How Much of This Game Can I Solo?

I am sure this question has been asked before, but I couldn't find a good answer.

Here is my situation:

1. I quit WoW because it was waaaaaaaay too time consuming and playing as a "casual" meant that I missed out on most of the game.

2. I LOVE to solo and only group when I feel like company. One of the things I hated about WoW is that 90% of the game required you to group with someone. I don't like grouping out of necessity.

3. I know the Guild Wars box says "solo content", but so did the WoW box. I am not talking about just running around killing boars in the woods. I am really asking about the core game content.

4. Can I casually play the game, 3-4 hours a night, and still feel like I can access most of the game and still be competitive if I wanted to PVP?

Thanks in advance for any help. I am desperate for a new MMO and WoW was about to get me divorced and CoV looks like I am playing in the same zone all the time.

1. Good for you and Welcome to GW.

2. 2 things, yes you can solo things, just have to find a place and a build that work for you, try Wiki and see what builds are out there or make your own up. You dont have to play with real people, Heros and Henchies do work, if not better in some cases.

3. See Above

4. Yes, I play about 4 to 5 hours a night and more on weekends. Always have something to do. And When I do get bored, take a night off and come back is always good for me.

I soloed all but 1 or 2 missions of Nightfall and Factions. Those that I didn't solo were either tougher missions that I could have beaten by myself, eventually, or were missions where you need to carry an object from point A to point B, and since there were 2 objects, having another person there meant only making 1 trip.

My suggestion would be to get Nightfall, if you don't already have it, so you can get heroes, which are basically fully customizable henchmen that you can give extra equipment, choose a secondary profession for them, and pick whatever skills you want.

In factions and nightfall, you level up quite a bit faster than you do in the original guild wars. I, personally, believe the game really begins at level 20, and so prefer that format. Nightfall and factions also allow you to change your secondary rather easily, and after paying the initial 500 gold to get a new secondary profession, you can go back to any secondary you've unlocked, for free.

In summary, you absolutely can solo the game, but having heroes makes it a lot easier.

Pretty much all of this game can be played alone, and there are a wide selection of heroes and henchmen to fill out your party if you don't want to play with other people. There are some missions that are considerably easier if you team up with at least one other human player, but by and large you can make your way through things with just the AI henchies.

As far as casual play goes, this game doesn't have that much grind in it at all, and most of that grind is entirely optional. Even if you can't invest a lot of time in the game, you can still get a max level character with max equipment very easily; this game is mainly based around the skills you equip to your character and how you combine those skills in combat, rather than the amount of time you invest in your character.

Welcome like it was said previously you really do not need a group for any of the game except high end pvp content. Good place to be if you do not like having to group or find groups. I do suggest though to find one maybe two buddies. w/ 2 people to play with there will be nothing you cannot acomplish or master other then the PvP. :-p

Play GW, casual its its definition! I go on and off a lot and once went on a year hiatus. You can solo or group, no fee to pay, can go on and off. Its rly great

OP Here

Wow, these forums are amazing! 4 replies in 10 minutes and none of them were ASCII art!

From what I am gathering the game looks very promising.

I don't mind at all grouping with 4-5 other people. What I was really scared off is something like 40 man raids that will require you to go on a strict "playing" schedule of grinding the same 6-8 hour dungeons over and over again hoping for that 3% chance that a boss will drop you some loot.

As to where I would like start, I think I am going to start in Factions since I have always enjoyed the tactical calculated approach of an assassin/rogue/stalker. Is that going to ruin my experience if I don't start in Prophecies first? As I understand it, Prophecies has a superior story line and is better for beginners.

I would start with prophecy first - it introduces your basic skills at a slower pace and has a larger amount of stuff to do. You can build up a basic skillset for the core characters through questing.

The thing with factions is whilst it has the assassin and ritualist (2 fun classes to play) it is rather short. Also you might find that playing an assassin in the main storyline a frustrating first experience as there is a particular mob they introduced in factions which destroys assassin's quite easily.

I preferred Nightfall and factions to Prophecies. Prophecies is a more traditional story, set in a more familiar European setting. You *do* progress slower, but that was more frustrating to me than it was enjoyable.

I very much liked the factions setting, except for the very twisting urban areas, but you figure things out eventually. Nightfall has a much more open environment, and overall it feel grander in scope. W/o giving anything away, Nightfall involves the various gods and goddesses of the game world, while Factions is a more personal story.

Casually play 3-4 hours a night?!

I don't play that in a week. 3-4 hours a night is hardly "casual"

Start with Nightfall (it pains me to say that) Heroes are great(ish)

GW is team game, so no true soloing. Party sizes are 4-12. The important difference is that you can add NPC party members.

PvP isn't about gear, so how competitive you are will depend on how well you can play in a team.

Sins work in PvP. In PvE, they are used as minion fodder. Starting out as a sin is a sure way to spend most of the time waiting for a rez.

Also, despite being quite decent at pvp, they are a far cry from WoW rogue slaughter nonsense.

lol. I meant casual compared to wiping in Naxx 30-40 hours a week chasing that l33t server first!

The reason I was thinking of starting in Factions is because I would like to make an assassin and run him through the entire game.

Assassin...heh you'll be playing alone a lot, even f you want to group not many "digg" assassins.

Factions is a bad place to start TBH. It was classed by most (well on Guru atleast) as the worst of the 3 games.

Chapter1 is slow
Factions is like marmite, ou either love it or hate it
Nightfall promised much, delivered little. Has Heroes <~~big bonus

If playing solo is important to you, and you like tactics, I would start with nightfall. You have the flexibility and challenge of using heroes, which are basically NPCs you can customize. The story line is also pretty good, and while it is not short like factions, it is also not long like prophesies. I remember as a new character in proph, it took me weeks to get through the game, learning as I went. I kept forgetting the story line.

Personally I liked nightfall the most. Mostly because of the heroes, I think.
Factions was good too, it was short, and is a good place to start characters if you know what you are doing and don't want to spend as much time in character growth.
Prophesies is good for someone who wants to learn how to play in depth. It is long though.

OP the largest group you will get in gw1 is 8 people (there are a few missions that use 16 ...) so for the most part you dont need to worry about 40 people groups. Loot usually drops from anything you kill---however, the quality of that loot can be diminished by the use of heroes or henchmen, but you will usually get something.
Deciding which chapter to start with can be a bit daunting, though it really doesnt matter so factions is ok, you can get the others and add them to your account whenever so no worries about that. Prophecies has the slowest beginning so it is what people usually start with, nightfall offers the option of customizable heroes while factions has the shortest story line to get you into it faster.
Welcome to guildwars and we hope you enjoy your stay!

Not to be judgmental of your personal business or anything, but perhaps jumping into another game isn't the best thing for you to do right now.

I think starting in a campaign more depends on the person. Personally, I played through Prophecies and loved it, good storyline, my character wasnt fully developed after 5 hours of gameplay, and I got a good view of how skills work. Nightfall is good with the hero's, but again, personally, I didnt like it because it had a terrible storyline.

All in all, whatever campaign you like depends on what your looking for in a game.

See... this is where our tastes differ. Nightfall felt grander to me. I liked the wars, seeing the different principalities, and fighting an evil diety. Prophecies, well, felt too much like Lord of the Rings. Perhaps I am just tired of the medieval European setting, and both factions and nightfall offered something different.

If you care at all about keeping the storyline in order, I'd recommend starting from the first one, Prophecies. If you liked playing through it and want more, buy Factions and start a new character there. Same with Nightfall after Factions.
But I suppose most people don't care much about the storyline.

As for the soloing content, I love it in this game. Group is still required pretty much everywhere, but henchmen npc's can fill up those slots nicely. And they sure don't mind you going afk while out questing.

You probably won't "solo" per se, but you can complete most of the games without ever playing with actual players. This is because most areas let you bring heroes or henchmen.

If you plan to play most of the game by yourself, I highly recommend getting Nightfall first, so you can use Heroes. They are like your own little customizeable AI buddies who help you out.