PVE player -wary- of buying NF after owning factions..

Enjoy this forum and decided to finally join it. I'm on this thread to hear some specifics from people specifically interested in PVE side of Nightfall.

Factions was a big dissappointment for me. PVE was not it's strong point.

How much more or less focus is given to PVE? Is there a decent plot?
Is PVE fun, with lots of local stories to give EACH explorable place a feeling of reality? Are the environments immersive and magically-realistic? Does it feel like you're naturally progressing through the world, or doggedly plowing a predetermined course?

By contrast: Are the "new" w/mo/me/etc character skills exact copies with only a few new ones? (inspired hex = revealed hex..)
Are the new skill animations new, or just differently placed/timed usage of old ones? (Programmers should be able to answer this one definitively.)

Reasons I didn't buy Nightfall, despite my love for Prophecies...

Shing Jea Island / most Faxn wilderness = barely modified Maguuma terrain.
All of the city of Cantha = brown walls / creative artwork high above, which is totally worthless in the standard, top down slant view.
Factions enemes = new color schemes applied to OLD chapter one models, using old chapter one animations.
Repetitive enemies of one type... justified by plot i suppose... (problem in both chapters but less so with the Charr.)
Super-speed LVL 20 production. My favorite part of that game was earning and discovering new skills, not "shopping" for new skills and having to acquire wealth... yuck, gross, grocery list, uncreative...

So there's a fairly long and somewhat ranting bunch of questions for you --PVE-- Nightfall owners.

So far I haven't found many pve descriptions either positive or negative, mostly generalizations.

I'm a die hard fan, and I'm just praying that NF isn't another Faxn... I'd love to go and explore a new and interesting world with it's own NEW and INTERESTING content...

Thanks, Invisible Dye

Well the PvE is much stronger this time around. I too am a die hard PvE player and I'm liking this one much better than factions so far. The leveling is more gradual and gives you a less steep learning curve with the new professions, dervish ftw!, and there are actually puzzles in here. Myst it ain't but it's more than just repetitive monster bashing. the only semi-aggravating thing is the Sunspear Ranks but if you wander around and set yourself up with like 4 bounties at a time you're guranteed to get the points you need in pretty short order just killing things. So far the monster models are compeltely unique to Nightfall. There are some chapter one models in there but there is a storyline element to back that up. By and large though you're going to see all new monsters with all new animations. I'm not that far into it but so far the story seems solid. Crazy, ruler trying to bring back dark god= fun times. I'd say give it a shot. In fact if you want I'll give you my buddy key for factions and let you try it out for awhile before you buy.

I, myself am a pvp character, and i am not very far through the PvE yet. However, there are some really cool things in the PvE. The story, i hope will be more engagng (dont hold your breath) but the Heros are really very useful, as you can customise almost every aspect, and equip them with skills you have unlocked on your account, not just on your character.

Further more, the environements, so far, are looking more open, less cramped, and just better to walk around.

Aa for length, there are 20 missions, which isnt bad, but i am unsure as to the length of the campaign as a whole (prophecies will be hard to beat imo)

There are no 'copy' skills anymore, enemies are 'fairly' diverse atm, altho there are some copies from other chapters, scales for instance, but i think the level gain is still pretty fast. Slower than factions for sure, but a lot faster than prophecies. Skills are still bought rather than earned, which i agree, isnt much fun.

As far as the storyline goes, ANet actually got on the ball this time around. Rather than using some random scrub writer from the dev team (which it seems like Prophecies and Factions were written by), they hired a pretty well-known tabletop RPG author (Jeff Grubb) to pen the plotline. I haven't played very far into the game yet, but the first three missions have left me quite hopeful for the rest of the story.

One of the things I disliked about Factions was the locked areas, and unfortunately, they returned in Nightfall too; the good news, however, is that, unlike Factions, there are many, many areas in between locked gates for you to explore, so you can spend quite a long while in between locks and still do a ton of adventuring.

I'm also a PvE player at heart, and from what (admittedly little) I've seen, Nightfall is going to be very, very satisfying.

Admittedly, I'm wary of buying nightfall despite finding a site that will sell it at the low price of 39.90 + 2.42 s+h. If I had a job, I most-likely would've bought it but since I'm unemployed, I'm a bit tighter around the dollar.

From the previews, it seemed pretty good. A lot of monsters seem different this time around. The dervish attack sadly doesn't work like cyclone axe but it does work like hundred blade.

I'm on the fence about this one.

NightFall has the best PvE.

As owner of the original GW, Nightfall is definitely worth it! I didn't buy Faction based on PVE preview because it does not fit my taste, but not with nightfall.. Love at first sight!

Jez whats wrong with everyone? PvP is just as good in gw. Thats why its called Guild Wars!! Both aspects of the game are good and imo one is missing a great part of the game by just doing one. I like both aspects!

Pve feels great so far. Like when you approach a boss, these drums start playin and it gives an exciting edge to the fight!! Monsters look amazing and some scare me lol. Feels good, I spent a few hours on it last night and got lvl 6, so it's not too fast and it is enjoyable to explore the lands. It's nothing like those boring alley's in factions.