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...