I'm having a lot of fun... but I'm having it by myself.

Yeah, i also get the same problem. But two days ago, i created an account, went to fobles fair, and sat under the tree and helped all who asked questions. and in pre searing, people actually say "thanks". it was amazing, lol. Since it was in fobles fair, i think it was better due to the amount of people there, its not too crowded.

It's nice to know that there are folks out there that aren't spending their evenings emoting or advertising their unused uber-weapons non-stop. I've been playing RPGs since the original Wizardry and Ultima I and this is my first multi-player experience. As such, I'm most comfortable w/ soloing and that played into my selection of professions. As a 9th level N/R (strong in Death, Blood and Beastmastery) I can create my own little parties, with a henchman or two,and keep myself alive (most of the time). However, I can see where that's going to come to an end as these missions get harder and it's nice to know that the 'annoying ones' start to fall away the farther in you get.

Rufo Gloryroad N/R9...should be 10 tonight.

I guess I've been lucky then, by far my best experiences are with guildmates especially using teamspeak, but I've been through a bunch of missions with strangers and had very few problems.

On more than one mission it was great to have a tour guide showin the group the easiest way through missions and other than the old Fort Ranik days during the BWE's when there was a really tough beginning, we always finished the mission with a full party.

(actually we did lose an entire party on the Kryta mission, but noone got mad it was a fine attempt!)

I've only just started playing GW from Monday. I'm also in the over 30 crowd with family priorities on top of a grueling work day. I play *maybe* for an hour or so a night if there's time (Usually after kids are asleep and the wife is catching up with her best friend: "eBay").

The thing I notice is how much 'noise' is in the chat window and how absolutely difficult it is to find out anything valuable. I've grown so tired of the chitter chatter I've also turned off everything for some peace. Of course, the important things to mute are "Trade" and "Emote"... but I notice everyone is using "All" now for Trade info.

I've partied up with non-NPCs exactly three times. All in Pre-Searing (Pre), two were quest requirements (Lever and Res) and once was with a friend. When partied with the friend the thing that was odd was that we didn't share quest info, which made it a bit difficult to know where he was off too. Let's just say we were using the draw and ping features on the compass more than we were fighting monsters.

It would be nice if the PVP concept was carried over to PVE whereby you can just join and the system automatches for quests. But then I guess that would ultimately be wrong too because I can't tell you how many times I've been on a losing PVP team battling an enemy of Warrior/Monks while we had no healing at all.

I've just crossed over to Post-Searing (Post) with my one PVE char [War/Nec: Pimp Daddie]. While it was easy to go alone in Pre, Post offers too many damn surprises for me to survive alone. When I log in tonight I'll probably go the NPC route, just because it's easier to predict how it will end up. Regardless, if any of you see me online, please feel free to invite me along. While I could stand to learn a few things about group battles, I follow directions and know my place on the battlefield.


PS: Nice reuse of letters for your characters Epinephine

After reading your thoughts, and feeling some of the like-minded angst for a largely retarded playerbase, I'll make one more advertisment for The Soloist Gathering (promise ).

For those of you who solo the common quests but realize the need for an actual player group during the missions, [Solo] is here for you. I'm trying in earnest to attract those fed up with the kiddies and have chosen instead to be the "rugged individualist." Even us lone operators need a hand and an information resource once in a while.

I do plan on taking the guild into GvG eventually, but would like to build a solid foundation of 15-20 members before that happens (though, participating in PvP is by no means a requirment for joining). I definitly want to keep a laid-back atmosphere and don't want to obligate people to do guild stuff unless they want to (I am trying to get independent-minded people, after all )

Send Augustus Jenk, Zarconis Derealian, or Aoshi Muri a whisper if you're interested, or contact me at [email protected].

[/plug]

This topic echoes with what I was thinking all along - how would ANet stop abuse? In paid games the answer is simple - CC ban. It is many times easier to spend 30$ for a new CD key than to ask dad for another CC, so we will see much more abusers than other paid games have. Now, I don't doubt ANet's technical ability (way superior comparing to Blizzard), and I am positive we will see prompt fixes for any possible hacks, but I do think they need to create some social management rules, and do it quick. Idiots, as you correctly define those players, can ruin any game in no time.

Enter Ascalon district 1, turn off chat filters, and enjoy pure stupidity There is one huge positive thing about GW - instancing, so as soon as you are on a mission with your friends you are safe. And friends will come, it's just a matter of weeks until you'll sort through the rubbish to fill your friendlist

I'm hoping after awhile it will clear up but to be honest before the game even came out I was concerned about the fact that it did not have a monthly fee. Sure I'm on a budget but having a monthly fee doens't bother me as long as it has quality. (Not that Guild Wars doesn't.)

I guess the best way to find friends is via a Guild. But even in Guilds it seems a lot of them recruit random people by shouting which doesn't make sense to me.

But For me, my best friends have been the Henchmen. They've come with me on virtually every quest and even all the difficult missions. Thank god for them...

Sadly I can't solo, it's simply too hard for me. I and atleast 3 henchmen die per battle, and I have no guild, thus I am forced to team up with random players all the time. Consider yourselves lucky that you can solo.

I hope to have all rangers or X/rangers in my guild but since I solo so much I have a solo guild at the moment . I am going to experiment with henchmen counts later on to see if I really need to roll with 4 henchment who seem to take all the cool things along with gold and XP. I don't like to share with empty husks.

I sadly have not grouped once with anyone but my guild-mate/friend. When I go out without him I take henchman over people. I just like being laid back and going at my/our own pace. Also no fighting about items or anything and we can go afk at anytime no big deal. Only time I group is in pvp of course. Its sad, but I expected it as GW is not really a mmorpg.

I tried a bit of social engineering last night.

The only reason to spam all-chat is if people actually trade with you when you do it. So, when people would use All-chat for trading, I'd tell them to use the trade channel. If they persisted, I'd start following up any of their WTS messages with "<Their name> is a scammer! Don't trade with him!"

This actually worked in all but one case, and even in that one case, it stopped him for a while, while he wasted time whispering to me angrily.

Just make sure no one can successfully trade in all-chat, and they won't do it.

Corvus Crow: you're giving stuff away?! oh man...hit me up

Ae Toutatis

I promise I won't ignore you ^^;

I'm in a similar boat to most everyone here: I played Diablo 2 offline and loved it, and have stayed away from every other MMORPG since primarily because of the monthly fees - as a young professional (Does anyone say "yuppie" anymore?) my life is incredibly busy, and I don't have more than a couple hours to spend on a game in a week, as much as I might wish otherwise, so $15/month just seemed like a waste. I went with GW because of the free online play, the track record of its creators (I loved D2), and I thought I should give the whole online thing a shot.

It's been a mixed bag. PvP is new to me and pretty fun, although there are some jerks in there (I love it when a defeated opposing team member logs off accusing me of being a "noob" for running away, when I'm the one who survived), but I've also met some cool people who noticed me and invited me into their guild. I have no idea how old they are, but they're funny and generally good with punctuation, so whatever. Most of them are ahead of me in the game, though, so I feel bad about asking them to help me out on quests. I've gone questing a couple times with strangers and found the experience novel and exciting, but a little, I dunno...cold. The others didn't say much of anything that didn't have to do with the quest, and it all felt kind of perfunctory. Didn't make any friends. Most of the time I use henchmen. I'm trying to persuade other "real" people I know to buy the game so I can play with them.

I've been playing since the game went live, and have noticed a sharp increase in spam in that time. I stay the hell away from District 1, and generally ignore anything that appears in the chat window that isn't green. Pretty soon I imagine I'll turn the "All" off unless I'm looking for a team.

I love the game, and I think it's for what the GW team have been stressing all along: you make it whatever you want it to be. There are a lot of people there, and they're all doing their own thing, and most of the time their thing isn't mine. You have to sort through a lot of chaff to find your wheat. Which is pretty much just like life, right?

When I have to get a team together for a mission or otherwise, I try to be the leader since it seems like I have small knack for picking good players. So far only 3 people in my groups have ever been complete idiots. Who just really got on my nerves with insults whining ,etc ,etc.

Woah... me being a monk, that is like music to my ears... or eyes.

First let me say that I am having a blast with this game! When I first arrived in post-searing Ascalon two nights ago I was up until 3am playing in the arena.

I've had a hell of a time finding people to quest with me. I stand in the town asking to join a group and almost never get a reply. Last night I actually got 2 people to go with me and once we got outside, one of the people dropped so it was me and another guy who adventured together for about 2 hours trying to solve once of my quests (which we never completed...I think the stupid thing was bugged). I was annoyed as we went to do another of my quests and when I opened the chest which contained my quest item it was reserved for my companion and I could not pick it up and so I could not complete that quest either :/

At any rate, I like adventuring with others and I keep out of trouble. I'm playing a E/Me Lvl8 and I do *not* run out and aggro a bunch of mobs. I *do* reply with spoken to and I *do* work for the good of the group and use my skills to get the heat off of the other party members.

I also *do* have a "offensive" name, and I *do* use 'u' and 'thx' because frankly I am too busy moving my character to be able to devote the time to a grammatically correct message. When the action is slow, however, I do try to type better. I don't think these two things should be a big deal given what I bring to the group.

Also, I bought the collector's edition which came with this teamspeak headset but I have not yet had a chance to use it. I'd like to give it a shot if there are others of you that use it.

Anyways, I am on most nights from 11pm - 2am CST. I'm currently in Old Ascalon doing the first set of quests that are available there. I did the Wall last night, which was fun.

If you know of a good guild for me or just want to go questing with me, give me a whisper
Name: Shimmer S L U T
Class: E/Me Lvl 8

Most of them are refugees from other MMO's.

What do MMO's promote?

Individualism, egotism. Get more for me, better for me, make me more unique. I must have the *best* sword, armor, gear, home, pet, class, spells, coins.

Some few games try to encourage teaming. What is the typical response? "I hate being FORCED to team!"

In short, very few MMO graduates understand what being part of a team/guild really means. They've been taught to promote themselves as far, fast, and quickly as possible--which means teamwork is something they rarely learn or understand.

That said, most people are good people in any game. They're just the quiet ones, so the situation appears worse than it really is. And the good people gather together in tight little groups, and sometimes make the mistake of shutting out the rest of the world.

my personal view is that the game brings the idiots out of...well the idiots. Most games have classes that are pretty much rinse and repeat activities, as in i know if i use blank skill, then this skill, than that one, im good to go. This game with its endless stream of combinations, and attributes seems to just dumbfound people that don't read or attempt to figure things out.

Most of us assume that over time people would be able to figure it out, unfortunately they haven't and it doesn't seem to get better as time goes on.

Eh, it's only been a week. Give it time. A lot of people will either get better or lose interest...

I have done both the hench way and the group way. And for the most part, I've been lucky with groups. However, and this is just common sense, don't lure enemies back to the healer who is fairly far back gunning his heal party! I understand that yes, as a primary monk, I am a target, but come on, that means don't go running halfway across the map, find out there are like 15 minos there, and then bring them all back to the poor healer who is doing his best to make sure the "tanks" ( and I use that term very loosely) don't die.

Now, having said that, I have met some very good people, very competent who have helped me with the missions. I think more often than not, it comes down to pure blind luck. Sometimes they'll know that splitting up is bad. And sometimes they'll know that protecting the healer is key. But other times, well, thank god that henchmen go up as you get further...

You know eventually the immature and ***holes in games get bored and leave making the game a lot better give it time maybe they will leave.

Only people I play with are people in my guild. The vast majority of the community sucks IMHO.

I'll go out on a limb here and take a different tack, and if I get crucified, you can bill me

The way I see it, the problems are not from "idiots" but from "idiots in denial". Now let me explain for all the crossed eyes reading this:

Elitism is the issue here. Not "morons". I have read posts from many of you in this thread in other places, and I can see a pattern among you. Many of you are veterans of many many games before GW. Good for you. You want a friggin cookie? Many of the people you label "idiots" have never been involved with a game of GW scope, or its sheer volume of learning curve. There is so much to do and see and whatnot in this game, that the newbie is perhaps quite literally intimidated into doing little BUT shouting in town about "help me find the anus of devourer quest item". They simply don't know any better.

Several voiced the concern that these "idiots" ruin the game for everyone else. Let me shed some reality on that argument: How many of you "serious hardcore gamers" DO NOT make fun of those people in open channel? Be honest. You cannot sit here with a straight face and tell me that a large chunk of these level 20 uber badasses that have swords that could cleave GODS NAD OFF do not taunt, intimidate and ridicule some poor bastard who quite honestly cannot keep up. Wake up. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

I applaud those of you who have the "maturity" to help those who ask, regardless of how they spell a damn word. It is the seeking of knowledge that matters, not the goddamn color code of it.

As for the claim that NPC's never charge off into certain death, that's complete BS. It happened to me last night. I had a party with a necro, fighter, and healer bot. I died, respawned. As soon as I stood up from death, the dipshit necro-bot ran off to the EXACT SPOT where we died before. I couldn't catch up, and upon rounding a corner 2 minutes later, found him anally pounded to death by a hulking stone elemental cluster (4). So no, thats bs. Bots can and do cause serious issues in party.

Bots also have usefulness. I got from pre to post ascalon with nothing BUT bots. So there.

In the end, the problems that this thread attempts to shed light on are not a one sided argument, as is the apparent intention. Calling someone names for asking a question you think is stupid only causes resentment. There is another kind of "fun-locust" no on bothered to mention, and which I suspect was intentional to keep this thread in agreement: "BAITERS". Baiters are people who intentionally act like many of you claimed, to get attention, to anony others, and to cause conversations like this one to become more important than PLAYING THE GAME.

Fun-locusts indeed...

I've honestly never had this problem,

Its true though, I have loads of friends on my teamspeak server so if I want to team with people as opposed to henchmen, I go see what they are doing.. nearly everyone can fit you in at some point.

Yea occasionally I will randomly join a team, but thats just a look really, to see what other people are doing..

I go into those teams fully prepared to expect the worst. When you expect the worst, magically the worst doesnt annoy but rather amuse.
In reality though, its rarly THAT bad to justify some of the sweeping statments going on here.

Its not like there are lasting negatives either, no debt(CoH) to speak of, only thing you have lost is a bit of time and your temper.

I cant honestly talk about PVP yet however.. not got into that completly yet, still training

but, surley the 'loosers' that are annoying will eventually grow tired of losing and give up?
after all it does seem that you need to put serious intellectual thought into creating AND playing a competative PVP character. Something the immature mind finds difficult to do consistently and for any lengthy periods of time.

Also, its about building or joining a succesfull 'Guild' which implies choice.. so you have the choice to play the game how you want, if something annoys you its your choice to go somewhere else or try something different... isnt this part of the skill of being a Guildwars master?

The Snowman

Im a lvl16 w/mo and I too find it hard to get a party mainly because there is so much item spam. I hate it when people go off and attack everything they see when you don't need too kill that group. Im a nice guy and usually give stuff away to people like minor runes. I also hate leechers that are afk half the time.

I feel pretty much the same way. I rarely group outside of the areana. I made a monk because in other games healing classes are always really rare and all. Now I'm at lion's den and I can't seem to get much further because of those moronic weak henchment.

Oh well, I can always start a warrior/monk like everyone else!

--Lyim X
13 Monk/Mez

Yeah, I solo'ed until I was roughly level 13, but then the quests (like Ashes in Piken) got too hard for my R/Me to deal with, then I looked around and most of the time all the people I party'd with really didn't use any spells or healing (I really love it when a guy is a Mo/W and they say they're a "Warrior" and don't heal anyone)

But then I found a really nice person, we did several of the 'hard' missions by ourselves easily

Yeah i really am annoyed at the community of this game (Except for this forum of course). You try to ask a question your lucky if you get to get an answer since no one seems to really give a **** about anyone but themselves. Try to have a convo with few people without being grouped or whisper then you get spammed with stupid sales when people should be using the trade channel. People seem to like to rush out and say haha these look easy only level 20 i can take em. They rush out aggro about 20 mobs and then complain that you didnt help them when they die. If theres anyone that knows where the monks path is please let me know. Also if theres a guild that isnt imature, stupid, 4 year old kids, likes to play a game not a computerized life (yeah some people are that damn addicted that if you dont do as they say theyll try to murder you), and actually likes to have fun tell me.. I need to get with them.. Thanks..

I also forgot to mention that "social engineering" people doesn't solve the problem either, and in fact encourages more of the same. Oh well, I'm going go actually PLAY the game rather than spend neuron-time trying to outwit people I will never meet.

Oh dear, I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this anti-community attitude vastly prevalent in (so far) my first 13 levels of RP Guild Wars.

I've made a bunch of posts about this already, but they seem to go unheard/ignored, so it's good that we can now vent in one place and hopefully be heard :P

There are actually, as far as I can identify, reasonings behind this 'unfriendly' behaviour, and I don't actually think it has anything to do with whether or not there is a monthly fee. Altogether, the most annoying people in WoW at least TALK more than the general populace in Guild Wars- and I don't consider "WTB 10 Raw Cloth" as talking.

For starters, to counter this ultimately 'selfish' gameplay (and I say selfish, because there is simply no other word to describe the fact that the only time people talk in ANY chat channel, is when they're either trading, or looking for a monk or warrior) that is hampering the community feel to Guild Wars (forums aside).

There needs to be a better (or any) player-matchup system- a way to find like-minded/levelled teams to party with while questing. There also needs to be a far better degree of GM involvement in the general populace- spamming trade lines 10 times should be grounds for a warning AT LEAST, and doing it in *general chat* is definitely not helping the situation Without simple deterrent penalties or repurcussions for doing things with are definitely outside any logical ruleset, they are only going to be exploited even further.

Even a simple LookingForPlayers channel that is used for this purpose (so that players CAN turn off the spammy trade channels and still locate and request party members) will prove to be much more effective in managing this often frustrating aspect.

Then again, the other solution is to get yourself involved in a dedicated, mature Guild, who pride themselves on helping their members advance, and ultimately emphasise that with the right people, Guild Wars can definitely shine, and shine bright. If you ARE looking for one out there, you can always shoot me a tell (Aviendha Romina in-game) and I'll see to getting you involved with the fantastic people that make up Knights of the Gods.

Having said that though, there are often times when you won't be at the same stage, or playing at the same time as your guild mates, and are forced to look towards the mainstream for party-options. I think the current friends system is almost no use at all, except for a simple address book (to remember often long winded names)- you don't get notifications of when a 'friend' has come online, and there's no way to tell what level your friends are at (or your guildmates for that matter) or what area they are currently in, which would greatly enhance your ability to find a suitable team.

I think these are just small things which surmount to an escalating problem, and just like the smaller things above-mentioned should be easy to counter/fix, so too should the problem facing many new (and I daresay), more experienced players looking to immerse themselves in the Guild Wars community and truly enjoy their entire GW experience.

Perhaps we can all try to compose a list of several little things like this and present them to ArenaNet as a list of community-enhancing suggestions? The least it could do, is shine some light on these problems, and perhaps if we're lucky, see to a few of them being implemented- to the benefit of all who enjoy this fantastic game.

I read the thread, and i feel somewhat the same way too. There is also some considerations prior to such a situation. In my opinion, there are almost unlimited combinations of characteristics in a human behavior. When the barriers of nationality, age and sex is being removed, you will see in plain every kind of situations which you can think of. However does that makes you quit the game? I mean in reality, i bet that you all have met such situations. So what do you do about it? You will just keep quiet and ignore that person, or shout at god and say buff this in life or nerf this in life or implement this.

Now about community in GW, so far i had never met such players which left in the middle of a quest, or left in the middle of a mission. Experiences in Warcraft III dotA, has annoyed me so much that i hope i won't have such experience again in GW. My way of dealing with such stuff is, suck thumb and find another party to venture, if not just get a henchman or 2 or maybe 7 of them and just try questing your own. The game is made by the creators, but how it's played depends on the players. You can't have like we want improvements in this way, and that is you alone and then post a complain all the way to arenanet. Think of it this way, if you have 10,000 mails each day complaining and want you to change something in yourself, you will get annoyed and simply just ignore.

Anyway i think i'm a good questing partner :P, lol feel free to add me, E/N12 Selina Wishwood.

I'll add my vote on this matter as well. I am a refugee from EQ2 (beat it) and the allure for GW is really quite attactive. The relatively low level of commitment involved with the game is an attractive feature, it's just too bad we can't all be mature professionals (or at least professional gamers).

I've found the community of GW by and large to be idiots. It's getting depressing really. I've tried to solo, and simply find it too slow or mostly impossible with hench alone (I tend to play nukers). I shout for groups, often listing pertinent quests, in all zones and several districts, with no luck. My fiance holds less interest in playing than I do but will hop on occaisionally to play with me (of course not being of the requisite Warrior or Monk persuasion either...). I'm not part of a guild yet, so I'm almost totally lacking the community I'm used to in EQ2 (I'm in a prominent and active guild, but content is stale).

Anyways, I'm up for a mature, friendly guild if any are recruiting. And in the unlikely event anyone needs a level 11 E/N, I'll be on Elle Bloodwish.

Regards

I always try henching before organizing/joining a party. The henchmen are a known quantity, one I can plan a mission strategy around. Being in a group of people who don't follow the leadership, or even worse, trying to lead such a group always ends up driving me back to henchmen.

That said, I did lead 2 groups through two of the rougher missions near the end and the sense of accomplishment was much greater, since it was shared.

My main gripe is usually the utter lack of common sense on people's parts. This one ranger in the last group was always charging the front line, drawing aggro, and dying before the healer could even begin to heal him. He did this over 8 times in the mission. Yes, 8 times. We got so used to it, we forgot to rez him one time. After that, I said, "please, just sit in this spot for about 10 minutes while we work off most of your death penalty".

I try to get a good idea of the group in the first 10 minutes. If it is obviously going to fail, I say so and wish them luck. I'll waste my time playing a game, but I won't waste it being frustrated by the incompetence of others.

Oh I'm not so sure that's the right way to approach things though - ArenaNet are very switched on and community oriented, many suggestions passed on from the community result in the great product we enjoy today. If we can identify things that will undoubtedly improve the current system in an attempt to improve the gaming experience, it's highly likely that it will be at least recognised, and if adopted, well- we've done something productive! (It's not like there's anything to lose on the matter).

You think thats bad. My guild leader is an immature kiddy. Dont want to leave guild though cause I pretty much like everyone else in it.

I found a good party today we did several missions in a row. Finding a good healer is troublesome and takes forever.

What they really could do is to create atleast one instance called someting in the lines of 'Roleplay 1' , which would be used a as a gathering place for RPers (within your 'realm').
Sure anyone will be able to join, but atleast it will be easier to find ppl who enjoy RPing.

That's why I'm glad I got into my guild. Lacerta Priscus saved my GW life.

I don't believe (hope) most players are refugee (veterans) from other MMORPG's. I think Guild Wars is the closest thing to a MMORPG majority of the players have ever been on.

A part from the usual onboxious minority, they seem eager to learn. Just try to be polite, nobody want to learn from someone who just called them names.

A simple "Please use the trade channel ($)" broadcast works for 90% of those who try to trade in the local talk channel.

I answer question, but not during a fight, and in town only a few. There are far more new players than veterans, so most questions will go unanswered.

Personally I haven't had much problems finding decent people to group with.
At first I went to the missions with mostly pick up groups.
From Yak's Bend on out, I usually had at least a few fellow guildmembers join in - because we wanted to arrive at Lion's Arch at around the same time (to check out the Guild Halls ofcourse ;p)

After Lion's Arch I still went mostly with pick-up-groups, which worked quite well (except for one group I had on Bloodstone Fen which rushed in foolishly at the end, causing us all to die)
Especially after Denravi, the level-of-play and attitude of players improved dramatically - and non-english languages in local chat became almost non-existant.

Unfortunately, now that I'm well into the game (Droknar's Forge, for whoever of you knows where that is ;p) it's starting to get harder to find a party, there aren't many people that far along ;\