Questions before buying guild wars

Hi, I'm thinking about buying Guild Wars, most likely prophecies, but I'm kinda worried, because I want more of an rpg, than a fight areana game. So I'm wondering, how long is the story, and how long after you finish can you play it without getted bored of trying to get extras. Also, in the PvP world, how does that work? All I know is there are areanas you fight in, which sounds uninteresting to me, I'd like something more like WoW in the sense of being able to fight whenever and wherever. If you guys could help explain and tell me why the areanas are good, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, if you think I should buy Nightfall instead, or possibly another game(without monthly fee) then feel free. Thanks for your time.

still playing after a year, only have about 700 hours in though. So Im probably considered casual. Finished the first 2 campaigns once each. Working on the third. But I keep going back and doing other things with my toons, working on titles, exploring little corners. Working on hard mode, etc... How long it takes is based strictly on how much time you put in to it.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page this is a good resource for information.

Check the stickies and some of the other forum posts as well for other who were looking for info

Sleeplogic you should definitely buy Guild Wars. It is not as deep of an RPG experience as WoW (meaning, in GW you can't harvest materials, build things or have professions, and there are fewer opportunities/areas for discovering new things or interacting with the world) but GW is a beautifully designed game, from the characters to clothing to landscape, the music is outstanding, and there are enough quests, missions, special armor, weapon farming, and other tasks in a single campaign to keep you busy for a long time.

You will have a lot of fun and you never have to fight in PvP areas EVER if you don't want to ...though I'm sure you will dip into it from time to time for the hell of it.

The question on how long you can play without getting bored no-one will be able to answer for you, since no-one here knows how easily you get bored.

Let's just say, you can finish the game after a couple of days and then repetition will start. On the other hand, two years after release, there are still quite a few people playing it who have started on day one. So it does not neccessarily have to get boring at all.

As for PvP, there are multiple types: Random arena, team arena "Heroes' Ascend", alliance battles, guild vs. guild. Each of those formats has it's own appeals and drawbacks. Random arenas for example are always instantly availible. Just click on the "join" button and there you go. The "quality" of play there is considered to be somewhat lacking, though, exactly due to the fact that every idiot can easily join, possibly ruining the experience for others. With the other formats, you can pick your team mates. As such it may take some time to get into it.

PvP is arena style combat, meaning you group up in a staging area and it gives you a map where you fight another team (or another two teams, depending on the type of pvp). It's not at all WoW-like because it is actually balanced (compared to WoW), is player skill based rather than grind based, and people can't gank you while you're doing quests. I understand it isn't for everyone, but for people that want the challenge of fighting against real people (not predictable AI) it really doesn't get much better without changing game genres.

As for storyline, definitely go either Prophecies or Nightfall. I liked both a lot. They're self-contained storylines, so you won't pick up in the middle (though there are connections).

Thanks for the responses, they've been very helpful and on the dot for what I wanted to know. I'm about 95% sure I'll buy Prophecies now, but I do have a couple more questions first. Those being, which story is longer, Prophecies or Nightfall, I know theres 25 levels in Prophecies, and only 20 or so in Nightfall, but does Nightfall have more explorable, and better side quests and such, or the other way around, or both about equal. And also, which one has better items, like armor and weapons?

Prohecies is longer. There's a whole area full of quests to do before the story-line even starts. Nightfall has about 30 minutes of things to do before hitting the first mission. But, once you get into the story-line, they're about equal in length.
The 20 missions in Nightfall are seperated by more primary quests than the 25 missions in Prophecies. As for explorable areas, Nightfall (counting all areas) has just a bit more, but not much. As for side quests, I'd say they're about equal. The biggest difference with quests is that in Prophecies, many of the skills you'll use will be available as quest rewards. In Nightfall & factions, you'll only get a handful of skills to get you going, after that, you have to buy them.
You can get armor and weapons of equal quality in any of the 3 chapters. But with Nightfall, whatever armor you buy can be given whatever bonuses you want. (But it costs more) Some of the bonuses are; added energy, added armor protection, added health, etc. So if you like the look of Sunspear armor, you can add health, energy, or whatever to it.
In Prophecies and factions, the bonuses are tied into the type of armor you buy and can't be changed. For example, Gladiator's armor gives you an energy bonus, but knight's armor gives you damage reduction.
With weapons, No chapter has better ones than another chapter. Max damage is the same, and max modifications are available in every chapter. All of the modifications that can be gotten for them can be gotten in any of the campaigns. But in Nightfall, you've got 1 more choice in what can be modified.

Thanks for the help. Looks like I'll have to go get Prophecies sometime this week.

If you are only getting 1 get prophecies. the prophecies skills are essential and it is the only game that actually teaches you how to play.

My advice for u is to buy Nightfall for Heroes simply because u will find it hard (not saying impossible) to find PUGs in all 3 chapters seeing as everybody is playing with Heroes. Only player interaction you will experience is in the following places: Lion's Arch, Kaineng, Nightfall's trading place (i don't know cos i don't have Nightfall) and not forgetting GuildwarsGuru!

I'm not very worried about finding other players, because a few of my friends are planning on buying the game as well, so we'll just stick together. I am curious though, are the heros really good? I've read up on them a little, but I didn't get to much out of what I read.

IMO If you compare prophecies to factionschool, you'll see that they teach more in Factions (insignia, missions)

Prophecies is by far the best game of the three to get if you plan on starting out. It has the best character development and gives you the most time to get used to the game. With all the quests and missions, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes you a few months just to complete everything the first time around as a casual gamer. After that, you can go back and complete some other quests, get better bonuses on missions, and go for/upgrade some titles.

Factions and Nightfall may be newer, but prophecies generally has the best balance for new players.

Henchmen are pretty good and will serve you well, and I have completed every prophecies mission (and I believe all the bonuses) with them before. It's doable, but on some missions it may be much easier with real people.

I bought them in order of appearance, and for a starting player, Prophecies is the best.

In both Factions and NF you get to level 20 in the first 5 hours of play, and then are thrown into hard stuff. Prophecies is more gradual, and you get a feel for your abilities and style of play during it.

I completed the Prophecies campaign with Henchmen, so it's definitely doable. Some bonuses aren't, but the missions are.

It's possible to get all 3 at Sams Club for ~50. So depending on your budget you may not have to choose.

I've only played prophecies and nightfall. Prophecies has a nice long storyline and a bunch of variety in areas. While you may not level as fast, I found that I was generally in the correct level range to play through the story.
Nightfall seems to add more variety in the gameplay though. There's more different types of missions and more variety in equipment than prophecies. I think it would be hard to go back to play c1 once you've played c3 so it may be best to start off with c1 instead.

I'd go Nightfall.
You have two extra professions in Nightfall whom you don't have in prophecies.
Nightfall has heroes, they're like henchmen but you decide what build they use and can be a big help.
Nightfall has more people in the high-end areas.

I've you're really into pvp maybe Factions is better because you have Alliance Battles as well, something you don't have in the other two chapters.
However, the PVE part of Factions is the shortest of the three chapters I believe.
Factions also has two extra proffesions compared to Prophecies.

Thanks for all of the help guys. I think I'll buy Prophecies, just because I want a really good PvE game, and it sounds like its going to be easier to start off with, most likely though, if I like the gameplay I'll end up buying Nightfall after a few months. I have one more question though, I heard that in the different areas of the game, there are only a few different types of creatures, and it gets repetitive, is that true?

Somewhat, but hard mode is now out, so it will be interesting

I heard hard mode was making the game laggy, or there was just a lot of lag in the servers in general right now.