State of the In-game Community

[Disillusioned]

Greetings

I remember when I first started playing GW, couple months after it's release, still fresh and new, people were friendly and helpful and thowing a PUG together was relatively straight forward. I finished all 3 compaings on multiple characters, enjoyed every second of it and made more than a few friends in the process.

I've just now come back to the game after a few years off (anniversary email peaked my interest) and spent the last week playing through eoth for the first time, replaying regular missions in HM, new to me, enjoying festival events and a few zaishen m/b/v's which are also new to me.

The one thing that struck me like a slap in the face is the current state of the GW community in-game. It sucks. Spent most of the week PUGing and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal or not the current FOTM you get ridiculed and laughed at instead of offered advice. And if you have the brass balled nerve of actually making a mistake you get labeled a "f***ing noob" and subsequently kicked from the party. Asking questions in local or party chat has also mostly yielded insults and finger pointing at the state of my noobishness.

Now I understand that GW is an old game and that most players know their way around by now. But for a new player, or a returning player, it's hell.

The alternative is using heroes and henchies but I find playing solo massively boring and in my opinion it defeats the entire purpose of an MMO. There are are dozens of single player RPGs on the market and if playing alone is what I wanted I would follow that route instead.

Browsing around these boards I see much worry over the future of guild wars, with it's dwindling numbers and especially with GW2 on the horizon. One would think that the community would greet new or returning players with open arms to bolster the ranks, but what I've seen so far (in-game) is a bunch of elitist pricks stroking their epeen and making life generally miserable for anyone who hasn't kept up with the million intricacies in GW.

[Improvavel]

Join a guild for new players, make your own guild for new players or join a guild that have people that like to help new players.

Don't make generalizations - generally when I see people asking questions in chat, I for once, answer them amd seem other people do the same.

PUGs always sucked - don't let the blurred memories with the marvel of the discovery of a new game fool you.

Guild Wars evolved - these days GW is a single player game as much it is a multi-player game, if not more.

Get a real life friend into the game to play with you or befriend someone in game and try to have a character that you guys only play with each other - the game is quite enjoyable in a 2 player setup.

[majoho]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned

The one thing that struck me like a slap in the face is the current state of the GW community in-game. It sucks. Spent most of the week PUGing and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal or not the current FOTM you get ridiculed and laughed at instead of offered advice. And if you have the brass balled nerve of actually making a mistake you get labeled a "f***ing noob" and subsequently kicked from the party. Asking questions in local or party chat has also mostly yielded insults and finger pointing at the state of my noobishness.

Well the thing is that most likely the people actually bothering to group up are super elitists that wants to get it done with as fast as possible that's why they want people to use specific builds.

I'm fairly certain that most players just do stuff with heroes because... well because they can, there is no real reason to pug.

I don't think those people are representative of the community, I'm guessing most people posting here would help newbies if they had a hard time doing something... at least I would. (and I'm not calling you a newbie it was just an example).

(damn I need to learn how to use commas).

[yarddog]

join a guild that does things together or isnt afraid to offer positive advice on a build. and welcome back .............need help PM me here.

[My New Name]

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Join a guild for new players, make your own guild for new players or join a guild that have people that like to help new players.

Don't make generalizations - generally when I see people asking questions in chat, I for once, answer them amd seem other people do the same.

PUGs always sucked - don't let the blurred memories with the marvel of the discovery of a new game fool you.

Guild Wars evolved - these days GW is a single player game as much it is a multi-player game, if not more.

Get a real life friend into the game to play with you or befriend someone in game and try to have a character that you guys only play with each other - the game is quite enjoyable in a 2 player setup.

if an MMO game becomes a single player game i wouldn't call that evolving... maybe GW degenerated covers it better...
OP: I too remember better days when PuGs did fail (they always have and always will), but it was pleasant playing with them, there was little to no raging, and even failing was a bit frustrating, but more fun when there were no so many ppl swearing you for minor mistakes... (or calling you noob cuz of your build or smth)

[Zebideedee]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned

The one thing that struck me like a slap in the face is the current state of the GW community in-game. It sucks. Spent most of the week PUGing and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal or not the current FOTM you get ridiculed and laughed at instead of offered advice. And if you have the brass balled nerve of actually making a mistake you get labeled a "f***ing noob" and subsequently kicked from the party. Asking questions in local or party chat has also mostly yielded insults and finger pointing at the state of my noobishness.

Sounds like you've just been unlucky and grouped with some of the stupid GW's kiddies, stay away from the caps lock

Best bet is join a guild, I mostly only group with alliance and guild members. Occasionaly I'll join a random bunch for the zaishen things if it's one of the longer ones and no guildies or alliance members doing it.

Some people also think the sun shines out of PvX's rear end and any builds not from there or discord etc. etc. will be fail, their narrowminded loss imho.

Welcome back anywhoo's and hope you have better luck

[Dewshine Wildclaw]

Im sorry to hear you had an unpleasant comeback, however not everyone is like that.
There are friendly helpful guilds out there, that allow you to make mistakes or use less "eliteist" builds.
Also I often answer questions in all chat in a friendly manner, if I know the answer ofc. so not everyone is rude.

Then I (and many others) just don't pug anymore, for more minor things heroes will do, for other stuff Im glad to have a guild and/or friends to join.

[Skyy High]

Game is old. Most people have done most content at least once, and now they're repeating it for titles / alts, so they want to do it as efficiently as possible. That's just the way of things. Now, that should just mean that people play with heroes more often instead of PUGs; if you're getting rude players in a PUG at this point, I think you're just having some bad luck, because my recent experience is that PUGs are more well-behaved now than they've been in years, precisely because they're so rare (relatively). I was in a PUG with a guy for the last two missions in Factions, and after killing Shiro he actually said "Thank you so much for partying with me!" and paid me 4k! That is how grateful some players are just for you to play with them.

My advice: start your own group. Get some heroes so you can take charge of filling your party's gaps (always best if the leader takes this role, imo) and you don't have to wait too long to get going. Don't demand much of your team; skills are so OP-ed at this point that, save for some HM stuff, it really doesn't matter what you bring as long as it's functional. Anyone who demands specific builds for basic NM content is a loon, and you shouldn't party with them.

[Quaker]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned

Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal or not the current FOTM you get ridiculed and laughed at instead of offered advice.

Actually, I don't think that most of these type of players are "bitter vets". Most vets (like me, for example) have been playing long enough to have a full compliment of (Mercenary) heroes, so they have no need to form groups - and when/if they do form/join groups, they do it for fun and are not so dictatorial.
What you are running into are the "mini-vets" - these are the players who, for whatever reason, still need to form groups, but think of themselves as "leet". They don't have the skills/gold/experience to make their own builds or heroes, so they rely on pre-packaged PvX crap and insist that others do too. It's becoming harder to avoid these creeps because fewer and fewer real veterans are doing PUGs.

[ErrantVenture]

Sorry but, my response to your entire post is: Why spend time teaching a new player (who will most likely not listen to you) when you could get your mission done quicker, easier, and more efficiently by using 7 heroes. It's not that the community is bitter an angry, the players have just gotten better at the game.

As a rule PUGs are bad, rude, and a waste of time. If you're really interested in playing with other people instead of NPCs I'd advise finding a good guild. Playing with people you've become friends with and trust as competent players is infinitely superior to playing with pugs.

[Sk8tborderx]

This tends to happen in almost all games. Guild wars is especially bad because of GW2. New content is being developed to allow players to experience the events in-between the 2 games, the only other thing to do is grind out titles.

[Dervish Kid]

honestly just got here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/g...ment-f265.html

look for a pvp or pve guild and go from there. get vent and taadaaa. don't really need to even have local chat on with a friendly guild/alliance.

[jazilla]

I am a long time player and after playing LOTRO as well I now totally agree with what you are saying. GW for the most part has a really bad PUG population. BUT, my favorite people to game with came from GW. Double edged sword imo. I don't pug in GW but I totally pug in LOTRO anytime. Heck, even if you wipe a few times in LOTRO, people are still really cool.

[StormDragonZ]

If you find anyone who says he/she is bored, they probably just stand around talking in local chat for up to six hours a day without any real progression in their gameplay.

[Improvavel]

Originally Posted by My New Name

if an MMO game becomes a single player game i wouldn't call that evolving... maybe GW degenerated covers it better...
OP: I too remember better days when PuGs did fail (they always have and always will), but it was pleasant playing with them, there was little to no raging, and even failing was a bit frustrating, but more fun when there were no so many ppl swearing you for minor mistakes... (or calling you noob cuz of your build or smth)

Evolving doesn't mean becoming better, it means becoming different and surviving the environment conditions.

Guild Wars did that pretty well and it is quite a good single player game considering it wasn't designed as one.

[Cuilan]

A lot of my builds aren't really quite "meta" or what not. I generally don't get any sort of fuss or complaints. Sometimes someone throws out "Panic" or "UA please" but I know why my build is just as good if not better. It's pretty rare that it ever turns into a problem. Paragons seems to be the main one that has this issue, but there's a lot of reason behind that.

Don't confuse a suggestion of a skill or pinged build with a command.

[jiggles]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned

Most players have turned into bitter vets after nothing but titles. If your build is less than optimal...

There is literally nothing else worth playing this game for, other than titles.

They want you to run the optimal build, because here's a hint, it's the best. People don't want to spend 20mins playing with other people only to fail because someone decided to bring flare instead of res. Why do that when they could just do it with heroes and hench in 30mins and not fail?

Everything was better 6 years ago when this game was brand new, but it's old now. Everyone else has started to accept this, you should too.

[Chrisworld]

Originally Posted by jiggles

Everything was better 6 years ago when this game was brand new, but it's old now. Everyone else has started to accept this, you should too.

Don't hate the game, hate the players.

[ServiusTheBear]

If I may add my 2 cents as they call it. The community seems pretty good to me. Ok yeah am in a good friendly guild that is very helpful and fun. Even those that are not in the guild are very friendly but that might be cause am in a guild. So far I can say I have not ran into anything to say that is was bad in anyway. Even when running in a mission and dieing several times. All laughing it off. I can understand that die hards might be douchies. But hey like Chrisworld said not much you can do than just accept it. Ignore those that wana be like douchies.

[Angel Killuminati]

Same as other people have said really, I can't imagine what it's like for new players. Must be quite bad. I never do pve with a PUG group, and always do things at my own pace. Not because i'm slow, but the same as others have said, purely because i'm maxing my own titles.

Think then if you will, that others are maxing titles and you have the reason why people are so picky. People want to max titles; want to speed through areas and missions and generally aren't interested in slowing down with make shift builds. It sounds sad and bad but that's just the way a game evolves after so many years. Quite simply, it's old.

Join a guild of new players of as bad as it is, you'll have to accept that. Gone ae the days of acceptance, and it's the same as any other 5+ year old MMO. Speaking honestly, it's what scares me about joining other MMO games etc. The learning curve is usually high, not because of the games engine etc, but because of being able to play the game as good as other veterans.