Question about end-game from a new player

I've been playing World of Warcraft for the past three years and recently began playing Guild Wars. I just have one question: what is there to do when you reach the level cap? Back in WoW I was a hardcore raider and I really loved that once you hit the level cap there was still so much to do. Is it the same for GW, or is it just a dead end once you hit 20?

Level 20 is just the beginning, don't worry.

There is an awesome lot to do after lvl 20. Especially when you want to go for exclusive armor, weapons and get titles and PvP ranks. You can also join a Kurzick or Luxon alliance that owns a town and hunt faction to keep controlling it.

When you have GW Nightfall you can get a lot of heroes which you also can level up, give skills, weapons and nice looking armor upgrades.

Or make a second character and re-do all the missions in a different role.

Good to know
Do you need to own GW:Factions to get access to Luxon/Kurzick stuff?

yes

just as you need Nightfall on your account to gain acces to the heroes

When you hit level 20 you will only gain skill points afterwards. The weapons/armors of endgame is statistically no better than ones from merchants, you will spend hours farming for 'skins'. If that sounds fun than you will like gw.

Hell, it's not a good thing to read when you are planning to buy Factions and Nightfall...

Some experienced player answer me this please, is that really true? If so, the game would get boring pretty fast once you reach lvl 20...

True in a sense that your character won't be lv up anymore. And all of the armors and weapons will be just that, different skin. But there're so much more to it, if you have that WOW mind set of the highest Lv & gears = best, then sadly you're in the wrong game.

Like a poster above said, Lv20 in GW is just a beginning in to a real game.

Level 20 is where you can actually play the more interesting parts of the game, including PvP and very difficult PvE areas where it takes good team coordination and cooperation to complete. You'll be able to capture stronger skills (elite skills) and obtain a larger variety of weapons/armors. There are also different titles that you can go for after achieving level 20.

If you completely ignore the fact that probably at least 90% of the content is after you hit level 20.

After you hit level 20 the goal is not to get better quality armor and weapons. Rather, it is the challenge of finding different builds that work for you. For instance, I can pretty well guarantee that the build you use for most of the game will not work against Shiro in the end of Nightfall.

So after level 20 you look for skills that you like and then work to get the armor and weapons that compliment that build.

Also, in each game there is a point where you can change your secondary profession. That means with 9 different combinations of professions and over 1000 skill available you have a huge amount of builds and possibilities to play with.

To me that is the real fun of this game.

Firstly, level 20 isn't the end when it comes to the PvE storyline. In Prophecies it's only like 3/5 or 4/5 of the way through. In Factions it's almost 1/4 through. In Nightfall it's about 2/5 through.

After the campaign there is lots of stuff to do.

-Prestige armor and weapons
-PvP
-High-level dungeons (FoW, UW, SF)
-Challenge missions
-Elite missions
-Titles
-...and more!

Think of it like this:

WoW will have you levelling for most of the game, and once you've reached the top, you are provided with extra difficult content.

GW doesn't do that. Instead, it balances the whole game so that the game is always balanced for max level, so you can play the whole content at lvl 20 without it being meaningless due to low difficulty.

GW isn't about reaching the level cap. Really, the game only starts when you hit max level. The rest of the game is sort of a tutorial area.

GW isn't about grinding out to get weapons and armor. Its about using your 8 skills properly and developing a good team build. GW is a game about stragedgy (attacking the right foes and using the right skills together) then about making your character more powerful. Your level 20 character will always be weaker then the level 30 PvE enemies you fight. The game is about developing techniques and strategies in order to trimuph over them.