The biggest problem Guild Wars 2 will face...

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I wrote this as a comment to already to another thread...after writing i realized how important it is for me to just say it, to the PVE population in general. i read through a few other threads that seem to touch on this, but not really getting the full picture and the extent to which how bad this problem has/is and will be for gw2.

The ProblemThis game is too self-sufficient, and there is a lack of community interaction.

Go right now to any PVE zone.How many people are engaging and talking with each other? I've been sitting in Queensdale/Shaemoor for a good 30 minutes now and not a SINGLE person in either Map Chat or Saychat has said anything...This is supposed to be the HUMAN starter zone.

So what is the deal?Why is everyone so quiet? The maps are full they have people in them...but nobody is talking. Why does this bother me so much? It's because there's no reason for people to talk to each other...there's absolutely no mechanisms in place to encourage player to player interaction.

1) QuestingQuesting is so braindead simple in these zones, that there is no need for anyone to go out and find groups of people. And when there are groupings of people, like near bosses, the bosses are so braindead simple to beat, that you can just auto-attack them and they will eventually die. There's no need to discuss tactics, strategies, or trouble shoot problems, or solve puzzles...

2) Crafting...where do i start with this absolute monstrosity of a system. Crafting is too self contained and self sufficient. If you want to make something with crafting, you need the materials to craft that something, which you must either farm or purchase from the T.P. The only interaction you have is with an autonomous spreadsheet. There is no OTHER players involved in this transaction... Even worse if the material you are looking for is exclusive to a certain profession, so lets say you are a Tailor, and you need to get a material that is exclusive item to Leather-working, to craft something in the Tailor proffession. Then you need to not only be a tailor but you now need to learn leatherworking. HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE AND WHY IS NOBODY UPSET BY THIS? It's the dumbest thing i've ever encountered and it doesn't seem to bother anyone...Everyone says "Oh just learn all 8 proffessions and you'll be good" but no...this is not good. This is me punching buttons into a keyboard and crunching numbers endlessly at a crafting station by myself. This is not interactive or fun in anyway.

3) Lack of PvP interaction in PVEThis is actually a "hot topic of debate." and a back and forth battle between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. What people don't realize is that dueling zones are actually really important to building communities and serve as a critical mechanism that introduces newer players into content that they would have otherwise been clueless about.The main argument against this is that PVE'ers will be "ganked" while doing PVE activities...but this is simply a misguided view on what dueling areas actually are. Dueling areas are specific zones within a town, in which duels can only happen when two players agree to fight one another.These area's serve as a location in which players are drawn toward... much like how the concentration of player population in Lions arch are around the Banker, or the Black Lion Auction NPC. These are places where players congregate. Dueling areas are such places, but rather than everyone crowding by an npc to watch a spreadsheet and punch numbers...players gather to watch other players fight each other. One does not need to go far to actually SEE this interaction in action. Visiting a duel server you will see players congregating in small circles to watch other duelists duel each other. People talking, chatting and having fun while 2 people try to best one another. PEople who have never been to a duel server simply don't understand how refreshing a duel server is, and people who want dueling areas in PVE want to spread this sense of community to others. PVP as we all know is DYING and yes, there are PVPer's who still want to play and have fun too.

Anyway, these are just three examples in which the game lacks any sort of community interaction. This lack of interaction has handicapped gw2 since launch, and it has continued to weaken guild wars 2, in all areas both PVE and PVP, to the point to where we see it today...Truth is, the game is currently in a crisis...a tipping point...we are not sure if we will even see the end of the GW2 storyline...we don't know the future of Spvp or WvW....people are quiting left and right and anet is getting roasted by every single commentor on the forums. All these things are just side effects...side effects to one singular tumor of issues that deal with the basic fundamental mechanics of the game....lack of community interaction and too much self sufficiency.

[Airdive.2613]

Honestly, I think people are just too busy playing. I know I'd played an MMORPG with such long casts (requiring your character to stand still) that you had the time to chat, but GW 2 requires (or at least rewards) pulling off tight combos.Also, I believe free accounts have map chat restricted, and where would you expect to find the most free-to-play players? (Hint: it might be the human starter zone.)

[Obtena.7952]

Not sure this is a problem than it's actually a characteristic of the community. It BECOMES a problem if Anet start introducing content that doesn't align with these characteristics.

[Luthan.5236]

The biggest problem: WoW. And there are no streamers at twitch.tv...oh wait, that were some of the other threads constantly gotten created those last few weeks. :D

As for chatting/talking: That happens only in cities (Lion's Arch where all the players gather) or in maps with major important events. (Where players go to farm or in hope of a rare item drop. Then only about the event or when timed world boss befor it starts some normal talking.)

People usually want to play not chat - when outside of the safe city.I'd agree on some duel like sections seperated from the other sections of the map - but set in a PvE map. (No full map PvP.) Could be fun to watch others which is not that easy in the "real" PvP and when need to play yourself to be actuall in the match and see others.

Crafting is really boring and I don't even see it as an important aspect of the game because of that. Only for getting stuff you can't buy (bound). (Which I'd prefer over stuff you can just buy with gems on the gem store. These things are boring and everyone can get them and you see a lot of people with skins that seem expensive/bought with gems.)

For questiong: I still only play core game without expansions and don't know about the later maps from expansions: I liked the meta events in orr and in silverwastes. Better would be if there were meta events that required coordination. What comes to my mind is triple trouble. And a bit the Boss Blitz atm. I'd prefer some bigger event chain not focused just on killing a boss like Triple Trouble. Some capping and holding in PvE where players need tos split. Not too easy where you could just take tons of players that spam their skill 1. (Clever/intelligent upscaling maybe.) I liked the event in dry top where for achievement no item must get stolen. (Defens event killing skrits.) Something like this on bigger scale could be fun - requiring crowd control instead of standing at one location dps-ing while at the other location some mob comes to steal something.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

And did you, OP, try striking up a conversation in Queensdale? Or were you waiting for someone else to do so?

[Stitchersflock.9034]

These are problems for YOU, not every gamer that plays. I am perfectly happy being a so player that does not interact with the "community".

I will never understand why people seem to think that every player has to play in this giant group to be happy. There are those of us that simply will never be comfortable in group content. Our money is just as good as those who enjoy Group content. Game is fine the way it is.

[Opopanax.1803]

Maybe people are on vent/discord?

[Dante.1763]

@"Stitchersflock.9034" said:These are problems for YOU, not every gamer that plays. I am perfectly happy being a so player that does not interact with the "community".

I will never understand why people seem to think that every player has to play in this giant group to be happy. There are those of us that simply will never be comfortable in group content. Our money is just as good as those who enjoy Group content. Game is fine the way it is.

Add to that, this "Community" never seems to want to be as friendly in Map chat as it is in individual(party/squad), or guild chats, so why would i want to interact with people who -want- to be assholes?

[Bloodstealer.5978]

Firstly.. starter zones 7yrs in on an MMO are never really the place to strike up conversation as the maps are rarely full and those on them are skirting over stuff to do daily or some quick levelling ora collection item..Queensdale actually had the reverse issue years back, it was always full due to high level players running a champ train that often turned toxic on newer players either not wanting to be forced to run a certain way or were blamed for messing up the train's perceived ownership of the map event rotations.Secondly duelling already exits in the game.. guilds can duel in their own arena, the mists now has its own duelling area and yes you can hit the pvp lists and go do ya thing, you can even go WvW and duel. Openworld PvP is always contentious in a pVe centric MMO due to the issues that come along with it.. toxicity, ganking and plain old ruining of other players fun. Sure you can have an opt in function, but really what's the point when you can simply go duel in a designated place.In a few of the MMO's I have played which have incorporated openworld PvP, its created either gankcentral at spawn points, low level ganktards or just dead zones where no one rarely goes except to get across a map area asap... so I say nah to this in GW2.Many MMO's have tried to push specific server types.. RP servers.. and PvP servers where everyone is fair game everywhere.. guess what they become empty servers fast and are often closed and merged back to PvE.

Crafting... no idea what your on about with this.. most crafting GW2 has cross overs where certain professions can craft other profession refinements and you have the ability to learn 3+ professions on a toon.. why is this a bad thing. That like saying my local McDonalds can make me a nice Armani suit.As for interaction with others.. you can trade with others, you have guild and friends lists in order to work towards your crafting goals... so again no idea what you think is missing. GW2 has probably one of the easiest crafting systems I have come across tbh.

[Ben K.6238]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:The ProblemThis game is too self-sufficient, and there is a lack of community interaction.

Go right now to any PVE zone.How many people are engaging and talking with each other? I've been sitting in Queensdale/Shaemoor for a good 30 minutes now and not a SINGLE person in either Map Chat or Saychat has said anything...This is supposed to be the HUMAN starter zone.

The PvE zone I spend most time in is Amnoon. It's not quiet. There's a meta-event there and popular bounties that do require some community interaction, and so they get it.

1) QuestingQuesting is so braindead simple in these zones, that there is no need for anyone to go out and find groups of people. And when there are groupings of people, like near bosses, the bosses are so braindead simple to beat, that you can just auto-attack them and they will eventually die. There's no need to discuss tactics, strategies, or trouble shoot problems, or solve puzzles...

Yep. Try the endgame zones with group content.

2) Crafting...where do i start with this absolute monstrosity of a system. Crafting is too self contained and self sufficient. If you want to make something with crafting, you need the materials to craft that something, which you must either farm or purchase from the T.P. The only interaction you have is with an autonomous spreadsheet. There is no OTHER players involved in this transaction... Even worse if the material you are looking for is exclusive to a certain profession, so lets say you are a Tailor, and you need to get a material that is exclusive item to Leather-working, to craft something in the Tailor proffession...

I've seen the other side of this, where you have to buy all the components you don't have from other players in 1-to-1 trades. That system is vastly more unpopular among players doing a lot of crafting.

Is it possible to have crafting that's actually fun? Maybe. I'm really not that interested in crafting though, so I've never looked for games that did it better.

3) Lack of PvP interaction in PVEThis is actually a "hot topic of debate." and a back and forth battle between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. What people don't realize is that dueling zones are actually really important to building communities and serve as a critical mechanism that introduces newer players into content that they would have otherwise been clueless about...

It's not between PvE'ers and PvP'ers, but PvE'ers and other PvE'ers who want to smash randoms but aren't good enough to do it in the places that were meant for it: WvW and PvP.

I play a bit of ESO, which supports duelling. People seem to ignore duellers there, and I'm not seeing any reason they wouldn't also be ignored here.

Is it good for learning the game? Not really. The only place where duelling skills come in handy is WvW and PvP, and the best place to learn them is, not surprisingly, WvW and PvP. Even then, you will seldom get a clean 1v1 in either of those.

Anyway, these are just three examples in which the game lacks any sort of community interaction. This lack of interaction has handicapped gw2 since launch, and it has continued to weaken guild wars 2, in all areas both PVE and PVP, to the point to where we see it today...

It might lack community interaction in a few specific areas, but "any sort of" is woefully inaccurate. Try the endgame zones with group content. Or WvW. Or PvP. Or fractals and raids. If you're only looking in soloable areas, it's not surprising you're not finding much community interaction.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Ben K.6238 said:It might lack community interaction in a few specific areas, but "any sort of" is woefully inaccurate. Try the endgame zones with group content.

So everyone here is saying pretty much the same thing. So i'm going to extract just a quote from you, and my response will apply to all the above posts others have also made.

The exact sentence, that the community lacks interaction in "specific" area's and that endgame zone's do have interaction, is simply overlooking the problem. The lack of interaction is still there, because those fundamental constituents that make up the problem are still there. Anet has in the past addressed community interaction issues, by adding more complex mechanics into endgame content...which yes, is a start to improving the interaction and setting up community.

When the meta events are off or are building up? back down to no interaction...or at the very least minimal interaction, with the norm being that people are mostly asking questions about "Where do i go to find this?" or "How do i complete so and so quest?" These are interactions...but this is a far stretch from what REAL community interaction can potentially be...

Allow me to go back to Guild Wars 1. Albiet, some people here may not have played...But i will say that GW1 had EXCELLENT community interaction...I'll give you an example.

Remember runs? When a player known as a runner would run from one location on the world map to another, and up to 7 other players would pay that runner so that they could gain that location for fast travel. This is one of those expierences where you easily talked to others to pass the time while the runner(s) would do their job and alot of the times it was good and sometimes the runner would have a tough time... sometimes you'd make friends and sometimes just acquaint. The point is that these situations involved others that provoked the need for community interaction...without having to enforce it upon you (You could stay totally quiet during a run if you wanted...)

Looking back on this sort of behavior now, we take a lot of the things we have today for granted...like Waypoints. Waypoints essentially made running a non-thing, and we can fast travel anywhere...bypassing locations without a second thought...which leads to more concentrations of players on Places of interests, like Banks, BLCT's, or other NPC's because it takes less time and physicality to get from point A to point B. So again in other words, it's like....you could have met someone in transit from point A to Point B...but because you travel instantly from point A to point B, you would never have met that someone in transit. The interaction simply just doesn't happen because there's never an opportunity for it to do so.

@Ben K.6238 said:Or WvW. Or PvP. Or fractals and raids. If you're only looking in soloable areas, it's not surprising you're not finding much community interaction.

And like i said above, this right here is the problem. The problem only obfuscates as you near closer to endgame content...but the problem is still there. Personally i am a veteran WvW and Pvper. The interaction there is MUCH more than any of the PVE areas, which i'm not surprised about (Remember when i talked about dueling servers?)

But as we all know both of these game modes are dying...WvW is dying much slower than spvp, but both are generally on a downward path. People are simply leaving because Anet neglects the two game modes...when i believe that Anet has a lot to learn from them.

[Ashen.2907]

The combat system can make casual chat difficult (for me at least). Dont get me wrong, I love the core combat mechanics here, but the need for constant or rapid player input can make text chatting difficult.

Also, voice chat is pretty popular these days.

[Hashberry.4510]

Problems from your perspective. These are features to me. This game has its niche, and many of us like it that way.

[Vieux P.1238]

@Hashberry.4510 said:Problems from your perspective. These are features to me. This game has its niche, and many of us like it that way.

Well.... your niche game has not that many of US playing to keep what ever content thrown in it alive.

If your thing is playing with bots, unrepeatable content & boring broken pvp , then this game is right for you.If your game is an actual mmo where you get down & dirty & play with other players, well don't play a niche game.

[Blocki.4931]

Do your little experiment in any level 80 zone and be blown away by people running past you and map chat being active. Alternatively squad chat, maybe even /say. Starter zones aren't very representative. People who have already played the game will just have Tomes to level characters and can go into a different zone right away.

[VanWilder.6923]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

Go right now to any PVE zone.How many people are engaging and talking with each other? I've been sitting in Queensdale/Shaemoor for a good 30 minutes now and not a SINGLE person in either Map Chat or Saychat has said anything...This is supposed to be the HUMAN starter zone.

Not all Players are that kind of chatty. How could someone are doing the quests, exploring or playing the game but have to stop amd typing on the keyboard to break the "ICE" on the map chat??? Well, I have never done that even on 1st day of Playing GW2. and even you did not say a thing on that Map chat for 30 mins. this is a game meaning to play, its not "Dr Phill" show.

So what is the deal?Why is everyone so quiet? The maps are full they have people in them...but nobody is talking. Why does this bother me so much? It's because there's no reason for people to talk to each other...there's absolutely no mechanisms in place to encourage player to player interaction.

I speak for myself, I do not want to talk while i am playing game. Again, this is not a "Dr Phill" show imo

3) Lack of PvP interaction in PVEThis is actually a "hot topic of debate." and a back and forth battle between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. What people don't realize is that dueling zones are actually really important to building communities and serve as a critical mechanism that introduces newer players into content that they would have otherwise been clueless about.

Only PvPer want that duel zones in open world and that number of PvPers is SMALL and that topic was never "HOT" debate. Want to duel, go to the Mist please.

The main argument against this is that PVE'ers will be "ganked" while doing PVE activities...but this is simply a misguided view on what dueling areas actually are. Dueling areas are specific zones within a town, in which duels can only happen when two players agree to fight one another.

Go to the Mist please

These area's serve as a location in which players are drawn toward... much like how the concentration of player population in Lions arch are around the Banker, or the Black Lion Auction NPC. These are places where players congregate. Dueling areas are such places, but rather than everyone crowding by an npc to watch a spreadsheet and punch numbers...players gather to watch other players fight each other. One does not need to go far to actually SEE this interaction in action. Visiting a duel server you will see players congregating in small circles to watch other duelists duel each other. People talking, chatting and having fun while 2 people try to best one another. PEople who have never been to a duel server simply don't understand how refreshing a duel server is, and people who want dueling areas in PVE want to spread this sense of community to others. PVP as we all know is DYING and yes, there are PVPer's who still want to play and have fun too.

can watch duel on youtube. Btw, I play PvP and I am strongly against duel zones in PvE maps. go the the mist or ebg please that where I always go. Dont understand how hard is that for players want to duel to go the the mist or ebg??? Wanna learn mechanic, join raid training, etc.

[Dante.1763]

@Vieux P.1238 said:

@Hashberry.4510 said:Problems from your perspective. These are features to me. This game has its niche, and many of us like it that way.

Well.... your niche game has not that many of US playing to keep what ever content thrown in it alive.

If your thing is playing with bots, unrepeatable content & boring broken pvp , then this game is right for you.If your game is an actual mmo where you get down & dirty & play with other players, well don't play a niche game.

Obviously it does have enough to keep it alive.Your second sentence refers to im assuming only competitive content. As someone who doenst like PVP, neither of those aspects and how they function matter to me outside of when i need items from there and i literally dont want to interact with anybody in those environments.I talk to players all the time, just not in map chat, depends on the time of day you play and what zone you are in.

[Ultramex.1506]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:This is actually a "hot topic of debate." and a back and forth battle between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. What people don't realize is that dueling zones are actually really important to building communities and serve as a critical mechanism that introduces newer players into content that they would have otherwise been clueless about.The main argument against this is that PVE'ers will be "ganked" while doing PVE activities...but this is simply a misguided view on what dueling areas actually are. Dueling areas are specific zones within a town, in which duels can only happen when two players agree to fight one another.These area's serve as a location in which players are drawn toward... much like how the concentration of player population in Lions arch are around the Banker, or the Black Lion Auction NPC. These are places where players congregate. Dueling areas are such places, but rather than everyone crowding by an npc to watch a spreadsheet and punch numbers...players gather to watch other players fight each other. One does not need to go far to actually SEE this interaction in action. Visiting a duel server you will see players congregating in small circles to watch other duelists duel each other. People talking, chatting and having fun while 2 people try to best one another. PEople who have never been to a duel server simply don't understand how refreshing a duel server is, and people who want dueling areas in PVE want to spread this sense of community to others. PVP as we all know is DYING and yes, there are PVPer's who still want to play and have fun too.

The only problem i see here is people can't accept no. Why can't you just ask Anet to improve PvP/WvW instead? As if Open World PvP won't end up like PvP/WvW

[AgentMoore.9453]

My experience has been almost the exact opposite of yours, OP. Often, I have to shut off map chat because it's moving a mile a minute as people coordinate meta events, ask for help with quests or item acquisition, offer their stocked home instances to people for harvesting, host trivia for prizes, or engage in a petty argument over whether the game has too many trench coats.

When it isn't map chat, it's people in the /say channels asking for help, popping off a quick "TY" to the person who just aided them with a jumping puzzle or revived them from a downed state, and the occasional 'wheeeeeeeeee' as someone sails past on a neon-green raptor mount. I also see a lot of chatter during group events/boss battles on the map, coming in the form of event instruction or just inside jokes like 'PANIC' and 'WATCH THE LEDGES'.

That you claim to have encountered nothing seems highly suspect for a Friday night, though 30 minutes in a starter zone for a game as old as this one isn't exactly a good sample to draw from.

[knomslayer.9457]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:I wrote this as a comment to already to another thread...after writing i realized how important it is for me to just say it, to the PVE population in general. i read through a few other threads that seem to touch on this, but not really getting the full picture and the extent to which how bad this problem has/is and will be for gw2.

Go right now to any PVE zone.How many people are engaging and talking with each other? I've been sitting in Queensdale/Shaemoor for a good 30 minutes now and not a SINGLE person in either Map Chat or Saychat has said anything...This is supposed to be the HUMAN starter zone.

1. Free to play players cant talk using map chat.
2. People are shy to talk.
3. Some people are anti social.
4. People mute map chat
5. People dont want to interact with other people (just like #2)
6. Not all people talk english
7. Maybe not all people play humans
8. Maybe Guild wars 2 is dying xD

Just my assumption, but based on my experience there are always vet players who sometimes in Queensdale map chat say something like " if you're new player whisper me for help'' .

[Ben K.6238]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Ben K.6238" said:It might lack community interaction in a few specific areas, but "any sort of" is woefully inaccurate. Try the endgame zones with group content.

So everyone here is saying pretty much the same thing. So i'm going to extract just a quote from you, and my response will apply to all the above posts others have also made.

The exact sentence, that the community lacks interaction in "specific" area's and that endgame zone's do have interaction, is simply overlooking the problem. The lack of interaction is still there, because those fundamental constituents that make up the problem are still there. Anet has in the past addressed community interaction issues, by adding more complex mechanics into endgame content...which yes, is a start to improving the interaction and setting up community.

When the meta events are off or are building up? back down to no interaction...or at the very least minimal interaction, with the norm being that people are mostly asking questions about "Where do i go to find this?" or "How do i complete so and so quest?" These are interactions...but this is a far stretch from what REAL community interaction can potentially be...

Yes, there are parts in the game where there is no community interaction. This is not, in itself, a bad thing, as there might be places where people don't want to be interacting with a community. It's quite common for modern MMOs to cater to people who enjoy some solo content as well as the group stuff.

Allow me to go back to Guild Wars 1. Albiet, some people here may not have played...But i will say that GW1 had EXCELLENT community interaction...I'll give you an example.

Remember runs? When a player known as a runner would run from one location on the world map to another, and up to 7 other players would pay that runner so that they could gain that location for fast travel. This is one of those expierences where you easily talked to others to pass the time while the runner(s) would do their job and alot of the times it was good and sometimes the runner would have a tough time... sometimes you'd make friends and sometimes just acquaint. The point is that these situations involved others that provoked the need for community interaction...without having to enforce it upon you (You could stay totally quiet during a run if you wanted...)

Yeah, I played a bit of GW1 (if completing GWAMM qualifies as "a bit"). I deliberately avoided community interaction for most of it because it got annoying when someone would invariably go AFK halfway through UW, dungeons etc. and I enjoyed the challenge of setting up heroes and henchmen to complete content they were not designed for.

If you wanted to play GW1 with a group, it was (once) a good place to do so. If you wanted to play it solo, you could still complete all but a tiny portion of the content that way, without ever interacting with another human. GW2 actually has much more content you have to do with a group than GW1 did. But GW2 is also much better at facilitating it, because you can bump into other people out in the open world.

[Naxos.2503]

I honestly prefer that to what it used to be and sometime still is, which is childish trolling in the map chat.

When I see a newcomer go into too high a level area, I whisper to them and tell them they're in an area too strong for their level. I dont shout it on all rooftops. I much rather whisper when I need to talk to a specific player. The map chat is good for two things : Questions, announcement. When it's used for Something else, it's generally trolling/arguments. I use the Say chat to say Thank you when someone give me a hand, and occasionally to start a conversation based on that, most of the time, that conversation ends in Whispers, because I dont like people butting in. There is Nothing worse than trying to explain Something without someone else going right ahead and bulldoze your explanation because they think They know the right way to play, and there are none others.

Most players also chat within their party and within their guilds. There is communication. You just dont often see it, which in my opinion is not a bad thing. Even when Words arent used, doesn't mean there isn't communication and teamwork. I sometime use my deadeye to tail a newcomer who has difficulties fighting, and jump in the combat if I see it going South. Sometime I get thank yous, sometime I get /waves.

I'll agree that there is often no need for communication within that game, mostly because the teamwork is almost Natural : If you see a player down, within seconds you've got 5 players trying to res them. If someone is having difficulties in combat, it's not uncommon for another player to jump in, buff or heal that player. Without a prompt. Because contrary to other games, there is no downside for Anybody involved. They're not kill stealing, they're not ninja looting. They're helping, because they want to help. And if you pay attention to that factor alone, you'll notice that the Community is extremely helpful, or atleast is quite used to helping without being prompted to. I'd argue that's better than a game where you ask for help, and potentially receive none.

[Vayne.8563]

First of all, I'm in Queensdale quite frequently. I go there to help people. I often seen conversations in Queensdale. Definitely more than 50% of the time. I don't think I've ever sat there for an hour without hearing at least someone asking for help with a bandit event, which at least belies one of your points.

More to the point, I'm mostly on voice with my guild, which is part of the community. I don't walk into bars and randomly say, hey, anyone want to talk to me. That's because I have friends I go out with and I talk to them. I never worry if anyone else in the bar is talking to me, because I have my own social circle of people I already like and have chosen to hang out with.

Seems to me, that solves the problem nicely. You find a guild that suits your play style, you talk to them. Then whatever happens or doesn't happen in map chat doesn't affect you because you have a community. Community doesn't have to be random people passing through a zone. Community is about the people you associate with by choice. I'm not sure I'd prefer a random community to the one I have.

[Donutdude.9582]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:I wrote this as a comment to already to another thread...after writing i realized how important it is for me to just say it, to the PVE population in general. i read through a few other threads that seem to touch on this, but not really getting the full picture and the extent to which how bad this problem has/is and will be for gw2.

The ProblemThis game is too self-sufficient, and there is a lack of community interaction.

Go right now to any PVE zone.How many people are engaging and talking with each other? I've been sitting in Queensdale/Shaemoor for a good 30 minutes now and not a SINGLE person in either Map Chat or Saychat has said anything...This is supposed to be the HUMAN starter zone.

So what is the deal?Why is everyone so quiet? The maps are full they have people in them...but nobody is talking. Why does this bother me so much? It's because there's no reason for people to talk to each other...there's absolutely no mechanisms in place to encourage player to player interaction.

1) QuestingSee my comments2) Crafting...See my comments3) Lack of PvP interaction in PVESee me commentsAnyway, these are just three examples in which the game lacks any sort of community interaction. This lack of interaction has handicapped gw2 since launch, and it has continued to weaken guild wars 2, in all areas both PVE and PVP, to the point to where we see it today...Truth is, the game is currently in a crisis...a tipping point...we are not sure if we will even see the end of the GW2 storyline...we don't know the future of Spvp or WvW....people are quiting left and right and anet is getting roasted by every single commentor on the forums. All these things are just side effects...side effects to one singular tumor of issues that deal with the basic fundamental mechanics of the game....lack of community interaction and too much self sufficiency.

1. I regularly have interactions with players when questing. They don't need to be fully flegded conversations to be interactive. Even just jumping in to slam a mob and receiving a cute "ty" is enough for me.
2. I could not disagree with you more here. The system implemented in Guild Wars 2 is incredible. I've never utilised a crafting discipline so much in an MMO and I've played a few.
3. I am extremely happy with this lack. PvP interaction in PvE just promotes unnecessary elitism, which is already rife in the PvP and raiding communities.

Sorry but I simply do not agree with this entire post.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:Allow me to go back to Guild Wars 1. ... GW1 had EXCELLENT community interaction...Of all the examples to use, this was probably the worst. GW1 had much, much less community interaction than GW2 does if you compare them at similar periods.

GW1 launched in 2005; it's sole "expansion" (as opposed to "campaign") dropped in 2007. Three years into GW1, people were running 3 hero/4 hench teams everywhere, except the underworld and a few HM dungeons. "Drok's Run" and similar skips weren't "community interaction;" they were one-time transactions that allowed people to bypass gates.

And while I happened to love bartering, many people do not. The only reason that P2P trading existed is that there was no other non-farming source for huge varieties of needed goods. People who understood the markets made plat in droves; people who didn't ... gave up plat in droves. On the whole, P2P trading is a zero-sum PvP game, not "community interaction."

In contrast, there are all sorts of reasons for people to cooperate in GW2 because everyone gets the same opportunity for loot. People cooperate in metas, sometimes so well that little conversation is needed. People discuss new stories and how to get from A to B. Heck on any given day, there are people volunteering their home instance to leechers who just want the easy mats.

GW2 has some problems, some are even serious. Fortunately, community interaction isn't one of them.