For those that have been playing since launch, what was the most fun era for you and why?

[Einsof.1457]

Curious what the vets who have been around from the beginning consider the most fun era of guild wars 2. Let's hear some stories! 

[Curunen.8729]

A few fun times:

- glamour mesmer

- specialisations patch prior to HoT.

- mirage on PoF launch, when despite the general power crept state of the game, you could play it more like thief porting all over the place thanks to low cooldowns etc. Granted many things were stupid (elusive mind...), but the general direction since then of forcing into a more dull ambush spam reliant on specific gimmicks is a shame.

[Cuddy.6247]

Depends what the objective is. Core game, especially in the short time between the specialization update and HoT, probably had the best profession balance overall and had the healthiest competitive scene imo. The story gets progressively better tho.

[Crono.4197]

Most fun era: Vanilla

I liked the fact that Guild Wars 2 was more different from other MMOs back then.

After that, the game started changing to become more similar to other MMOs and to catter to more types of players, leading to the conflicts we have today between player bases.

- Adding raids just made the toxicity in the community rise up, as elitists don't want to play with regular players

- Adding mounts, while I do enjoy them, I still consider it to be a mistake. Reminds me of those people that have cars and they can't walk for 5 minutes to the market on foot because they're too lazy and they need to drive the car even places that are super close to their home. People in the game now can't move even for one second without a mount. You need to move 2 in-game meters? Summon mount, move 2 metters, dismount.

- Strikes - Good addition, the Icebrood Saga ones. But to an extent, they have the same issue as raids. Except for the easy ones, you can't join because everyone requires you to know everything, or to have a certain build which will burn the strike boss in a few seconds.

- Skiffs, fishing - Something other games had and which again made the game even more unoriginal

The game is moving towards becoming mainstream and it shows. Because from in-game features/mechanics to the toxic behaviour of players, the game is becoming more and more like what you find in MMOs where only gear, dps and raids matter and all the features are the same.

Lastly to add, if we're talking about story, I think the best era was PoF. The Joko/Kralkatorrik era was good. Even Balthazar was decent, although I would have prefered if Elder Dragons stayed as the expansion antagonists and didn't become just content for Living Story. They WERE the game's main focus after all.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Crono.4197

[Biermeister.4678]

Before HoT

[Galmac.4680]

The three weeks after the necro got his scourge specialization - before the big nerfs came.

[padreadamo.3986]

Heart of Thorns was the best time for my playgroup. The anticipation and joy of exploration. The verticality of that expansion really gave us a sense of wonder. I was so pumped to play the originally daze/gyro destroying Scrapper. It was my favorite class to date unfortunately it was wrecked due to poor AI. But, yes, Heart of Thorns was my favorite.

 

-P

[ugrakarma.9416]

AB gold farm(multimap).

 

I was on a guild also called AB(Auric Basin, later renamed to Arcane Bastion), most members are almost teenagers from australia or japan, the vibe was good, lots of political incorrectness.

 

i dont remenber for how long a wvw'ed(i guess 1 yr +). i miss wvw blob run's lol.
i did lots of runs with TL(comm: Rhys), TSYM(comm: Coron Bale).

[Fwog.9387]

Heart of thorns. 

[Hashberry.4510]

1 hour ago, Crono.4197 said:

Adding mounts, while I do enjoy them, I still consider it to be a mistake.

Same here. Player behavior became more of a problem. Map metas have been worse since mounts as well. Fun, ingenious but overall a negative.

 

Hot was the best content they ever made, though I agree trying to chase the raiders was a poor move.

[Fueki.4753]

To me, the first two years were the most fun time in the game.

I still remember "tanking" Giganticus Lupicus on my Soldier Warrior and people being happy they weren't targetted.

The days back then, when Warrior was actually good and wasn't just baggage to groups, were the best days of the game.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Laken.9018]

From Post Launch to HOT.
For me I ran on a potato but still loved the game and logged in every week pretty much to find out where the story was going next.
A persistent world that kept changing permantly was the MMO I had been wanting for years.

[Danikat.8537]

I don't think I can pick 1 time period, there's been lots of fun experiences over the years, usually things that happened with other players and a lot of it isn't directly related to new releases or in-game events. But here's some which are:

The first WvW season, which is what finally got me to stop saying I'd do WvW later and actually try it. That was a lot of fun and everyone was very patient with my stupid questions like "What are we doing?" "Where are we going?" "Why?"

When gliding was added to Central Tyria, I glided (glid?) off the side of Rata Sum, down to the bottom and wound up in jail, where I found myself in a cell packed with people who had the same idea. 😆

Once doing the Battle for Lion's Arch meta with a commander who spoke French and a mixed squad of French, English and German speakers. 2 people volunteered to translate instructions, but we all picked up bits along the way too. My favourite, from doing the Watchknights was "Allez les bleu" "blue" "blau" "Yeah we know!"

My first successful Dragon's End meta, with probably the nicest commander I've played with, and a lot of really encouraging people posting encouragement in chat periodically.

Also any time a new expansion comes out and everyone is discovering the new maps and story. I always fall behind quickly, so I don't always know what people are talking about but it's still fun hearing about everyone's discoveries and sharing mine.

[Raknar.4735]

2012 release when everything was new and everything had to be discovered.

But that's the most fun time for most games for me, when nothing is solved and information/knowledge is scarce.

[squeegee.4320]

HoT, for all the hate it gets, was amazing on release. There were no mounts, just pocket raptors. No wiki guides, just pure chaos and confusion. And we were all in it together. It really captured the feeling the expansion was going for. Nowadays you can just hope on your mount and fly over the whole map which doesn't really give the same effect. Even the land mounts give you immunity from the CC effects and let you run past mobs.

[jessiejay.3625]

There are 2 things that come to mind about end-game enjoyment for personal and/or universally felt feelings. Of course coming over from GW1 into enhanced graphics and game play was memorable but so was specific farms and wvw game play.

 

WvW

- I miss the days when there were numerous "pugmanders" like Cloud Fly with 24/7 coverage. It was such a joy if I couldn't sleep at 3am there would be squads rolling around. To get an idea of this era of time was the terms: Melee train meta. Such as guardian hammer rings after teleporting and warrior axe spinning on those caught in the rings. The time era was when you had to blast Ele water fields for healing. Now its reduced into only NA prime time whereas the EU, Asian, and Australian majorities are a rarity in various servers now. 

 

Methodical Community Farms

- Don't judge me for this but I enjoyed the public high pace but methodical farms such as the Queensdale champions, Frostgorge champions, Silverwastes, then Lake Doric leather farm. This one is for personal reason because I met people where we would share music, jive to it and just farm. I miss these kinds of moments for raising capital in end-game.

 

BONUS: Old Lion's Arch before mega server and lounge passes . . .

- There are various veteran players that would agree that we missed seeing familiar faces on the bank ledge and around the mystic forge. I gained a lot of friends in this era before LA was destroyed and now people only go to LA if they have to. I feel the artistic aesthetic of LA is gone into Sea World and no one talks much in lounge pass areas. It was enjoyable while it lasted and had fun social circles that spawned therein.

Edited June 29, 2022 by jessiejay.3625

[Cyninja.2954]

Early to mid HoT. Raiding on chrono as tank and having to distort for my subgroup.

 

PoF on release, mainly because I had returned from skipping half of season 3 and I really enjoyed the story and was getti g back into raiding.

 

The constant mersmer/chrono nerf-buffs. Most importantly making chaos chrono give/upkeep almost all boons on his subgroup with SoI. It was grossly busted, but finally one could run chrono without crappy wells.

[Arewn.2368]

Probably HoT. New age of content that brought with it the especs. The increased challenge was appreciated. The metas were fun. And I enjoy raiding.

Vanilla had it's charm, but ultimately lacked things to do. There was no meaningful content to challenge, and I remember feeling like "well I could gear up and try to make a cool build, but what's the point when there's nothing to apply it against".

PoF was solid too, though lacked good map metas. Mounts were great. Nice to get more elite specs to round out the system. Though maybe just less exciting because it wasn't as fundamental of a change as Hot.

EoD has been good but I'm currently a bit jaded at it (pun intended).

 

The seasons never really stood out to me as distinct eras. Which i guess makes sense since it is typically the expansion features that defined the era.

[Excursion.9752]

The most accomplished I have ever felt and best memory to date was in WvW. We fought for over 4 straight to take a keep. That night our group made it to the lord with ease. Then while we were taking down the lord the home team showed up... and they showed up with numbers. We initially thought it was going to be a quick sneak attack to steal some points that turned out to be one of the longest continuous fights I've ever been in.  We kept our numbers up by several of our mesmers porting people in. It was pretty amazing. I never fully downed and our zerge never wiped. It was probably the most exciting experience that I have had in the game. Our commander Nic probably said more words in those 4+ hours than I say in a year haha!

The elation on discord was epic. Everyone was cheering and laughing then followed by a collective feeling of being absolutely exhausted. I went to work the next day still feeling out of it to the point where people would ask if was hung over. That's right I had a WvW hang over!

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I think Season One was my favorite.  New content every other week and the whole Core Tyria map to explore.  Was quite some time before I ventured into Orr. 

[Randulf.7614]

Vanilla for the newness for the promise of greatness and the places we could go to explore (far shiverpeaks, the depths to fight Primordus etc) then the end of Season 1 through to beginning of Season 3. Silverwastes and HoT were some the absolute best times and brought a freshness and a uniqueness to an already outstanding game. Really brought out the coop aspect of the open world.

Season 1 prior to Battle of LA is amongst the worst. Some of the worst content and I’ve never seen such a high exodus of players since, so I exclude that from vanilla

PoF was a big rejuvenation in the game and I loved it, but then season 4 hit and things rolled back downhill after a couple of episodes and then IBS and the surprisingly poor EoD expac has almost wiped my enthusiasm completely. I’ve gone from login daily without fail, to barely once a month. I haven’t even started the final act of EoD and I’m not sure I will.

So waffling aside, the initial launch and the S2/HoT era

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Randulf.7614

[DeanBB.4268]

For almost any game, that initial feeling of discovery and wonder is hard to beat. Things like, getting killed by a deer since I didn't know they would go hostile (I hope I had wandered into a higher level zone...). 

[Ashen.2907]

PoF and after. I finally had an option to play my ranger without a pet.

[leila.7962]

I've been playing since the very start, and honestly, the most fun I had was back in 2012.. there wasn't lots to do after level 80 like there is now, but it was fun to do things as a core class, it was more challenging than it is nowadays. Dungeons were fun to do, and also more rewarding.. then fractals came and it was a blast to go up the levels without having ascended gear or agony resistance!!

Now I feel like everything is meh.. Anet is putting a lot of effort on fixing things that they should have fixed along the almost 10 years of the game. It became a pretty dull game when there's no new content for old players. Nothing exciting since they started re-releasing the IBS episodes...

[lionlady.1560]

For me season 1 up  to and including hot , season 1 for me was just crazy lots of things to do mass mob events on different maps and the first time i felt like it really was a living breathing world . Karka invasion was cool also but soo much lags and dcs i could nt enjoy it .