Need Guild Wars help/advice

[Poomanchu745]

So I was looking into buying Guild Wars before the 2nd comes out so I can see what its all about and decide if im gonna want to play the 2nd. However I went on amazon to buy it and found out there are a bunch of different versions. So which one should i buy? Guild Wars: GOTY, guild wars trilogy, Guild wars platinum, etc...? I have no idea which one will get me caught up on content.

And I guess a more obvious question is, do enough people play the game to make it worth my while and keep me interested when I log in?

 

[OmegaXzors]

I played that game so much that I have two sets of the most expensive armor, rare weapons, well developed characters, titles, etc, etc.

My suggestion would be "Guild Wars Trilogy."

The reasoning is because Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall are all standalone games. They each feature a campaign that is transferable between characters.

For example, if you make a character in Prophecies (the first game), play all the way through it, move to Factions, then Nightfall, you will progress with lots of nice crap along the way. It will be a breeze to go through earlier missions of the other two games and so forth.

I will warn you that the Prophecies campaign and Factions campaign feel a bit incomplete against the Nightfall campaign (partly because of different development teams and time spans. Obviously, even TV shows get better with more time.)

The Platinum edition is the first game and the fourth game (which is an expansion, not a full game). "Eye of the North" is the last installment and the most developed. However, it's a bit after the story and having the benefits you get from the other games will make the campaign a lot easier.

Also, if you plan on getting all four games, I'd recommend getting the Trilogy and Platinum so you get all four games at what seems to be the cheapest price. Since the Trilogy is $27 and the Platinum is $11. Eye of the North by itself seems to be $20 or so.

Feel free to PM me, however, be warned. There are a lot less people playing now days due to lack of content release. It may be hard to beat some missions just because there aren't many people playing them (like Prophecies). If you have friends, different story. I'd suggest the Trilogy because Factions and Nightfall were more exciting to me game play wise, but I liked the Prophecies story the best.

Having Factions also unlocks the "Alliance Battles" PVP which is personally my favorite.

 

[Poomanchu745]

Hmm so I could technically just get Platinum to get a taste of the game since it sounds like there aren't lots of people on anymore? I don't think I really need to get all the expansions at this point, maybe if I fall in love with it or something.

 

[OmegaXzors]

It's a shame because there aren't any cheap versions of the other games other than Trilogy. Let me give you a quick run down of how they did this.

Prophecies (European theme to the game) was developed by the whole team. The major complaint of this game was the slow leveling process (your max level is 20, but there is a definite and solid reason as to why). The story while fun, took a while to progress. The path isn't linear and you (with a bit of help) can actually skip about 3/4 of the actual story progressing straight towards the end. Armor upgrades were selfish (as they had basically a slightly higher version of the suit you just got) so you end up wasting all your money without knowing how to save.

Factions (Oriental theme to the game) was developed by half of the development crew. This team was less experienced but they wanted to try to fix all the problems from before. The leveling is much faster, the path is more linear but still had some issues with getting lost (mostly underground). Some missions were hard for no apparent reason, armor upgrades were more straight forward (such as getting "max" armor in the first city you encounter. Again, you'll understand how armor works when you play the game). The story is interesting with split factions where you end up choosing a side you want to join (which is where that PVP system I explained comes in). The campaign also features my favorite villain.

Nightfall (African theme to the game) was developed by the first half. Now leveling felt perfect but too restricting (i.e., being this level to progress). You receive "Heroes" which are basically extra characters for you to the control and customize. This allows playing by yourself to be a bit easier for all the campaigns. The game is very straight forward, improved cutscenes, character models, etc. Though, I thought the story was weak. Others would disagree. The gameplay is more engaging than the other two stories making it seem somewhat more "fun."

Eye of the North (no theme but instead based strictly off the Guild Wars universe) is an expansion to where a previous character may now progress to an entirely different area. Problem is, one of the main characters you encounter is an older character of a character you meet in Prophecies. There are a lot of core relations to Prophecies in this game. You'll acquire "Heroes" again, have more factions (but PVP isn't part of this at all), vehicle segments, the best graphics of all the games, and the best cutscenes the game has to offer.

You can base it however you want. Prophecies is slow and kind of boring at times. The reward is spending less money for a free MMO. It was fun for me because I had friends in real life I played this with.

 

[Enagan]

What he said ^

But you forgot something essencial!

Each campaign (besides prophecies and Eye of the north (because it's an expansion)) added 2 new classes to the game

Factions:
--Assassins: Sneaky little guys, primary weapons are daggers and they use hit and run techniques because they have high DPS but low health and low armour too. The hit and run is done by using several skills they have that do "shadow step" (teleport, pretty much).

--Ritualists: They use the power of the spirit world to battle, this means summoning spirits, spirit weapons for you or your allies and also ashes of dead heroes for big buffs. The spirits work kindof like echantments with a physical presence although there are some offensive ones, but, kill the spirit the enchant drops. The spirit weapons are buffs or added abilities to allies weapons. Primary weapon are staffs or rods.

Nightfall:
--Dervish: Holy warriors, they use scythes to cut through their enemies. they have also a vast range of self enchants to last longer in battle. They can also take the form of any of the 5 gods, making them a lot more badass and tough to kill

--Paragon: Angelic protectors. They throw spears at the enemies, and ususally stand on the backlines using shout and chants to support the group. They are very usefull at buffing, but they also deal decent damage.





So that's a summary of the classes, if you just get Prophecies and Eye of the north, you won't get any of these 4, all you'll get are the "core" classes (They exist in any campaign):

Warrior --> Tank guy

Monk --> Healer guy

Ranger --> Ranged non-magic DPS and conditions (poison, burn,...)

Mesmer --> Mind magic, (awesome to cut through monks and make warriors kill themselves, literaly )

Necro --> Makes undead from dead bodies (Oh so fun in alliance battles, so many bodies to turn)

Elementalist --> Can work with 4 diferent elements Fire(DPS), water(negative enchantments), Air (damage-shutdown), Earth(tank)


Well that said, it's up to you really, but whatever you do, Guild wars is worthy of being played, as it is a really great game (Best combat system in any MMO IMO)

 

[MysticnFm]

How much was it on Amazon, Cause I am pretty sure they have all but Eye Of The North on Steam for a pretty cheap price. Just saying, because Amazon tends to be really expensive for me.

And you should choose either Prophecies or Nightfall. Don't get all 3 because you will spread yourself too thin. Better to choose one of those two and concentrate on sapping its full potential.

IMHO Factions is the worst of the bunch.

Oh and I don't think the others mentioned this, but In order to play Eye of The North, you have to have Prophecies, and I think you have to have completed it. Though I could be wrong, its been a while since I played.

 

[pha kin su pah]

if possible stick to Guild Wars: Prophecies and Eye of the north, because you only want to get the feel for it, and these two campaigns are essentially the storyline in continuation, and they will lead you into Guild Wars 2, from a story perspective.

Factions and Nightfall, are both seperate campaigns they add alot of elements but aren't required to understand the story behind Guildwars/Guildwars 2.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Guild Wars is, in my opinion, the best MMO there is (though some would argue it's not a 'real' MMO because of its heavily instanced structure - you can never encounter strangers during missions or while traveling, only in cities and outposts), and it's well worth getting at least the three big campaigns (Prophesies, Factions, Nightfall). Eye of the North is optional, since it's mostly endgame content anyway (you can go there earlier, but it's meant to be played at high level).

The three campaigns all have their good and bad points:

Prophesies: Longest of the campaigns but also the slowest, good balance between story and action, best difficulty curve of all campaigns, has serious pacing issues at some parts (most notably the desert part before the Ascension). Prophesies also contains zero grind.

Factions: Shortest of the campaigns but very action-packed, interesting story, best-looking environments, somewhat wonky difficulty curve, two cool factions to choose from (Kurzick represent!), and you can get all the cool stuf (best armour, max level) early on. It has only a little bit of grind at one specific point but the cool thing is that you can use PvP to get the points you need for that part, so it's a nice introduction to the PvP if you haven't tried it before. Factions also gives access to the Assassin and Ritualist classes.

Nightfall: Good length, good pacing for the most part, good difficulty curve, customizable heroes in stead of henchmen, cool locations and lore, best campaign story-wise, has the most grind out of the three campaigns but if you play smart you get most of your points while traveling around and doing quests so it's not much work. Nightfall also gives access to the Dervish and ImbagonParagon classes.

Eye of the North: fairly short compared to the other three, has a LOT of grind, but it's almost all optional grind so it's just something to do when you've finished everything else and want some cool new stuff. It has a lot of cool locations, a bunch of heroes, and plenty of stuff to keep you busy, but as a campaign it's the least interesting one of the bunch.

If you want to try just one, I'd say get Nightfall. Overall it's simply the best campaign out of the three. After Nightfall I'd go with Prophesies for PvE or Factions for PvP (since Factions levels you up and gets you ready for PvP a lot faster). Only get Eye of the North if you've done the rest and are looking for some extra content to explore. If you get all of them, I'd suggest you play them in chronological order (Proph -> Fact -> NF -> EotN). After a certain point you can switch more or less freely (need to do a quest the first time you go to a new one), but it's more fun to do them one by one (except maybe drop by NF/EotN to pick up the first few heroes, since they're usually a lot better than henchmen).

I haven't played in quite a long while though, so I don't have the latest info.

 

[Enagan]

I haven't played in quite a long while though, so I don't have the latest info.

Arenanet is now adding quest content to prophecies, to set the story for Guild Wars 2.

(For those of you who no longer play, these series of events are called War in Kryta and it's all about the Shining Blade VS White mantle conflict, after all that time with 0 content addition, it worth a look )

OT: In my opinion, you should get Nightfall 1st, then proceed to purchase the rest if you love it like I did (Oh, and you can play Eye of the north content even if you don't have prophecies)

 

[Kouen]

I haven't played in quite a long while though, so I don't have the latest info.

Arenanet is now adding quest content to prophecies, to set the story for Guild Wars 2.

(For those of you who no longer play, these series of events are called War in Kryta and it's all about the Shining Blade VS White mantle conflict, after all that time with 0 content addition, it worth a look )

OT: In my opinion, you should get Nightfall 1st, then proceed to purchase the rest if you love it like I did (Oh, and you can play Eye of the north content even if you don't have prophecies)

Ive not logged on in ages but the population was going down fast when I was last on it.

I Would have to say that Nightfalls was my worst one, too much damned sand, that aside story to me was boring my fav was prof as that to me had the best storyline then followed by factions. But thats just me

 

[Enagan]

Ive not logged on in ages but the population was going down fast when I was last on it.

I Would have to say that Nightfalls was my worst one, too much damned sand, that aside story to me was boring my fav was prof as that to me had the best storyline then followed by factions. But thats just me

Yes, the population went on dropping, but it's still somewhat populated, not so much for the starter areas though :/

I actually liked the desert look and feel .
My order would be Nightfall > Prophecies > Factions. I really liked all 3, but if I had to pick an order that would be it.
But could you possibly tell me why did you feel prophecies story was better? It felt kind of too slow paced at times.

 

[Kouen]

Ive not logged on in ages but the population was going down fast when I was last on it.

I Would have to say that Nightfalls was my worst one, too much damned sand, that aside story to me was boring my fav was prof as that to me had the best storyline then followed by factions. But thats just me

Yes, the population went on dropping, but it's still somewhat populated, not so much for the starter areas though :/

I actually liked the desert look and feel .
My order would be Nightfall > Prophecies > Factions. I really liked all 3, but if I had to pick an order that would be it.
But could you possibly tell me why did you feel prophecies story was better? It felt kind of too slow paced at times.

Although yea the story was slow at times to me i kinda digged the whole charr thing then Price Rurik standing against his foolish father not to mention the white mantel's dark secret. I dunno to me it had all the story elements, Invasion, Betrayal, Dark Secrets and Rebellion.

 

[Rewold]

I would get them all if you wanted to know the story. I bet gw2 will have references of all the campaigns from gw1. And profecies and eye of the north were my favorite.

 

[Cockney_Jesus]

Try the demo first...and also try a few other rpgs just to be sure.

I loved the GW demo, got the game, then tried the WOW trial...haven't touched GW since!

I'm not trying to say 'buy WOW it's better!' Just saying you should check out a few other games just to be sure. =)

Although if you don't want a monthly fee GW is a definite!

 

[Eleima]

I've been an avid RPG player for over 15 years, and I had my eye (and ear, I love Jeremey Soule's soundtrack) on Guild Wars, but never got around to trying it (lack of money, and then lack of time). I'm not sure I'll be having loads of time, but I saw the Trilogy on sale this week-end on Steam, and am *this* close to caving. It's pretty safe to say that this thread has nudged me over the edge.

And I guess a more obvious question is, do enough people play the game to make it worth my while and keep me interested when I log in?

Well, I'm going to be starting out myself pretty soon, so perhaps I'll see you around! =)

 

[Kouen]

you know the whole lot is on 50% off on steam atm right?