How long did Prophecies take you?

I just purchased prophecies about a week ago and I've been playing it like crazy. I'm about 38 hours into my game just shy of level 17, and I'm just at mission 8/25. I can assume from that information that it will take me probably around 100 hours to get to the end of the storyline, while still doing at least some quests on the side. If I continue at my current pace, it will take around 3 weeks to do this. Now this kinda sucks for me, since I am already very much excited about buying Nightfall next, but I don't want to do so before finishing Prophecies, yet I doubt I'll have time to finish both before EoW comes out. Sucks.

So I'm wondering, how long did it take YOU to finish prophecies, and how much effort did you put into quests as you were playing the missions?

You can skip some of the mission if you can get a run. You can keep half of the forest missions, part of Lion Arch' area Missions, etc.

It will take you roughly 40-50 hours if you do all missions in order. (Assuming that you just brought the game)

Do take note that it will be hard to find people in Thunderhead and the Ring Of Fire Islands which consists of the some of the hardest mission in Prophecies. These missions will consume ~1-3 hours each (Dependable on your party)

If you want to complete Prophecies quickly, try to skip some missions (Examples: Get a run to Lion Arch from Asaclon, this way, you can keep all the mission in between, etc.) and don't do side quests. Just do the primary quests and you will finish Prophecies faster.

I played Prophecies EXTREMELY slow my first time through, enjoying everything. I actually quit guild wars for a month because I didn't know how to proceed into the world. When I came back in, I did the first mission, and realized I didn't have to pound through hydras that were 3 levels higher then me ^^ (The one's on the way to shiverpeaks). I will actually say it took me around 50-100 hours. If I were you, I'd just do as much as I can, and then move onto EoTN to play with all the other people. After a bit, move back and play prophecies and such. I'm fairly sure you can finish prophecies AND nightfal AND factions a long time before EoTN. (as long as you don't do every quest you see -_-).

Oh, FYI.

Once you plan on doing Nightfall or Factions, I wouldn't recommend doing the quests, as they merely give you gold + xp, whereas Prophecies gives you skills. If you want to finish, finish the quests you feel the rewards are worthwhile.

It about 4 months with breaks and playing real slow. Playing slow and enjoying the game was better. Thats why most people love Prophecies, it's not a fast pace rush with millions of enemies.

My advice to you is to get Nightfall anyway before finishing Prophecies, merely because you get heroes. You don't really have to play NF yet, just go over to elona to get a few heroes (monk, necro and ele make for a good team and are quick to obtain), which will get u through tyria a bit faster.

I'd say it took my wife and I about a month and a half to play all the way through Prophecies the first time. We took our time, doing every quest and stuff. We rushed a little toward the end because Factions was about to come out, and we wanted to have done everything in Prophecies first, but otherwise, it was real nice. We did the same with Factions, taking our time and doing everything, but it took us less than half the time. Nightfall was even less than that, but we stopped doing side quests once we hit desolation, though I'm not sure why. I guess we just kinda got bored of all the side quests by the end of Nightfall. Meh.

I can't remember how long it took to get my first character through Prophecies. But if you're in a hurry, you can save some time by skipping the bonus missions and come ack and get them later.

I would advise you NOT to get run places to skip over certian areas your first time through. Two Reasons: 1. At certian points the difficulty level jumps up considerably and the areas leading up to them will give you practical experience when it comes time to face the tougher challenges. 2. You'll miss out on how the storyline plays out. Skipping parts will leave big gaps and have you wondering "Why am I fighting these guys? I thought I was allied with them?" and other such things.

Partying up with other, experienced, people may help speed the process of getting through missions. The risk you take with PUGs, though, is that you may end up trying to do things with incompetent people. The reward is that you may end up with a group that can rip through missions without blinking.

Look me up in-game if you ever want help with any missions/quests. I'll be glad to help out

First time, I honestly do not know. Last time I played a character through the story line (about 1.5 years ago), I completed all missions/bonus and quests in the Prophecies campaign in under 50 hours pretty easily (hit RoF at 40 hours, all quests/missions up to that point completed)- This was without any form of running or other speed advancement.

Yeah, it's a slow paced snail-a-thon with billions of popup enemies. Bliss!

I would agree with this. Heroes are invaluable. I have a character that is 58 hours old, level 20, comes from Cantha and did the last mission in Prophecies on Sunday without being run anywhere. Mostly we played two people with heroes. in any case, doing the final mission doesn't mean you have finished Prophecies, certainly not in my definition of finished.

Here's how to get to the final mission in Prophecies fast. You will have to play with someone who knows the map of Tyria.

You may as well do all the missions to Lion's Arch. They're not that big a deal and they give you a feel for the game. Just do the primary quests to get to the mission points, though this will rob you of free skills you get as quest rewards. And you need skills to play with builds.

From Lion's Arch, go northward to Bergen Hot Springs, and then up to Temple of Ages. From Temple of Ages, go south to Fisherman's Haven, then to Sanctum Cay. At Sanctum Cay, do the mission to get into the desert. (You have just cut out the entire Jungle.)

After that mission, you end up in Amnoon Oasis. From there, go to Elona Reach. Do the mission and that will take you to Aurora Rock. From there you walk to the other two mission points, viz Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River. Those also return you to Aurora Rock. Once you've done, you fight your Doppelganger and get to Dragon's Lair, do that mission and you're in Droknars Forge. You will get a quest to take you to Ice Cave of Sorrows. From there it's a question of just doing the missions one after the other, six in all.

This shortcut is very useful once you know the game. With your first character I wouldn't really recommend it, as you will lose out on a lot of the pleasure of discovery.

There is no need whatsoever to finish Prophecies before buying Nightfall, as the games are interlinked. As long as you're at Lion's Arch, you're in a position to get the most out of it. You don't need to make new characters for Nightfall, your existing one can take a quest, hop on a boat and pop on over for a summer holiday.

Prophecies is very good for acquiring free skills to get you through the game. Unfortunately your characters from other campaigns can't get the skills before Lion's Arch, so you will have to buy those when you need them. Nightfall is very good for making money. Factions is very good for levelling up fast.

And you can certainly play all three campaigns concurrently.

A year
It was only after finishing Factions I remembered I didn't finished Chap 1.

Took me 23 months on my first try Still haven't finished Factions or Nightfall either

Took me 20 months. Couldn't bother doing Fire Isle missions, but did them finally when HM was introduced

Im fairly new to GW and have Profecies and Nightfall installed . Im currently stuck as I cannot progress any further and would love to get some Heroes to help me . I had someone run me to LA for 2k and now Im broke as well . Any hints on how to get these heroes ? And will they cost money ?? I havent played the game in about 3 weeks now as I have no idea where to go or what to do and I dont want to totally spoil the game for myself ..

Since you have nightfall, go to Lion Arch and do Gain Olias and after which travel to Nightfall. Play through NF starter islands and you will have a Dervish, Warrior, Monk, Ele/Ranger, Nerco(From Tyria) Heroes. You will get Dervish, Monk, War from the first Primary Quest in NF.

Heroes are free.

It took me about 3 months, and a lot of game time. Not many people wanted Necromancers back in the day.

I still haven't finished profs is 23 months
I like to take it all in and play slow.

ALSO "Gain Olias" does not exist anymore it was removed from profs and placed in
Nightfalls Consulate Docks area with a mission called "All for One and One for Justice" if i remember correctly.

The last char I made took me exactly 53hours 23mins over 12 days to complete all three chapter. I will also add that in those 12 days I went away on vacation for a couple days. I'd say about 95% of that was done with heros/henchmen only.

for any of you guys who are having a problem with certain missions in Proph.. please send me a PM in game.. Ill gladly come lend you a hand if im online.

If they hadn't introduced Hard Mode I'd never finished any of the chapters.

I've owned the series for a year and only beat Prophecies, Factions, and am working on Nightfall. Why? I've enjoyed every holiday event, every weekend event I wanted to participate in, farmed my eyes out, collected weapons and off hands, ran dessert tours, skill capped my bank rolls away, and enjoyed playing this game at least 2 hours every day since purchase without any reason to finish the game, until HM there wasn't really a reason.

Now that there is GW:EN I guess there is even more of a reason to finish one chapter. Factions is one that takes the least amount of time to complete if you're looking for something to knock out quickly.

Three or four weeks with my first character, including getting 15k armor. Was 20 after the first week and a half or so. I didn't get around to actually finishing Hell's until I had done a bunch of other stuff (some FoW runs, etc).