be surprised if I make another grind character. PVP for the win.

There'd better be new PVP shit in this coming update, or I'll be profoundly disappointed. New maps, gametypes, 6v6 and 8v8 arenas, something. I'll happily dispense Faction to unlock upgrades and runes, since I have the ones I care about already. The rest would just be for interesting builds. Maybe. Actually, I can't even think of a sensible use for Superior Soul Reaping. Hm.

Just think, if the expansion has two more professions, we get to grind another one-hundred-and-fiftyish more skill points! I can't wait. Runners will get a lot of my useless gold. Woo.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with runners. For me I will gladly pay just so I do not have to wade throu 10 pain in the ass missions before getting max armor. How does it ruin the game for you? Your game is based upon what you do. Someone running through the game has absolutely no affect on you! In fact, they have fewer skills and have to go back through it anyway. It also allows characters who are lvl a way to earn revenue to buy the ridiculously expensive fissure armor!

People get on here and whine at what other people are dong and then ANET nerfs crap to appease them. Play the game for yourself, is that not why you bought it!

I've often played console games through multiple times, and I often play PC single player RPGs through multiple times.

I've played GW through with 3 characters so far, about to go a 4th.

I enjoy GW to a degree, but it's far worse than a game like Devil May Cry, or Fallout, where I actually WANT to play again even if I've played it to death already. Why are those games like that? In the first case, it's because the actual experience of playing the game is incredibly fun, and in the second, it's because it's so open ended and variable that you can do almost anything you want.

GW has neither of those. The pve combat is ok but could be improved a lot, and the missions/quests are all linear and non-random. And there's that many opportunities to test your skill.

You are in the minority here and your estimations are way off. In an area that has people who do rush for others, there arent that many and across all areas well the presumption that more than 1 in 4 people rush others through the game is rather stupid. Also, to assume that only 1% of the players pvp is silly as well as everyone who played the game was involved in at least 1 pvp fight. Heh, besides where do you think the alleged 50% of the people who want to be rushed through the game come from? If anything your maybe 1% are people who are activly fighting in a pvp area, while some other number (lets use your 50%) are people preparing for pvp, which would make them pvpers anyway. Ill use the following, since the game mechanics supporting this behavior seem to be lost on you.
Rushing is dumb however, but only in the sense that you are trying to get something out of pve other than unlocking.

For many of the beta testers, playing through the North Shiver missions YET AGAIN, for the 15th. or possibly even 20th. time, simply is NOT appealing. When you can take a short cut to Sanctum Cay and skill nearly all of Maguma, and you know that there is NOTHING worth doing in Maguma, that's hard to resist.

Then you realize you can skill all of Ascalon just by running up to Yaks, and you're so tired of Ascalon you never want to see another Char in your life.

Skipping from Yaks to Beacons is a bit more out of the way, but once there why not take a side trip down to Droknar's and make the desert less of a grind? You can't really skip the desert, so you're stuck doing that crap over and over again, but a lot of the S. Shiver stuff doesn't HAVE to be repeated endlessly, so why would anyone want to?

Not only are we FORCED to do PvE whether we want to or not, but we're forced to do badly written, poorly implemented missions that have on many occasions proven to be buggy and forced a restart. We've been forced to do these missions with snot nosed teenagers who will eventualy misstep and cause a wipeout, because it's not possible for them to do anything wrong. We will be forced to sit through laughable cut scenes, with a plotline that makes most comic books look like Dostoyevski. And we will be forced to suffer through all of this SIMPLY because we bought a game to PvP, and were misinformed by the producers of said game that we would actualy be ALLOWED to PvP.

There are reasons nobody is doing the missions. Blaming the community for Anet's mistakes simply doesn't make sense. People will do what is fun. They may not always agree on what equates to "fun", but they're certainly NOT going to spend much time doing something they DON'T THINK IS FUN.

Blame Anet. They're the ones who wrote the missions, and the plotline. If nobody is playing them, by definition that means nobody is finding them fun.

People is already running out of gold ( a lot of people begging for gold this days). Hopefully with this new update and the new skill prices, people will stop rushing that much and start doing the quests for skills as it's meant to be.

I'm glad sombody commented on this. This is my second time going through the game and well I did get Droknars Forge armor but I do agree it's really hard to find PUGs these days. Right now it's gotten to the point where i'm forced to do Divinity Coast with henchmen.

I totally agree with your entire post.

but your first sentence answers the question as well as it can be.

you coulda stopped right there, and you would have still made absolute perfect sense.