Guild Wars 2

I played Guild Wars 2 for the first couple months around launch, and while I loved it, and recognized it as the first real next gen (in my opinion) MMO. I had just come off of a full year and a half of misery from Cataclysm, and I just wasn’t in the right mindset to commit long term to another MMO after that (to quote Spoony) “BETRAYAL!!!”.

After logging in it really feels like I’ve missed an expansion, or two of content, and I am completely lost. However this may just be only a skin deep observation. To be honest it’s kind of intimidating, and overwhelming. Not to mention in the two guild my account is in not a single name is on, and it’s a bunch of grayed out names (Although this is to be expected as all of these people were from fresh launch, and the really committed either joined an end game group, or just bailed).

Not to say I didn’t meet anyone on my adventures, but it was mostly PuGs, and casual acquaintances who would run stuff together seldomly, and while I assume at least some of them still play I never made use of my friends list because I assumed that some group would eventually pick me up for endgame.

I’m also kind of bummed as to how much gold to crystals are now because I was kind of excited to transfer to the unofficial RP server, but wow that seems highly unlikely.

So I guess the point of this would really be for anyone to share some tips to get back into the groove of things, and if anyone else has recently come back to share some personal experience on re-integrating into the community. Also if it helps I have only 80 Engineer, and then the rest of my slots are filled with alts. I am willing to just roll a new character if that would help me get back into it faster with all the new additions, and content.

Thanks for any help in advance, and hope everyone is having fun!

Clark Skinner.4902:

oflow.2157:

it basically splintered the community pretty hard too soon and forced people into running on the FotM treadmill for fear of being left behind.

You used to be able to log in and have fun at 80 running around farming in Orr. Once FotM dropped its a ghost town, so new 80s cant really get group events done there since no one is there they are all in LA waiting for fractal groups.

THIS. I feel so strongly about this. I took my time with this game. Put in lots of hours but I read the NPC dialogue, didn’t rush, walked to most places, enjoyed things as I went. I had faith that the path ahead of me would still be there when I reached the end, so I let everyone rush past me and burn out.
But I was stupid, as so many things were taken advantage of by those people and subsequently removed or nerfed. So now when I am reaching them (at a pace that Anet would be happier with), I am being punished with DR, untradeable karma items, longer timers, lower population, dungeon shortcuts removed, higher gem price, much difficulty finding a place to make a profit in trading (as others have found all ways to make money).

I barely cracked Malchor’s Leap and can’t get any further because no one at that level is doing anything other than Fractals.

This worries me because it makes me feel like any character I come back to level will have a hard time once they hit cap, I do have a character at cap already my Asura Engineer that I played at the firs few weeks of launch, but for my return I decided I want to try out all the classes a bit, then level one up that I can really enjoy, however that makes it seem like my attempts will be futile.

I will still continue to play of course because once I have my mind set to come back to a game I will, but that’s mainly because I really just want to see my character’s arc, and story. Now I guess I can just hope I find a good group, or guild by the time I get my newest character up.

I have found all of your posts extremely interesting, and makes me want to say a few more things. I would like to differentiate what makes me drawn to an MMO in the first place, to what makes me stay.

Like I said previously the common denominator that makes me stick to an MMO for years is having a group of friends to play with. However some of the main things that draw me towards an MMO are…

- An original, and unique art style, that can’t be compared to anything else, and makes you think anything except generic. Guild Wars 2 is like this to me because it just looks so unique among it’s piers, I love the diversity of not only the races physical appearance, but fashion, and architecture.

- Bringing something new to the table, whether it be small, or big, or just taking all the loose ideas of other games, and bringing it to a whole new level. Guild Wars 2 does this to me in a way that just blew my mind the first time I experience it, and that is no tapped kills. It really feels like an experience where I can run around helping people, and being helped by people when I am taking on a onslaught of enemies, such a small thing really makes it feel like more than a game.

Another thing I love about Guild Wars 2, is the fact that it really feels like they have gotten dynamic events right, you can be walking through a zone when suddenly an NPC shouts at you that there is an attack somewhere, and as soon as you get there you see a battle unfolding before you, just one more thing that makes it feel like more than a game. I could list a million different ways that Guild Wars 2 has impressed me in this category, but I will leave it at that.

- Story, and lore are by far the most important things to me when entering an MMO. As someone who would love to be an Author one day (Which who knows, I may pull an Alan Rickman when I hit my 40’s.) it’s just something that sucks me into a game so much more than if the lore is not there, generic, or boring. The most important thing in this subject to me is a character arc, the idea of humble beginnings to saving your people, to fighting dragons, to saving an entire world is just absolutely breath-taking to me.

This is the first time I will have posted in a forum in a very long time, the last time that comes to memory is two, to three years ago. My question spawns from me being curious about what makes other people stick to an MMO, as I haven’t been able to stick to one for a few weeks for about three years. From Aion, to Rift, to DC Universe Online, to Lord of the Rings Online, to Age of Conan, all the way to SWTOR, I haven’t been able to play it past getting to level cap.

When I think back to the only two MMOs that have been able to hold my attention for years at a time (Those being WoW launch through the first month of Cataclysm, and FFXI) the main reason I kept playing is because going into those games I had friends, and as soon as we all hit cap I had a schedule already in place for me to do end game, and didn’t have to worry about finding people to play with.

What all the other games had in common was I never met a single person while playing the game, I always did everything on my own, and never had a single person to play with. The other reason why I ask this is because right now I am going to try to get back into GW2 after I haven’t played in a few months, because much like those other games I never had a chance to do anything after leveling because I never had a group of people to play with. This time around I am going to try to find a guild, or at least some reason to keep on past leveling, and the main reason I am giving this another chance is because after playing it pretty much no other MMO matches this, it just feels so ahead of it’s peers, like the real next gen MMO.