WARNING: Complete Newb

Hi guys!

Yeah, a total newb here, needing some help.

I have just bought that game, and it looks promosing, thing is I have absolutely no idea what to do or where to go!

I was wondering if you could help me, I'm an elementalist, and I need to start gaining some levels, or start doing something other then wandering around watching other people seem to know what they are doing, lol

So any help would be appreciated! Sorry if you get these questions all the time, I try not to be an annoying newb most of the time.

R1kk1

You can add me ingame if you want, I'll help you out with stuff and questions.=P
Ingame name: Lord Milennin

In the beginning, we were all newbies. Welcome to Guild Wars and to guildwarsguru.com forums.

The greatest game info source is GuildWiki at http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page

The second greatest are these forums. Feel free to come back with any questions that arise. We love to help people. And let us know what server and time zone you play.

Welcome to Guild Wars and GWGuru! Always remember, Wiki is your friend. You can find just about anything GW related on there.

Welcome aboard! Wiki is a fabulous tool, and I recommend using the search feature on these forums; it will save you the over-reactionary angry people response from the intolerant .

example of angry forum troll.."OMG teh noob doesnt know how to play yet"...insert flame here.and now you know what to watch out for

Thanks! I was haf expecting those kind of replies, but instead got very nice ones! This community is really nice, by the looks of things

I've only logged on once, and I'm about to load the game so I can tell you server etc. soon. Wiki seems promosing too, but is it just me or does it take ages to load? Probably my sucky internet/computer.

I hope to find some decent stuff on it, as I do like the look of the game!

Also, I take it from the name of the game, alot of the game will be team work, but is there anyway to play it solo, or is that near impossible?

Welcome aboard!

My first question is: Are you starting on Prophecies, Factions, or Nightfall? That will help most of us help you. I'll assume, for now, you're starting on the first game.

The first game is very long if you play through it all, and it has a nice, slow learning curve. If you can find someone to play with, it makes it go by a lot faster and far more fun! Of course, in the chance you don't have anybody to play with, you can use the Henchmen available in all of the towns and outposts in the game (minus the starting area of Prohpecies).

As you progress through the game, your party size will get larger, but hopefully you'll have made more friends by then to fill up your party. If not, you can always attempt a PuG, since that's a great way to either: Meet new friends OR meet people you should never play with again.

Most of us on here are nice, minus the trolls. If you need any help, feel free to contact me in-game: Diviner From Beyond

So, for now, good luck and I hope you love the game

Thanks alot! I'm not too sure what game I got to be honest, My sister got it for me you see >.<; The cover doesn't have any of what you mentioned on it, Prophecies, etc. It just says Guildwars, but it does have 'Guild Wars Special Edition' on it, if that helps. :S

And that's cool, hopefully I'll make new friends!

So does it have a storyline? I thought it was just a normal game, no storyline... But once I complete it can I still carry on or do I have to start again with a new character?

Sorry, I bet your all laughing at my questions! :S

And also, what are/is PuG? And I'm taking it Trolls are names for nasty players :S lol, I'm so newb.

Thanks for all the help! You guys are one of the best communities I've ever been to, most forums just ignore my post's or write very unhelpful replies!

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS:

you have guildwars 1 (prophecies)

it has a storyline

you can keep playin once u complete it because it is almost neverending

PUGS are people that u dont know/arent in your guild/arent on your friends list

gwg is teh best

o and btw add me to friends list my IGN Super Granny or Taki Mora

PUG stands for pick up group, random players joining forces for a mission/quest. Trolls is a forum thing, the flamers if they think you asked an ignorant question (irony neh?). We're not laughing, just enjoying you're enthusiasm with nostalgia.
There is a storyline, and its fairly rich for all 3 chapters. The special edition is chapter 1 or Prophecies campaign. Once you DO finish the storyline is when the game really begins, be that pvp or developing your playing skills or playing through with another profession or higher end pve.
Truly one of the best ways to learn is to find a guild which you fit well into and is helpful. Depending on your goals there are a lot of them. There is even a looking for guild forum here.

Welcome aboard!

It's not just you - Wiki crawls on a bad day for a lot of people. But the wait is worth it just because the information is SO vast.

Explore a lot, and be fearless - it's okay to die, it's okay to mess things up because very little is set in stone (I once panicked when I realized I'd spread my attribute points too thin across too many things, and was really relieved to find out that whenever I'm in town I can change them).

At the moment, you're in an area that's called "Pre-Searing Ascalon". I think my first day someone in my guild asked me if I was "Pre-Searing" and I told them I didn't know, I think I was pre-everythinging. :P I was so confused! You're in what's regarded one of the most pretty and fun areas of the game right now, so don't rush it. I suggest checking out everything you possibly can.

All over, you'll see a lot of NPCs with big green ! over their head - that means they have something to tell you (usually, give you a quest or they're part of a quest) so talk to any of them you see. If you take a lot of the quests, you'll find that many of them take you all over anyway. Just don't take the quest that says "are you sure? You can't come back" or something along those lines from Sir Tydus until the last possible time. Once you do, you really can't come back, so explore everything you possibly can because it's a really beautiful place.

In addition to the storyline itself, there's also some higher level content to play in, and all the Guild Wars games are connected to each other, so if you get any of the other ones, you'll be able to take your character to those as well. There's a big world waiting for you!

If you need anything, feel free to giveme a shout, too - I can answer questions and I also have a low level Mesmer out where you're at. IGN is Elinora Ne Sangre.

If you need any help, you can always pm me in game. Forum name is same as in game. Just add me to your friends list.

There are a lot of great people on this forum and in game. Unfortunately, there area also a lot of idiots in both area's. Be careful of the ones in game, they will try and take advantage of your newness. If you're not sure about something, ask one of us ingame or ask in guru before you do anything.

Wow, This is such a cool forum! I can see myself spending alot of time here!

Btw, I've just loaded my game once more and it now says its loading almost 8,000 files and its taking forever. Is this normal? Is this going to happen everytime I load my game? It's been on for about 5 minutes and hasn't even reach one %...

Also, my characters name is Teta Zuno, is anyone would like to add me, as I have no idea how to add people, and cant even log on at the moment

I have a feeling that this game might be very slow on my computer, does it need to be a super good computer to run this game properly?

Also, while I'm wating to log in, is the character movement completely worked by mouse? or can I use Arrow keys or something else as well?

So laughing then? Jokes, but I am enthusiastic! Can't wait to start playing.

I think I may look for a guild to start off, get some friends etc. But how many guilds will recruit level 1's?

Upon writing this, the bar has now moved to 6%, but it's still taking forever, so does this happen everytime I load the game?

If this is your first time logging in the game, don't panic..ANET does updates to the game that get downloaded to your PC. This amount of files should just be this one time, provided they dont have some whopping big change in mind for the game. You shouldnt have to go through this again..


if you list your computer specs, we'd have a good idea of how Guild Wars might run on it...


You can use the mouse and your keyboard....I'm not sure, but the list of keyboard commands might be in the little guide book that came with your collector's edition....


I've seen guilds looking for recruits in all areas of the game; not to worry, you'll have your pick of them. You can always start a guild, though you'll need plenty of gold to purchase a Guild Hall and all the goodies to put in it (i.e. merchants, storage guy, etc.)...

Like a lot of people have posted, you'll definitely want to take a little time and check on guildwiki; you'll find a LOT of answers to your questions there, and you can always ask people ingame...

Welcome to Guild Wars...have fun!

Cool, in that case I wont be ut off by the huge amounts of loading that it's going through now then! 33% and counting...

I don't know my comp. spec. How can I find out? I'm not a whizz when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Also, after reading these forums abit I've been reading alot about level 20 completing the game. Is there a level cap on the game or something? Will i need to buy the other expasion packs to lift that cap?

Tell us the PC model (is it a Dell 4500? A Micron 350?...etc). And what is your operating system (Windows XP? Windows 200?).. We can help you find some info from that)..

Level 20 is as high as you can go in Guild Wars.

The level cap is level 20, no matter what other chapters you buy. This helps make sure that every character is on a more or less level playing field (level 20 is easy to achieve). What counts is the number of ways that you can customise the skills you choose to put on your skill bar, and as you buy more chapters you'll get access to even more skills. One of the more fun things about the game is experimenting with different skills to see how they can enhance each other and what attack combos you can come up with. An example of this might be an elementalist dousing an opponent with water before zapping them with some electricity for an even bigger shock

Welcome R1kk1, most of the people here are nice. The way you add people to your friends list is simple. You click the "n" key, and a box will open with your friends list. Towards the top of the box is a line where you click to highlight it, then type in a name. Assuming you typed the name correctly, the name will show up under the box. If it is white, that means they are on. If there is another name in (), they are on, but are using a different character. If the name is gray, they are not currently on. You click on the name, and can choose whisper, remove, or ignore. Click whisper, and that's how you pm people. Fortunately, your sister picked what most feel is the best chapter, especially to start. During pre-sear, you will learn lots of skills, and the basic mechanics of the game. GW is simple to learn, but there are so many variations of skills and techniques it is very complex. There is enough to keep most people's attentions for a long time.

If you need anything, you can ask me my IGN(in game name) is Don Fideli.

Enjoy your stay with us in GW. You won't be going anywhere for a while...

Hey,

Don't sweat it about being a newb. i used to play guild wars at a computer cafe, so im a newb to. anywayz im getting the game soon if you see a mage named "Alex Holoway" come talk to me ill help as much as i can.

Good luck - feel free to message me in game if you ever need anything. My in game name is Talen Pikunda.

One big piece of advice for you that I extremely reccommend you to do is to read the manual. If you would have done that in the first place it would have answered most of the questions you asked here. It should also answer most questions you should have later.

^/ignore

These forums are here for you for your questions and concerns. I say, ask away!

lol, Thanks alot! Just got a message on Guildwars telling me I've been playing for 4 hours and I should take a break, but I'm still going. Talk about addictive!!!

The only thing I'm confused about at the moment is the fact I have loadsa items with +energy on them, but I have no idea what to do with them! If I try to equip them they go in my shield spot and I'm slightly puzzled about that.

Also, I wonder if anyone knows how to make the game run faster. When I get into a place with alot going on it takes ages to load and I move quite slowly, whereas other places I run rather smoothly. I tried setting everything to low, but it still takes it's time in busy areas.

I'm an E/Mo! Emo... hehehe... Sorry, I suppose that's an old joke here, but I laughed for a while.

Also, wn I to after the 'pre' section, please tell me that monster drops will sell for more then just 3 gold at the most. I managed to scrape together 250 gold by selling wands that went for 3 or 4 gold each. took ages, but I did it!

Thanks for all your help, you are all really great people. I would have added you all, but I've been to busy playing and getting to know the game to add people, killing those weird cocroach things is so satisfying...

Also, when it comes to armour and robes etc., will I be getting more of them when I leave Ascaron?

thanks for all your help!

yea you got to be careful though, before too long you star seeing "You have been playing for 24hours!!! Take a break." lol

I always wanted them to add "Your gonna hurt something." to that 24hour message lol. But yea, you'll be surprised how quick a weekend can just vanish when your having such a good time online in GuildWars.

By now I'm sure you've picked up most of the mechanics of the game... Several missions and quests under your belt, May have tried out an arena or 2 in PvP... Before you know it you will be one of the die hard Guru fans!!! lol Hey we were ALL there at some point... So its always great to see new people in game, learning for the first time everything we have come to love (and in some cases hate [not many]) in Guild Wars.


Takes some of us back to that first time we got into Tyria and started wailing away at each other having no idea what skills to use or how to find new ones. lol Or even better when we first started fighting that first monster mob around lions arch and no matter what we killed from lev 1 to lev 25 it always only dropped 1 gold coin. hahahaha Ahh yes those sweet old beta days. lol

LOL..yes, the drops from omnsters wil get you more than 3 gold when you leave Pre-Searing.
The best advice I can give you while you're in Pre-Searing now?
If Black or White dye drops for you---KEEP IT! NEVER sell Black or White dye!
When you leave Pre-Searing, you'll understand....

Well, to chime in with my input. i would stay in Presearing until you are atleast lvl 7 or so. Also try out as many different secondary classes as u can...and just remember u can't hardly go wrong with a monk secndary for your first character...Don't worry about gold to much at this point...just try not to spend any gold until u get atleast to "post" Old Ascalon and buy some armor...just use whatever weapons you find....also thier are "caster" offhands that casters such as yourself use. They show up in the inventory panel as if they were in the shield slot...

If you happen to find a black or white dye don't sell it to anyone they are worth a few thousand gold..i think black is around 8k and white is around 5k. You can usually sell these to other players in post ascalon..or sell them to the DYE trader in old ascalon.

I don't think anyone addressed the issued of groups vs soloing...Alot of people like to solo (by taking henchman in place of other people) I wouldn't recommend that until you are fairly comfortable with the way the game works...because you can learn alot from other players...but you take the risk or getting idiots in your groups too :P

Like many others have suggested I would suggest you get in a guild. Remeber that if you don't like it you can always leave and join another...also be careful of accepting to much help from high lvl characters...no matter how good of intentions they have it can/might hurt you. Its better since this is your first character to kind of learn things the "hard way" rather than the easy way..it will benefit you in the later stages of the game.

You have done about the best thing you can to begin with and that is becoming a member of this forum and getting the address to the guildwiki.

Well thats enough rambling...have fun and good luck.

Coridan

Enough rambling? Never! Ramble more, I'm interested, honestly, lol!

Well, I'm level 5 now, E/Mo and I did the 2 quests for each class, so now have about 10 skills, mainly healing and offensive magic. I have a nice skill setup I think, it works for me at least!

Haven't tried any PvP yet, I'm not really into the whole player killing thing, but I guess I had better practise up if I need to defend myself later on...

Did lots of quests, can't find the bloody kid's flute for the life of me, he says it's on the other side of the river, but I think he's lying. Meh, he can go without it for the rest of his life I guess.

Everytime I team up with someone they leave before I get the chance to do the quest for the Resurection Signet, but I'll work on that.

Not much else to do really, I'm just going to try and slaughter some good mob's and get level 7 then, as suggested. Don't really know what I'm doing with the whole Skill Setup thing, just been making all my skills pretty even at the moment, but I think I should start cncentrating on some more then others.

Also, when you get level 20, is that it for skills and skill points? Do you stop gaining them? And how do I make my skills better?

Also, on some of my skills there is a little yellow triangle in the top right corner, but I don't know what it means, if it means anything...

Thanks alot, I hope to be joining the ranks of The Eleet soon xD

BTW, are there any 'well-known' players out there, maybe players I should steer clear of, or maybe people who are well known for being so uber. If so, could you tell me who they are?

Thanks for all your help! I feel like such a kid asking all these questions!!!

Rik

PS: Some questions I keep forgetting to ask! How do I get more room in my backpack? I remember getting a message about it in game but cant remember what it said.

Also, I know someone answered my thing about the +energy items in my shield slot, but I still don't understand what they are there for. They don't seem to be doing much at all.

And is it normal for my character to be all white and not have any armour on?

And finally: Weapon sets, I try putting a different combonation in a different weapon set slot but it just doesnt want to know, that's confusing me aswell...

Thanks for all the help! Sorry if I'm annoying you. The answers to these questions are probably really obvious...

well if your running Xp, press start, select help and support, then select the last in the list of "pick a task" on the right hand side, then "my computer information" on the left hand side, View general system information about this computer, which will tell you details about you processor. then after you have the information about you processor from under the processor box on the right, post that here along with you graphics card details that you can find under "Find information about the hardware installed on this computer " which is the third one down on "my computer information menu.

if it is performing slowly, it may be time to upgrade, and if your download speed is slow, you will need a better internet connection .

anymore questions, PM here on the forum or whisper me in game.

well firstly pvp isn't like wow, you have a choice to fight or not fight, so don't worry about that just yet, also you have to go into the arena for that .(so no reason to avoid well known players unless your in a arena)

yes when you get to level 20 you stop gaining attribute points, but you can use runes at any time to boost you abblites, but they come with draw backs, ie you lose health when you apply them.

well the plus energy thingy in you shield slot?

that is called you off-hand, you apply it like shield, instead tho it gives you energy not armour.

also to get more inventory room, you can purchase belts and extra bags but you are going to have to wait for that.

about skills, the yellow triangle indicates that it is an enchantment spell.

if your character is white all over this is prob because you have an geforce graphics card like me, try downloading the latest drivers from the nivida site. if that doesn't solve the problem, they should revert to normal Armour textures in a few seconds.

also on the weapon slot thingy, make sure you inventory isn't full, for example if you take two items out and one in that leave you with a deficit of one.

one last thing, Gwen is a girl and the flute is there:P

Windows XP

Processor
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz
Version: x86 Family 15 Model 1 Stepping 2
Speed: 1794 MHz

Video Card
Model: NVIDIA Vanta/Vanta LT (Microsoft Corporation)
Driver: nv4_mini.sys
26 March 2006
Supported

IS that what you needed? I dunno if that will be enough, lol

yeah that should be enough, 1.8 ghz isn't great, but its a start, also try what i suggested in my last post of downloading new nivida drivers, that may immprove performance, but if you are slow at the loading screens, it may be because you have a poor internet connection. and the only way to solve that is by getting new service provider, Eg broadband, or getting a better router or wireless connection.

and if you do have a Wifi connection try moving your adaptor, so that you speed on wireless network connection status is high.


this is if you have a wireless connection just so you know, but aim to have the speed as high as possible, and as many bars of the signal strength full.

also if your running anything in the back round such as Internet explorer try turning those of as well.
also you can downgrade your graphics to suit your machine and increase your Frames per second.

While it sounds like a problem with the graphics adaptor, should point out that if you are running a female elementalist, the early "armor" is pretty much all white and does not look as though it would provide much protection.

I would suggest buying an updated graphics card that will work with your motherboard. Either that, or make sure drivers are all up to date. Good luck!

I think it is just a case of my computer sucking real bad. I should try to sweet talk my dad into getting me a new one.

Thanks for all the help, everyones really gone out of their way t help me get started and I thank you all for it!

I'm going to log on again now and try to get level 7 and move to the secondry area... Should be fun!!!

Yep, tis fun.

Just keep Aura of Restoration on, and spam flare. Buy firestorm and use it if a lot of monsters have ganged up on you and surrounded you.

(BTW, I'm a level 6 E/Me, IGN Lord of Fiery Doom, Old Ascalon.)

Rik, I'm amazed no-one has suggested that you might need more memory in your computer to speed the game up a bit. My own experience is that you need at least 512 mb for an acceptable frame rate. I have 1 gb in both my computers and am seriously thinking of going to 2 gb.

I think it is unlikely that the speed of your internet connection is slowing things down significantly, though when you go through a portal a slow connection may result in a long loading time. GW runs very well indeed on a slow dial-up connection once it has loaded.

Hey Rik, welcome to GW.

You will not have much money til later in the game. But it's ok, you don't need it! Make sure when you go to every town, and every zone outside town, hold down ALT key to look around. You'll see people with [Collector] after their name. Talk to ALL of them!! You just might find an item or even armor that you can use for just giving them some worthless junk you pick up while questing. (Eg, 3 Baked Husks will gain you better shoes from a collector outside Ashford Abbey.)

Holding down ALT key will also help you find loot such as the flute you're looking for .

I'd like to reiterate, KEEP any white or black (even red is valuable now) dye you find, until you go through the Academy to post-searing.

hey ill be as much as a newb as you are as soon as i get the game :P (today or tomorrow), so wiki is a good source for help? ive played similar games like lineage etc. but i have no idea what to expect except a really fun pve game

Here is something that might help speed up the game and stop it from loading every time you get to a new area.

go to your start menu and select the run command, put in the following line:

c:\program files\guild wars\gw.exe -image

this is assuming you did a default install, otherwise just point it to where the gw.exe file is.

this will download all the possible updates for all areas(usually you only download the updates when you enter an area and it will download in the background while you play). this will stop the game from taking up more bandwith while you play.

Do this after you are done playing, because it won't load the game while it's downloading. I would suggest possibly doing it right before you go to bed and letting it run overnight, because it's going to take a little while, but will save you some grief in the future.

What will this do? Will it stop us from needing to load anything in Guild Wars ever again, or will it load everything at the start of Guild Wars so we don't need to load anything again as long as we don't quit Guild Wars?