Guild Wars 2

There has never been an official GW forum. Guildwarsguru.com is as close as it ever came (I think). It’s still being moderated, and people are still posting there.

The lore really is wonderful. And you are very important to the story, so enjoy!

I’m not sure it’s permitted to name other websites, but try posting on guildwarsguru. There are lots of people willing to go through the missions. Or just work on them gradually on Zaishen challenge days.

Vayne.8563:

We must have played with different people. While I was the only “build guy” in my guild, I’m pretty sure most people went to PvX wiki, got a build and never thought twice about it.

The guys who loved to build are few and far between and generally far more attached to Guild Wars 1 than the average casual player. It’s like theorycrafters in other games. Min/maxers. They’re never the majority…for a reason. You have to have that mindset and be pretty intelligent. Most games are of average intelligence and don’t delve that deeply into the game. So you talk to the top 15, maybe 20 percent and sure. They loved it.

What about the other percentage that just logs in and plays and pretty much takes things at face value?

Guild Wars 1 was called build wars for a reason, and those builds were both the strength and the downfall of the game. Anet changed it for a reason and the reason they changed it is valid…in my opinion.

Is it as much fun, build-wise? No.

But they were very up front with exactly what builds in this game would be like long before launch.

There’s a middle ground between pvxwiki and individual theorycrafting. All it took was a sense of adventure and interest in trying something new. My guild—my alliance—was full of those people. In PvE and PvP—including all forms—we were always mixing it up.

We obviously had mixed results, especially in PvP, but for us it was all about fun and experimentation, which is entirely lacking in GW2. I have a feeling, though, when you say “build wars” you mean serious business.

PvP
guild halls
guild halls
guild halls
raid-like adventures (UW, FoW, Urgoz, Deep, DoA)

PolarisNova.3867:

In LOTRO I near enough broke my butt saving for a guild hall (or kinship houses in that game) only for people to never use the thing.

I’d prefer player housing

Like Misty Red Rose said, in GW the guild hall was used all the time. It was usually the default location to log characters, since the cities took a little longer to load. Guild activities were organized there, meetings, chit chat, trading/giving away, inventory management, everything happened there.

Also you needed a guild hall to do gvg, so there’s that.

CobaltSixty.1542:

A very very small minority of people liked spending hours coming up with builds. It is the entire reason PvX wiki was so incredibly popular.

Are you sure about that “very very small minority?” What is your data for that conclusion? I myself was very inventive when left to my own devices, in both pve and pvp. Not always successful but always experimental. It doesn’t mean I didn’t go to pvxwiki for the “ideal” builds for farming etc sometimes. But judging an entire community’s “likes” by the popularity of one website wouldn’t be very reliable, I’d think.

Zzod.5791:

2 chicks at once.

+3 for Office Space

One thing that site doesn’t convey is the music. The music plus the particular scenery. That’s what gets me going.

(Yes, I know Jeremy Soule did GW2’s music too.)

violentlycar.5267:

Yeah… I never played GW1, but I was reading the Mesmer skill page and it just made my head hurt. Then I tried reading about hexes and enchantments and… agh… how anyone managed to learn that game is beyond me.

In the first GW, Prophecies, you got new skills most of the time as quest rewards, even up to more than halfway through the game. It was actually a much slower pace of adding to your arsenal than unlocking skills in GW2 is today. Skill vendors only had limited choices for you, so you were never overwhelmed.

Vayne.8563:

Casuals found it hard

They did? May I ask how you know?

Heal/prot monk was my main in GW. I picked ele because I thought it was the closest thing to it.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Meret.5943:

Raine.1394:

Atheism itself is a religion.

I will not get into this argument on the internet again. I will not get into this argument on the internet again. I will not get into this argument…

But honestly, hes right, it is. If you label yourself atheist, it’s the same as labeling yourself as christian, muslim, wicca or whatever. You believe in something, or well, you are trying to prove that there are no gods. So its a form of religion a.k.a a belief.

Unlbelievers and agnostics is a different story. Unbelievers just dont believe, they dont get bothered by religion. Agnostics arent sure what they believe in, but there is something.

Atheists are trying to prove the non-exsistance of gods. I honestly dont see the point of atheism, let people believe in whatever gods they chose if that helps them through life. Why try and disprove what cant harm you? It’s not like it would stop wars and create peace if you one day actually manage to prove the non-exsistance of gods, we mankind, will still find things to bicker about and go to war over.

Aww, come on, man, I said I wasn’t going to get into this argument, and here you are, opening the door wide and inviting me in! lol now I’ll probably get the thread shut down. :/

I ask respectfully that you look up the actual definitions of atheist and agnostic, as I do not think they mean what you think they mean. The definitions you posted are as inaccurate as if I said, “Oh, Christians, they’re the ones who burn witches and think mental illness is really from demonic possession.”

I’m reminded of the analogies: if atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color, off is a television channel, and not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Back on-topic…

The Charr are not atheists really, according to any definition. They acknowledge the presence of gods but choose not to worship them. They are more like anti-theists.

Fyrebrand.4859:

If I do find one thing aggravating about how fictional religions are framed in general — and not just in GW2 — it’s that they almost always turn out to be absolutely, undoubtedly true.

Yes, so true! If you saw The Avengers, for example, you have Captain America claiming that his god would never dress as funny as Thor or Loki. Buuuut Thor and Loki are demi-gods. So how does one explain their existence at all? Both the Christian and the Norse religions co-exist in the movie?

In the GW world we know the gods are real because we pray to their shrines and get blessings, if we’re a dervish we transform into them, and we visit their realms. So how did humans lose supremacy if their gods were real? Are all the religions real?

And then there’s this:

Raine.1394:

Atheism itself is a religion.

I will not get into this argument on the internet again. I will not get into this argument on the internet again. I will not get into this argument…

I am also atheist but I have no objections to the portrayal of religion in a game, even if it celebrates one over others. If it provides opportunities like getting blessings at shrines, and visiting FoW and UW and gives me magics, then… that’s a good game.

In our real world we have scientific explanations (or at least hypotheses) for almost all phenomena. We can get along perfectly well without religion, and in reality, most people do most of the time. But in a game like this, you have to account for magic and ghosts. Even the Asura call it the “eternal alchemy” not the “eternal chemistry.”

Wanderer.3248:

Many (but not all) members of a certain german political party prominent during WW2, who’s name gets filtered by these forums were atheists, and, of course, very militaristic. And many communists have been atheistic and militaristic – notably Joseph Stalin.

Slight quibble: “Gott mit uns” is not an atheistic slogan. And like Christopher Hitchens used to say, “Stalin should not have been in the dictatorship business if he couldn’t exploit the deep religiosity already present in the country into a worship of himself and the state as godlike.” That’s not really atheism either.

Shyft The Pyro.4963:

Some of those old concepts turned into EOTN; others were discarded before work was completed. I want to see the Kickstarter happen, but new content will need to be developed basically from scratch.

I was responding to the comment which stated a fear that any GW xpac which came of a Kickstarter could potentially abandon the core values of GW and screw everything up. My claim is that because there exists an institutional memory not only of the game as it currently is, but also some shelved ideas for GW’s development, that we need not fear that. They may start from scratch in concept but not in philosophy, maybe.

That said, who knows what will come of it? I’m willing to take the risk!

Leablo.2651:

Even if you provided the funding to hire a separate team, that team wouldn’t really be Anet, and they’re just as likely to either butcher the game’s principles and/or produce subpar quality content.

They probably already have all the concepts they need for Guild Wars Utopia or whatever other projects/updates they started but abandoned for GW2. They just need someone to pick up the ball and run with it.

It’s hard to know what to say to a new player, because I’m totally biased, having played GW almost from launch, for 4-5 straight years. I adored it. The music, the flexibility in builds, ability to solo farm, the pvp variety, the armor variety, the elite areas, my wonderful guild…

You don’t really get your hand held as much in GW. So if you have problems getting through missions or you’ve run out of quests, the one best piece of advice is to visit the GW wiki when you get stuck.

There ARE guilds still recruiting, and sometimes even when it’s not the Zaishen daily mission, occasionally I end up in a mission town with a bunch of people running around.

The game may be dead—pvp certainly is, unfortunately—but there are still signs of life.

lothefallen.7081:

My role felt important, i felt needed as i needed my team.

Yes. No matter if you were frontline, dps, or heals, you made a difference. It’s what each person must decide for themselves, regarding whether they like the trinity or not.

I had no idea it was important to me until I played GW2. Does what I do fulfill a purpose on this team? Does it make me play better or worse knowing that the team is counting on me to perform x y z roles during a fight? Am I up for taking responsibility when I didn’t perform those actions?

The only Complainers are GW1 people who wanted a new improved GW1. Those and WoW players who want vertical progression. Yup, that’s about it.

And those people don’t count for anything?

So I’m not sure what this post is suggesting that isn’t already in the world? Buy gw, connect it to your gw2 account.

Ema.4953:

41/50 here. I hadn’t thought about getting 50/50. What’s the advantage?

just a title, I think. which comes free with bragging rights!

I laughed my kitten off during gender reversal day. They made all my ladies SOO UGLY as guys! lol

Remember how much money you’d get from doing daily quests? That was nice.

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

gw1 i still have loads of quest lines to do… they came from everywhere, so many sometimes that i didnt know what to do.
GW2 well 6 months in an all done except for the grind…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

Personally even though I started shortly after launch, I had plenty to do until and continuing after Sorrow’s Furnace. The pace of expansions and updates in GW was perfect for me, based on my playstyle.

It’s always going to be different for everyone what “a lot of content” means, depending on the rate of completion for a particular player.

It’s funny how anyone can show me empirically how much more there is to do in GW2, and yet I still don’t like it as much as GW. Maybe some day…

proxy.7963:

Meret.5943:

“In my opinion” most of the comments in this thread, particularly on the first page and starting with the OP, have been very thoughtful and constructive, even when I don’t agree with everyone. I’m not sure this thread needs a lecture on positive discourse.

Intended less as a lecture and more an expression of my own opinion and thoughts on the matter. Sorry if it came off as starchy.

No probs, sorry I read it wrong.

proxy.7963:

People prefer one thing over another – that’s fine. Simply saying that you like a thing so that makes it better – and even trying to justify your view without sufficiently addressing opposing views – doesn’t make a constructive argument. You’re not taking part in discussion at that point, you’re attempting to make a statement and things just become confused when someone decides to disagree with that statement. Or you’re ‘stating an opinion’ that you actually consider to be either fact or more valid than opposing opinions.

“In my opinion” most of the comments in this thread, particularly on the first page and starting with the OP, have been very thoughtful and constructive, even when I don’t agree with everyone. I’m not sure this thread needs a lecture on positive discourse.

I understand that people like GW or GW2 more than the other, it’s great to have an opinion.

However, when someone says “I like GW better because…” and someone counters with “But GW didn’t have that 6 months after launch!” it kind of gets my goat.

ANet is not starting from scratch, they’re not reinventing the wheel here. They knew what worked and what didn’t in GW. It’s named for GW for a reason (what that reason is, is a mystery to me yet, but that’s beside the point).

Guild Halls, for instance, should be a no-brainer. And it’s not because of some quirky playstyle. It’s because the party size limit is 5, and a guild hall is a great way to form a cohesive guild. Guild parties, guild v guild, or just hanging out.

So Manoa, when you said “someone didn’t take an art class,” you actually meant “someone didn’t take a computer/ graphic arts class?”

We had a guild subforum in GW, and continued on the guild facebook page in GW2, called Guild Wars Fashion: The Good, Bad, and the Tragic. We would constantly grab screens of the most… interesting dye and armor combos. Good fun!

That said,

Manoa.5897:

Erm…methinks someone never took an art class. Because blue and yellow are complementary colors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_colors#Color_theory

When I learned about the colors in school, “complementary” colors were those which were opposite one another on the color wheel. Blue and orange, yellow and purple, red and green were the complementary pairs.

The below attachment, the armor isn’t terrible on its own but the skin color makes the overall style so very special (sorry, whoever you are).

Runiir.6425:

I love how the pvpers whine about no death matches.
…
Death match pvp is the most boring thing imaginable.
…
Crying that you can’t dominate pugs?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be either/or. You prefer one type of pvp gameplay, others prefer other types. I happened to find wvwvw boring as all get-out, but I won’t try and put you down for thinking it’s the cat’s meow.

I’m not sure where you get the crying over not dominating pugs, I didn’t see that in any post.

DryHumour.1307:

And ask the folks who have the original (and non-Kilroy) Survivor how their PTSD is doing….

lol

I’m still playing GW and I still won’t allow my Legendary Survivor do anything dangerous without a lot of premeditation.

I don’t care how many times all my other toons die, but that one is still at 0 and at 0 deaths she shall forever be!

I think it’s totally ANet’s prerogative to try to encourage people to buy GW and GW:EN by whatever means they wish.

It also helps ANet understand, in a small way, what people want. If they collect data on how many people had GW2 first and then linked a GW account later, and how many HoM points they rack up, it could be good information.

asperbianca.3196:

Could someone please explain the abbreviations and what each feature is for those of use who didn’t play GW1?

Very briefly:

GvG—8 v 8 took place in one of the contestant’s guild hall. Environmental effects, flag planting, the primary goal was to kill the other team’s guild lord in their base. Very sophisticated pvp level.

HA—Heroes’ Ascent, aka Hall of Heroes, 8 v … first 8 npcs, then another team of 8 pcs, then if you win that, depending on rotation, you would fight several other teams of 8 for various objectives. Sophisticated pvp level and also very action-packed.

TA—Team Arena, organized teams of 4 on randomized map; usually death matches. Later replaced by Codex Battles, which I never played and are dead now.

RA—Random Arena, teams of 4 random players on randomized map; usually death matches. VERY good intro to pvp for beginners. Still going in GW now.

AB—Alliance Battles, very much like spvp now (I think, I never did spvp). Organized groups of 4 put together with 2 other groups to make 12 v 12 total; capture points get you higher score than killing people. It’s pvp for non-pvpers, still fun. Not terribly active right now.

JQ & FA—Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood, Factions xpac-based special maps with point captures, special objectives, and npcs to help/hinder. Another pvp mode which is fairly friendly to non-pvpers.

Hope this helps.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not just that it’s a persistent world. It’s that it has a marketplace.

Well the comment I responded to made a point of the “persistent vs instanced” world as an important reason why travel costs money in GW2 and not in GW. I wanted to know why. Do you think GW’s economy could have benefited from travel costs?

In a small way—don’t jump down my throat that it’s not the same thing as a trading post, I’m fully aware—GW did have a marketplace. The materials, rune, and dye traders’ prices did fluctuate based on supply and demand.

A new person starting out in GW 1 would have to work really hard to get anything “cool”, where as a person who knew their way around kept getting richer.

This is how it works. There is no getting around it. It’s happening now in GW2, and it won’t stop.

The only people who could really play it in the end were the farmers unless you didn’t want cool stuff.

All I can say is, perhaps that was your experience. I’m still playing “in the end” and I’m not a farmer by any means. I have lots of “cool stuff” (imo).

/shrug

carry on

Iruwen.3164:

I guess the main problem is that you’re not understanding the basics of economics.

I bow to your superior knowledge.

It’s why I asked the question…

Hawkian.6580:

Meret.5943:

There was free instant travel in GW. Did that break the economy?

Oh come now. Not only did GW1 lack a player-driven trading post, it didn’t even have a persistent world. The idea of there being a difference between instantly traveling somewhere and walking there was silly because everything was instanced. There was no “missing” an event because you took too long to get there.

I’m not understanding, I guess. Why would the fact that a game is in a persistent world vs an instanced world absolutely NEED to have two different travel cost structures or else?

Vol.5241:

CoRtex.2157:

it’s Anet man.. They have no logic on economy. Better make the game anti-social GG

What is your suggest Mr. Economics? Keep travel waypoint costs as cheap as a lvl 1 should have?

Or keep them as expensive as a lvl 80 would have?

Or better yet, free waypoints for everyone! I’m sure everyone would prefer that over inflation!

There was free instant travel in GW. Did that break the economy?

Fiddlestyx.9714:

No thank you. All hero’s did on GW1 was make it impossible to find groups

(I’ve grouped quite a bit with people lately in GW since returning to it. People use heroes because they prefer to play alone—that’s me, most of the time—or to fill in the gaps in a group. As for making a group, they’re posting on guru and setting it up.)

If they brought heroes into GW2, the world would be so full, if everyone was out there walking around with their companions. It would get old fast. If they ever instituted heroes in GW2, it would have to be instanced content only.

I played GW for about 4 years approximately starting from launch, then stopped and took a couple years break before GW2. I’m currently not playing GW2, but I stay on the forum to keep updated in case something were to draw me back in.

I was a pretty moderate pvper overall (r4 or 5 gladiator.. mostly RA), but there were phases when I’d do pvp exclusively. I was hoping GW2 would carry over GW’s amazing and varied pvp, and when it seemed it wouldn’t, I was hoping I’d be blown away by pve instead.

So my answer is no. GW was about the individual build, the individual’s skill at playing, and how they played or fit into a team build, whether random or premade. Wv3 is zerg3, which is not interesting to me personally.

Hate to be picky but… you mean “queue.”

How will it work? You have to be in the pvp lobby kind of queue, or you can be out in the world until it pops kind of queue?

From the original GW:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Eye_of_Janthir

Lane.3410:

I never played GW1, so any of those references are completely lost on me.

My main issue with raiding is the exclusivity of it. It typically means that 1) it’s content you will never see as a casual player and 2) there will be items that cannot be acquired outside of said raids.

It’s too bad, because like I said, our very casual guild did the so-called elite areas in GW all the time, for years on end, and we pugged them too. As far as I can tell, nobody on the guru forum ever complained about being left behind re: those areas.

So all the fear and paranoia about “zomg raids ruin everything!” is just simply silly. There is another way. ANet found it before, and they can do it again if they want.

Torrad.1075:

Most of my experience with raids comes from playing WoW in its earlier years, perhaps to my everlasting shame.

Why shame? It’s a good game, and can be a great challenge. You’re right, in the previous expansion they added the raid finder. No matter how much people complain about it, it allows those who might not otherwise, see and experience high-end content.

Now, the reason I asked about GW was because those “elite” areas I listed were 8-12 player content. The bosses and quests in those areas were more challenging, required communication and coordination with the team. For my guild, it was a special occasion to do one, we always had a great time. (I never did speed clears, so I can’t speak to those.)

I really wanted to know whether anyone who played GW felt excluded from those areas, or whether anyone had heard of anyone complaining that it was just too difficult.

The rewards were high-level crafting material (material you could also buy from traders) and some special skins, but nothing was guaranteed, and perfect items were extremely rare. Still, the fun was in the challenge, the teamwork, the accomplishment, the experience, and the chance at a nice item.

And I’ll be honest here, it actually destroyed us.

I know of WoW guilds who have broken up over raiding issues. But never in a million years did I hear of a GW guild breaking up because of an Underworld run. I simply cannot fathom it.

The more people you add, the more difficult coordination becomes and the more your approach becomes based around overwhelming things with numbers and gear grinding.

Again, my only experience with ANet is referring to the original GW. It was not about overwhelming things with numbers or gear grinding. It was about teamwork. Come to think of it, very rarely were WoW raids just about a zerg either.

Look down on them however much you want, but organized guild groups aren’t the majority running dungeons.

Who’s looking down on them? :O We did some of our best recruiting for our guild when we pugged UW, FoW, Tombs.

So I tend to think that you need to find a way to add more variation in what you do with the dungeons, …. Any sort of mechanic that creates a skill challenge with the potential for greater reward.

lol I hate to repeat myself, but it’s the reason I asked the question in the first place. In GW, Hard Mode was hard. And since there was never vertical progression, it was impossible to outgear the place; it only got easier with skills and experience. Our guild did runs in the same dang dungeon for 7 years and were happy about it. In fact, a couple weeks ago some of the GW2 players came back to GW for a run in hard mode Tombs just for the hell of it.

Lane.3410:

Torrad.1075:

Raids and the like are not geared towards the bulk of the player base. The larger and better organized your group has to be in order to succeed, the fewer people can actually access/enjoy said content. You don’t want to make it an exclusive and elitist activity for really dedicated PvE folks, because they just don’t make up enough of the population. Even if you consider that it’s geared towards guilds and not individuals, keep in mind that only services larger ones that consistently have enough people online to put larger groups together.

This needs to be copied and pasted into every thread suggesting raids.

I’m curious, did you play GW? If so, did you feel that the majority were excluded from UW, FoW, Deep, Urgoz, or Tombs, as they were “elite” areas? I’m not being snarky, I am asking sincerely.

ATTHWSM.7840:

Dont front like people are REALLY willing to play for skins all day lol….

We did that for years in GW.

Silken Mist.1703:

It seems like I’m almost the only one who feels like this, but being forced to do heart after heart and each event 50 times just to level up to progress is not my idea of fun and exciting.

I played to 80 as a human. What I did was, if I wasn’t high enough for my storyline after doing the hearts at my level in a zone, I went to the Charr area and then the Sylvari area, etc. That way I worked on map completion while not having to repeat any particular thing.

Erasculio.2914:

Often, they are haters who want the game to fail.

Maybe some, I can’t speak for them.

But personally I wanted to like the game a lot, especially after waiting about 4 years for it. I spent a lot of money hoping I would like it. I still hope I will. And per some of the posters in this thread, the game is none of my business until that day. That is simply ridiculous to me.

Karizee.8076:

For all we know they haven’t even rolled a toon, just bought the account to gamebash or try to promote their favorite game

Oh brother. If it comes to that, “for all we know,” you work for ANet.

But for real, when you see people who admit to posting but not playing in a while, are they just randomly promoting other games? Or are they (we) providing input, clarification, ideas for the game? Would you be able to tell the difference between Suggestion forum posts from a current player and an ex-player, unless they admitted it?

Like I said, some of us are long-time GW players waiting to see what kind of game GW2 will decide to be before coming back to it. We want the best for the game. Therefore, we post.

killcannon.2576:

Meret.5943:

Horrorscope.7632:

Player. I would like to say for those still playing, that once you are done with the game a short while after (handful of days) you would go pursue other things, then act only as a poster here. There are plenty of players carrying the “we need this” posts, that the current playing base can let the dev team know how things are going and what is needed, without ex’s piling on.

By staying it’s going to be too much negative, it doesn’t really enhance the game for those till playing. There is a time to hang it up and just move on. We’ve all been there with one game or another, show class, see yourself out.

You’re acting like the ex-players are just hanging around to bully the current players or to unburden themselves of whines and moans. While I’ve seen one or two posters actively hostile toward GW2, most of us are actually here because we care about the game and about ANet and about our guilds, etc.

If you cared about the game you would play it, not lurk on the forums.
Words are all you ex players are good for.

You don’t know me, you don’t speak for me. I played GW from a month after launch. I have a lot of time, effort, friendship, and emotion invested in ANet over the years. It may not mean anything to you, that’s fine, I don’t care—but it sure as hell means something to me.

Horrorscope.7632:

Player. I would like to say for those still playing, that once you are done with the game a short while after (handful of days) you would go pursue other things, then act only as a poster here. There are plenty of players carrying the “we need this” posts, that the current playing base can let the dev team know how things are going and what is needed, without ex’s piling on.

By staying it’s going to be too much negative, it doesn’t really enhance the game for those till playing. There is a time to hang it up and just move on. We’ve all been there with one game or another, show class, see yourself out.

You’re acting like the ex-players are just hanging around to bully the current players or to unburden themselves of whines and moans. While I’ve seen one or two posters actively hostile toward GW2, most of us are actually here because we care about the game and about ANet and about our guilds, etc.