Curse

mrvrod · Aug 05, 2009, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Imho, when most people talk about the "good old days" with GW, they're mostly referring to the community. Chatting in towns and joining a PUG was a mostly positive experience. Now local chat is mostly cybersex and flame wars, and forget pugging anything. That's what I miss at least.

own age myname · Aug 05, 2009, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snoes

How can a sword have +% vs trolls mod AND +30 hp? :/

I don't remember. It might of been a 20/20 hilt I tried to salavage, or I might of been a crap pommel I got instead of a +30hp. It was a long time ago.

MithranArkanere · Aug 05, 2009, 11:23 PM // 23:23

"Old Times" were horrible.

Just looking at it vestiges in Prophecies makes you shiver.

Skipping lots of Missions, entire areas of nothing, having to go through PvE to enter PvP areas...

Geez... luckily all that is far away.

Buster · Aug 05, 2009, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Yes the main reason why I keep playing is for nostalgia's sake and ofcourse you have to admit, it still is a pretty good game to play.

Lishy · Aug 05, 2009, 11:59 PM // 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

"Old Times" were horrible.

Just looking at it vestiges in Prophecies makes you shiver.

Skipping lots of Missions, entire areas of nothing, having to go through PvE to enter PvP areas...

Geez... luckily all that is far away.

Heavily agreed.
Like I keep stressing:
"Good ol' days" is just a scapegoat people use when they don't realize they've played too much.

Avarre · Aug 06, 2009, 12:57 AM // 00:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Heavily agreed.
Like I keep stressing:
"Good ol' days" is just a scapegoat people use when they don't realize they've played too much.

Impressive. You can trivialize the entire diminishment of PvP to an armchair psychiatry statement.

glacialphoenix · Aug 06, 2009, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Um.

I've had my fair share of nostalgic moments and also an equally fair share of people I never want to meet again in PUGs, and all those were from before NF came out.

I do think that 'first playthrough' will always be more nostalgic, though. Experience and skill power creep dulls the next playthroughs somewhat. Seriously, finishing Glint the first time was epic. Finishing Glint in HM now just feels more routine.

Bryant Again · Aug 06, 2009, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Nostalgia's a bitch. It flavors your perception of quality and thus it becomes difficult do differentiate the difference (hm, "diff diff diff"...) : Was PvP actually much better than it was back then, or was it because we were all new to the game? Did heroes really have such a drastic impact on the game, or was it the game world getting bigger and older?

It's instances like this where we throw opinion out the window and look at what we got as opposed to what we have now - and that's where we get our answers: In regards to PvP it got totally, massively butchered. It's a bit harder to figure out what happened in regards to heroes, though.

Lishy · Aug 06, 2009, 02:11 AM // 02:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Impressive. You can trivialize the entire diminishment of PvP to an armchair psychiatry statement.

Because no matter what way you look at it, pvp was bad prior to battle isles?
It wasn't until battle isles that GW pvp was actually any good since you were locked into pve characters prior to battle isles. And you know what that meant, right?
The person with the 100k +50 hp inscription, +30 sword pommel, and +30 shield handle, as well as vampiric sword haft always won. And there were no balance.
Sure, factions introduced the unbalanced ritualist and assassin. But no climax is without its flaws.

Zinger314 · Aug 06, 2009, 02:25 AM // 02:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

It wasn't until battle isles that GW pvp was actually any good since you were locked into pve characters prior to battle isles. And you know what that meant, right?
The person with the 100k +50 hp inscription, +30 sword pommel, and +30 shield handle, as well as vampiric sword haft always won.

PvP characters have been in GW since the beginning.

JoeKnowMo · Aug 06, 2009, 02:56 AM // 02:56

It's mainly PvPers that are nostalgic and for good reason. PvEers got more areas, more skills, pve skills, mini-games, more festival events, pve titles, and more skins/armors. The addition of heroes was a double-edged sword, but the daily z-mission/z-bounty has improved things on that front.

THK pugs, Tank n' spank, UW trapway, and terribly high prices are some of the things that I certainly don't miss.

fenix · Aug 06, 2009, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Because no matter what way you look at it, pvp was bad prior to battle isles?
It wasn't until battle isles that GW pvp was actually any good since you were locked into pve characters prior to battle isles. And you know what that meant, right?
The person with the 100k +50 hp inscription, +30 sword pommel, and +30 shield handle, as well as vampiric sword haft always won. And there were no balance.
Sure, factions introduced the unbalanced ritualist and assassin. But no climax is without its flaws.

I'm guessing you've never watched PvP, played PvP, heard about PvP, or even KNOW about PvP.

If you do, then you MUST know how ridiculous your post is.

QueenofDeath · Aug 06, 2009, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Sadly once you lose your mmo/mmorpg virginity on one mmorpg none of the next ones will ever feel the same or give that initial excitement the first one did.

I started out with Everquest as a Halas Barbarian Shaman and I will never forget that experience and that daily urge to get back and play it day after day night after night weekend after weekend it was so addicting. Every waking spare time moment was spent in the world of Everquest.

I remember it taking me 5 hours of playtime to get from Halas to Crushbone. Not knowing the maps are the best parts of these games. Fear is another major issue as back in the "good ole days" they didn't have romper room babyfied death penalties like GW has. Man you died and you lost a lot of experience and could even lose a level and if you didn't get your body back in 7 real days you lost everything corpse and your stuff. That was exciting too. It also made for keeping good close friends and not being a rats ass like players in GW are because there are no consequences.

Many times players needed HELP to get their stuff back. Get known as a jackazz in Everquest and you pretty much assured yourself of losing everything. See EQ REQUIRED pugging moreso than not. Oh sure you could solo some things, but, most of it was PUG/Group oriented and some azzwipes would try to solo that stuff and then die and then expect everyone around to give up their play time to help them get their stuff. lol

And now EQ has romperfied itself with some graveyard location that if you can't get to your body within the 7 day limit it puts your corpse there WITH ALL YOUR STUFF <what a stupid decision and cost the loss of players> Then they went and made this POP [planes of power] expansion that you can get to from practically any NEWBIE zone and zone around the world without any effort on your part at all. Gone are the travels of FEAR past giants and zombies and bandits and all things that could stomp you in the dirt if they saw you. Just POP into POP and go from one newbie location to the next FREE of charge. See, back in the "good ole days" you had to PAY for stuff like that ... either a high level druid or wizard had to teleport you to those places, but, POP ruined that fun of the game for those that liked to transport people around for pay.

It seems all mmorpg games have gone to the candyland romper room kiddified way of play. Easy simple no real loss death penalties like GW. The ability to transport yourself clear accross the world at NO COST.[stupid] The ability to play with AI as your party members now instead of real people and easily march through 99% of the content like it was still newbieland battles.

So yeah nostalgia play is and was better for a lot of us. You had to be a good player and you had to be a nice player back "in the good ole days" cause you needed friends and people to help you from time to time. GW is not a game like that until you get to the very hard part like the Elite areas and even those are being conquered by solo sins and 55 monks. GW is a gimmick game now really you win by playing gimmicks not by skill. By not eliminating and nerfing the 55 monk back "in the good ole days" it was the beginning of the end for GW from that moment on.

ElexAio · Aug 06, 2009, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Haven't read the entire thread but,

I agree that most of the nostalgic feeling is simply missing the fact that everything was new.

However, logically thinking, I can say that I REALLY mis how loot was pre-lootscaling. I say if a solo farmer kills all the same monsters as a group of 8, he should get all the drops of that group of 8 combined, he killed them alone, after all. Solo farming was a lot of fun and effective, I always felt a sense of powerfulness by killing things alone. But nowadays its just grab henchies/heroes and go, no use for an interesting farming build.

I believe NF (heroes ) is what removed most of pve's difficulty (then pve skills) , preventing the oh so common situation of getting stuck at THK. Losing missions repetitively never bothered me, because beating them always gave this greater sense of accomplishment back then.

edit: and I agree that there is the nostalgia for the previous status of the community. People always seem to complain about PuGs, but I always loved to PuG, nowadays someone looking for a group gets laughed at "lol just use heroez".

Ariena Najea · Aug 06, 2009, 05:22 AM // 05:22

I started playing when Factions came out, and I thought everything was nice and balanced.

This means I may have had a seizure if I had been able to PvP prior to the release of silly Shadow Steps (RTL is fine), Weapon Spells, and other imbalance mechanics. The thought of it makes me jealous.

There have been many improvements though, such as the addition of PvP characters. The PvE content is still as hard as you make it, and you will obviously not have a similar challenge as back in the day if you bring heroes, PvE skills, or lame garbage.

Dagoth Umbra · Aug 06, 2009, 05:47 AM // 05:47

If we had all of the improvements we have now at the beginning of the game, that would have been awesome. The improvements we have now were definitely necessary (many of them should have been there from the beginning).

I think that what destroyed PUGs was the time and money it takes to get skills. People talk about how GW was supposed to be a game based upon skill, but the irony is that to be skilled you needs skills (in addition to knowing how to aggro or not, etc, of course). If everyone could easily get all of the skills, then I think there might have been better PUGs (maybe). Seriously, even with a group of not-too-bright Necromancers, with 8 of them, everyone could just run Discord, and all they would need to do is follow the called target (assuming they are smart enough to do that...) Or for example Searing Flames... or Ranger Spike, or Paragon Spike, etc. I have seen a bunch of skills that would be awesome to run with 7 other real people. I would love to try more builds in PvE, but to experiment can require way too much money.

Also, one reason I think why PvP has so few people now is that many people who would like to PvP are instead spending so much time playing PvE. I would love to play PvP, but my personality is such that I want to complete something before moving on to the next thing, and so I am still working on getting every PvE character to where I want them to be.

And as others have said, it takes awhile to get people good enough to be able to play PvP. They need to get skills in order to use those skills so they can understand how they work. If it takes a long time to get all the skills they need, then they cannot play PvP effectively, and if they cannot play effectively, they won't want to play. I generally don't play PvP until I have all the skills I can get, so I won't be kicked from a group when someone asks me to run with a certain skill and I don't have it.

My 2 cents

YunSooJin · Aug 06, 2009, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Because no matter what way you look at it, pvp was bad prior to battle isles?
It wasn't until battle isles that GW pvp was actually any good since you were locked into pve characters prior to battle isles. And you know what that meant, right?
The person with the 100k +50 hp inscription, +30 sword pommel, and +30 shield handle, as well as vampiric sword haft always won. And there were no balance.
Sure, factions introduced the unbalanced ritualist and assassin. But no climax is without its flaws.

hai gaiz this is wut self ownage looks like lol

Alleji · Aug 06, 2009, 07:00 AM // 07:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Because no matter what way you look at it, pvp was bad prior to battle isles?
It wasn't until battle isles that GW pvp was actually any good since you were locked into pve characters prior to battle isles. And you know what that meant, right?
The person with the 100k +50 hp inscription, +30 sword pommel, and +30 shield handle, as well as vampiric sword haft always won. And there were no balance.
Sure, factions introduced the unbalanced ritualist and assassin. But no climax is without its flaws.

PvE characters did have pretty sizeable advantages prior to battle isles (armor swapping, more than 2 weapons, etc) but you're blowing things out of proportion.

You would still get stomped by someone who knew how to play the game, using a PvP char.

Not to mention that pretty much all the top players would have decked PvE chars of the classes they most commonly played, anyway. They still do. Go observe a HoH match and count the number of fissure armors and tormented shields. It's always been that way, even in 2005.

DreamWind · Aug 06, 2009, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Nostalgia is often a factor...but when it comes to Guild Wars it is not.

I could go on and on about the differences in PvE but that isn't necessary. To me PvP was the best thing this game ever had going for it, and it is clear that PvP has taken a beating in terms of community, support, gameplay, and balance.

Guild Wars used to be a better game...I have absolutely no doubt in my mind.

Divinus Stella · Aug 06, 2009, 01:29 PM // 13:29

The game has certainly improved since release, the only reason people prefer the guild wars of 4 years ago is because they have played it too much since, i have no doubt that if i was new to this game again i'd be absolutely hooked but the 4 years of play has removed all enthusiasm for me.

PvP isn't any worse now than it was 3 years ago, top 50 gvg was always the same teams facing eachother every night with stale builds.
People like to think there was a huge variety of players and skills being used but thats memories for you.

The one thing that made the game better to begin with was the surge of new players and unknown aspects of the game, its the same as watching a movie for the second time, its still a great movie but not what it was first time round.