Guild Wars 2, It’s Time To Break Up–It’s You, Not Me

Overall I like Guild Wars 2

I think Guild Wars 2, especially for a game that’s not subscription based, offers its players an extreme amount of value. The world is massive, the graphics are nice, and there are jumping puzzles. Really, what more could a person ask for?

Well…

The PvE content has become boring and redundant

Each session of the “2 week” content system seems bland, full of one or two events that you run over and over and over again until it becomes muscle memory.

Top that off with being more or less penalized for being an explorer. Well, maybe not penalized, but you earn more XP, loot, and karma, not to mention usually your daily activity list by simply running around 2 or so maps killing the same champion monsters.

Boar -> Oak -> Troll -> Bandit -> Spider, throw a Wasp Queen in there now and again for a little spice and repeat until you hit level 80. There is no incentive to revisit the various lands of Tyria anymore, and I find that sad. I have explored it 100% and there are a lot of really neat places.

Ok.. PvE is one thing, but lets face it I came here for some WvWvW action!

When I play Guild Wars 2 now, my focus is World vs World, I spend about 90% of my time duking it out in the mists with my Elementalist, and I’ve been in some very good guilds that have for various reasons disbanded.

Now, I’m by no means the best Elementalist around, but I am skilled and very versatile. So really, when you see the recruitment message it should be easy right? No. Typically, you’ll be told to go to the guilds forum site to, yes, fill out an application form.

Not too hard? At first it doesn’t sound like it. However, I quickly began to realize that the majority of these are more complicated than filling out part-time job application forms. Typically starting out with your perfs and such… ok, nothing big. Then you have to post your build typically by going to a build editor site and making everything there match what you actually have in-game, which is very time-consuming.

But it doesn’t end there. Then you have to explain aspects of your build, did you use these particular traits? No? Why?…

Seriously… this is starting to turn into work, but stick it out until the forms completed and submitted.

You’re not done yet, now your application is pending approval, please contact an officer in-game for.. yes.. an interview. This wouldn’t be so bad but think about it, but you’re flipping between two forms of communication (in-game and forum) and it seems counter productive.

Ok.. Wait…What?.. an interview to apply to a guild, in a game, this is really starting to sound like a job – just you know, without the pay.

Now you get to go over your application form, which for me is a disaster zone. I don’t use a typical Elementalist build. I use a pure survivor build. I may not do a lot of damage or do 1v1 stuff really well, but I can hold the front lines with my double daggers side by side with the Warriors and Guardians. Throwing out point-blank AoE conditions, damage and crowd control, not to mention some health regens and various buff fields.

I’ve played on both Jade Quarry which is a top-tier server and Northern Shiverpeaks, a lower tier server and the mentality of WvW guilds is the same. Applications, interviews, seriously… all I can say is… I’m done.

In all seriousness, my last real job interview took less time than my last WvW guild interview, and I did a decal install while I was at it.

I understand the need to try to recruit people who will work with your party dynamic, who have real interest, willing to follow orders, etc… but I think the line has been crossed, I don’t want my hobby to feel like work.

I’ve recently switched over to Final Fantasy XIV, to which my end game guild Free Company, let me join after I asked, even though I’ve just started the game and am nowhere near the content there in, I’m enjoying the same talk about gear, builds, and general banter I was getting in Guild Wars 2.. the only difference being the initiation took all of 5 mins.

So is it just me? Anyone else frustrated at the application environment of WvW guilds in Guild Wars 2? Let’s hear your stories.