Guild Wars 2

Simply curious.

I try to play daily, at least for a few hours. I am part of a very small and close guild that does daily dungeons. It feels more like a conversation than a grind.

So I am not bored. But I could see being bored with the game without this social aspect.

What are the mindsets of everyone else? I am very interested, as while I am not the biggest fan of the Living Story ending at all, I am not as angry as everyone else on the forums.

I often play alone, my guildies only play on weekends (Fri and Sat nights, in their time zone). I am not bored, in the least.

I play alone in game but am always chatting with my guildies on TeamSpeak. They usually have done their dailies before I get online but I don’t mind.

OptimistPrime.9283:

Simply curious.

I try to play daily, at least for a few hours. I am part of a very small and close guild that does daily dungeons. It feels more like a conversation than a grind.

So I am not bored. But I could see being bored with the game without this social aspect.

What are the mindsets of everyone else? I am very interested, as while I am not the biggest fan of the Living Story ending at all, I am not as angry as everyone else on the forums.

I wish i had such “small and close” guild in my server. Lucky you

I just left a large guild and went to a much smaller guild. I must say, guild chatter keeps the game from being boring in a lot of ways. I use to farm for hours and never get bored, now 15 minutes tops and I give up. Guild chatter is everything in this game IMO

I play alone because most guild I’ve joined were focused on grinding and farming and that being the main point of conversation in the guild chat.

I spend a lot of time playing alone, but I am also part of two guilds who I do things with as well.

Generally, I am not bored of the game. However, whenever I do notice myself getting bored, I am always solo at that point.

I belong to two guilds. One is comprised of old friends, the other is friends/coworkers from another game I QA for. If you put them together, it’s about 30 people, maybe.

They actually keep me busy to such a degree that sometimes I just have to say “I need to play alone for a bit,” because I really enjoy just taking my time, exploring, and challenging myself without the aid of a team, at times.

I have played the game when both guilds were temp inactive simultaneously, I didn’t really get bored. I just explored the world. But I also can’t play nonstop because of QA work/job as an illustrator.

I’ve always played alone.

Before 80 it was a pain to try to get people to do any content with you, it always felt like they were doing you a big favour.

So I got to 80 on my on and by the time I got there I had enough gold for a full set of exotic gear.

Thought I’d join a guild then, so I did, a few, ones after the others.
In all of them the story was the same, you had a few top players that got access to the guild bank (deposit and withdraw, basically making it an extension of their personal bank) banner spawn and later on, guild missions.
Sure you could ask in guild chat for help as much as you’d like, all you got was low level players.
The only time you’d hear from the guild leaders was if for any reason you weren’t representing “you’re denying influence to your guild” one once told me.
I’m sorry, my guild? What did the guild ever done for me? That was the last drop really, I just made my own, I’ve only allowed my brother to join, and guess what, already have 250 bank slots there, all that influence would otherwise be enjoined by some guy that never did anything for me.
When I wanna do dungeons I’ll just host it and PUG, don’t owe any favours to anyone.

On the rare occasions I get bored with GW2 (just so I answer your question) it’s NOT because I play alone.

I don’t play alone. I’m in a small guild of friends and we often play together. Our guild is too small to take advantage of any of the guild events they’ve added to the game and none of us play for hours at a time, but there is a social aspect when we’re on.

Dean Calaway.9718:

I’ve always played alone.

Before 80 it was a pain to try to get people to do any content with you, it always felt like they were doing you a big favour.

So I got to 80 on my on and by the time I got there I had enough gold for a full set of exotic gear.

Thought I’d join a guild then, so I did, a few, ones after the others.
In all of them the story was the same, you had a few top players that got access to the guild bank (deposit and withdraw, basically making it an extension of their personal bank) banner spawn and later on, guild missions.
Sure you could ask in guild chat for help as much as you’d like, all you got was low level players.
The only time you’d hear from the guild leaders was if for any reason you weren’t representing “you’re denying influence to your guild” one once told me.
I’m sorry, my guild? What did the guild ever done for me? That was the last drop really, I just made my own, I’ve only allowed my brother to join, and guess what, already have 250 bank slots there, all that influence would otherwise be enjoined by some guy that never did anything for me.
When I wanna do dungeons I’ll just host it and PUG, don’t owe any favours to anyone.

On the rare occasions I get bored with GW2 (just so I answer your question) it’s NOT because I play alone.

You had very bad experiences with guilds, I hope you find one that suites you.

I play alone because people suck.

Zacchary.6183:

I play alone because people suck.

Boom. New quote of the day.

I play alone. Sometimes I get bored, sometimes I don’t.
I do think Socialisation helps alot. Having stupid conversations in LA keeps me playing for hours.

Guild leaders can focus too much on the wrong things. They want a big roster, so they spam recruitment messages in map chat. Sure you’ll get numbers that way, but then they wonder why players aren’t repping or have gone inactive.

The guild I’m with is part of a larger gaming community (other chapters include FF14, WoW, maybe Wildstar when it launches) Recruits come in through member recommendations and there’s a 30 day trial period to move recruits from “stranger” to “friend.” Some people think that’s crazy, but it really helps weed out the bad apples. And even though our GW2 roster isn’t huge (~50 active), we have very committed players who are willing to contribute to group as a whole. It helps greatly that the leadership sets this example.

For me, this keeps me gaming much more than I would if I were always solo.

I prefer to play psuedo-solo. Meaning I join up with whomever I come across in PvE/WvW that is doing the same thing, then we part ways when the objective is done. It provides fun, sometimes light conversation, and no commitments.

Everything I need to know about guilds I learned from Eve Online.

I play solo and in group. I run a very small guild and I am a member of a very large guild. Each offer something different. But I’m also never bored ever! I use both guilds rep ping each as I can. I learn from the big guild and teach it to my little guild.

I play other games, so I am not really active player in gw2. I just come when something cool is in the game…

WvW about to get realty active for a lot of pve players so that something for a lot of ppl to get into. As for me my guild dose GvG in OS or by the windmill they are fun and very intestines.
So no i am not bored and it tends to be the ppl who cant make there own fun and needs to be forced on them that tend to be bored in mmorpgs or any online game. Simply put boring ppl are always going to be bored.

I level and explore alone, do my monthlies and dailies alone but play with a small group (literally 5 of us) on game night every week. It’s a bit like having drinks with friends but we’re all drinking virtually…..well, maybe not.

I also play solo during the week and with guildmates on weekends. Sometimes we fit in a weeknight, although it’s rare.

Background

The boredom I have experienced with 8 or so MMO’s I have played over the last 14+ years is in a large part my own issue, and I accept and own that issue. It is often offset by being social. However, that same sense of boredom is also exacerbated by game design, particularly those that have been developed in recent years (within the last decade.) I learned, after becoming bored with WoW 3 months after release, that other games since then have had a similar 3-6 month limit before I became bored. I believe this was mostly due to the emergence of games that promoted both “easier” gameplay and less community-oriented content; the combo of those became a one-two punch in terms of fostering boredom.

The worst game designs for me are those that have been created as directive-gameplay. WoW’s railcart quest system introduced with Cataclysm and to a large extent GW2’s Living Story are two examples, both of which put the focus on execution rather than thinking and problem solving. They do not provide enough challenge for me.

Raph Koster said it best in his book A Theory of Fun the fun is in the challenge. Once the challenge is gone, the fun is gone. In other words, once the player has learned how to play (working through the learning/problem solving process of a game), he is done with the “fun” part.

DAoC was the one game I played for years that did not have that affect. Between RvR and Gaheris (and the exceptional community there), I never had a chance to become bored.

Even though most games these days hit that boring mark about 3-6 months out, I will stay with a game for years if it is one that suits my guild and my guild enjoys. I’ve known some of my guildmates for over 26 years, some going on 29 years. We’ve been playing together as a tight-knit team for 15. I play for my guild. If the game has a good community on top of that, that’s gravy for me.

We do try and offset boredom ourselves.

Our guild has in the past, and is still currently, trying to get the most of the games we play by inserting our own level of challenge, doing things the in game with less people than the game promotes. Things like, 10 and 20 man raids with only 5 characters, or playing three alts all at the same time (manually) while raid leading 50 to 200 people. In GW2 this translated into doing Explorables, Fractals and WvW with only 4. We found in WvW that we could take keeps as easily as a full zerg. Those are the kind of things that keep my guild engaged.

We also have a strong core that values helping other players. Even in games like WoW and RIFT where “enemies” shared PvE space. We’d find a way (using emotes) to offer assistance, or just jump in if a player was struggling. We recognize there are “real people”, who are fellow players, sitting there on the other side of a computer screen. “Real” people keep the game “real”. That is also part of the attraction of WvW for us, helping our server.

Summary

I get bored easily. Like Bloodrose, I chew through challenges/content/leveling like tissue paper. (Props if you get the reference. )

I do not do LS unless my guildmates haul me in. I have completely avoided several, including the entirety of the last one in Lion’s Arch. I don’t enjoy directive/execution only gameplay.

I enjoy being solo. I also enjoy being part of a larger community. I play for my guild and the strong relationships we have. I enjoy a game that has the diversity of playstyle to allow me to enjoy both solo and community aspects.

Bottom line:

Design components (such as non-stationary combat) draw me into a game. Once the challenge is gone though, only my guild keeps me there.

Without my guild, I can easily leave a game quickly. I did that once after 2 weeks, with a game called GW1.

I turn down pretty much any guild that demands 100% representation. Look for guilds and judge them by their members to find out if they’re just looking to bolster their influence or really trying to create a community.

Not that 100% rep guilds are all bad or anything or just looking out for themselves. But it’s definitely not my type of thing. Incidentally, I almost always rep my guild anyways out of respect, not because I am required to. I’ve known them for a decade for games outside Gw2 though; however I only joined about a year ago.

I recently isolated myself from guilds because I was bored of the game, and only those guilds kept me logging in. But now they are pretty boring to me also. I still cannot escape GW2!

I’m very much a solo player, though I’m in a guild that does guild missions (which are fun) and has very good announcements of Dragonite opportunities as they happen (so I often join in when they give the call).

Mostly I like setting up nice cosmetic combinations, so this game should fit me to a tee, but I’m largely done hunting down this or that rare skin (Infinite Light on my guard, no interest in the looks of any of the Legendary weapons). I’m thinking about making a Volcanus, but the amount of gold it’s going to take to merge all the cores into lodestones just makes me queasy. I’m not that into it.

Basically its the lack of goals achievable without resorting to weeks on the champ train that brings me down the worst. And contradictory goals too – I’d be saving up T6 mats for a Legendary (in prep for wave 2) if I didn’t keep spending through them to build up my crafting ranks. I’m happy to have all the 500s, but I can’t help looking at my bank tabs and thinking ‘crud, I’m back were I was 8 months ago on the Gifts of Might and Magic…"

I socialized with someone once, it was an awful experience.