Looking To Start Guild Wars Need some Answers please...

Hello there. i am new to the Guild Wars idea and I would like to begin playing with a few friends in our off time. My question is this...

there seems to be like 5 different versions out there and im a little confused at what the difference is and where to start. I was hoping you could shed some light on this for me.

I most recently saw a platinum edition with Eye of the north. I also however see nightfall...factions etc. Please help me! lol thanks in advance

There's a sticky at the top of this forum called "Player on a budget....: that breaks down each chapter and gives advice about which to buy. You should look it over. But GW:Platinum Edition would be a very good place to start, since you'll get both Prophecies (original GW) and Eye of the North.

In much the same way that the original Star Wars (movie) also became known as "A New Hope" as later sequels were added, the original Guild Wars has also become known as "Prophecies". So Guild Wars with no sub-title is the same as Prophecies.

The original Prophecies had 6 classes you could play - Warrior, Elementalist, Monk, Ranger, Mesmer, and Necromancer. These became known as the "core classes".

Factions and Nightfall are classified as "Campaigns". They can be played on there own, without having previously owned Prophecies or the other. They each have 2 new Character classes in addition to the core classes. Assassin and Ritualist for Factions - Dervish and Paragon for Nightfall. Nightfall also introduced "Heroes" - equipable NPC's you can take with you on your travels.

Eye Of The North is the first (and perhaps, only) "expansion" for Guild Wars. It requires that you already own one of the previous campaigns. It also adds "Heroes".

The Platinum Edition is the original "Prophecies" plus Eye of the North. It's probably the best place to start. It's possible that, by the time you finish that, Guild Wars 2 will be out. If not, I'd recommend getting Nightfall next and then Factions.

Ok, there are only 3 (4 if you count Eye of the north AKA GWEN separately). I will try and summarize the games for you below. All the refferences to teh real world are onyl loose, as none of these things really exist (before someone starts nitpicking my post ).

Prophecies is the 1st game in the storyline (the one in the platinum edition)
Set in European/North American environment with stopoffs in a Jungle area and a Desert area. Has the best storyline of the 3, but is very slow/disjointed in areas.

Factions is the second game in the series. Its set wholly in an Asian (Chineese to be exact) setting with many spiritual and legendary refferences to the real world lores of China. This game is great if you want to level up quickly and make gold (a little) faster than in the other games.

Nightfall is the last full game in the series. Its based in African legends (Mainly Egyptian) and areas. You get heroes (Computer controlled NPCs which you can equip and direct in a more or less limited way) which can help you a lot if you are new.

These 3 are all separate stand alone games, and if you all have the same game, then you can play together in that story line. If you have more than one on your account, then you can move your character from one game to the other freely after doing specific quests.

GWEN is an addon which you can only play if you own at least one of the standalone games and have a character which is level 20 (highest level you can get in GW, but its pretty easy getting to level 20). It carrys on the story of Prophecies and answers a few questions (such as what happened to a small girl called Gwen which dissapeared after teh beginning of the game).

Hope this helps a bit. Apart from that feel free to read these forums for any answers .

If you like PvE GW is great, if you want PvP I'd probably get a different game. As far as what to buy that is a harder question than you would imagine. Nightfall is great for the hero's but the heros you get are only as good as the skills you have unlocked on your account so you really need all 3 of the main chapters so you can get the skills you need for them. Same thing goes for your own character. I personally would not have any fun at all if I just went and got any 1 game or even 2 for that matter. My advice is to get the first 3 games and play Factions until you get to the mainland then you can travel to nightfall and get heros..once you get the hero's go to Prophecies and play the whole game to the end, then finish Factions, then Nightfall. That way Prophecies will be easier because you have hero's to team with instead of hench and you can get skills from factions and prophecies that will greatly help you in the end part of Nightfall where it is more difficult than the earlier 2 games. EoTN for me is just a grindfest and if I had it to do over I would probably not have gotten it due to all the reskin weapons, armor, and monsters in the game. It is difficult to start a game from scratch after it has been out this long so If you are going to start it either have a friend to play with or find a guild that specializes in helping new players of you will probably not care for it much. If you are thinking of just getting one game I'd look at getting a newer game that has recently been released so you can start in the same spot that a lot of others are starting and will not be so far behind

1) Guild Wars is the original game, whose campaign is called "Prophecies" (you travel in the continent of Tyria, with 3 types of scenery);

2) Guild Wars:Factions is the second campaign released, where you can explore the continent of Cantha (Asian style);

3) Guild Wars:Nightfall is the 3rd campaign, set in the continent of Elona (African-based); this campaign enables you to use "heroes" (up to 3 henchmen whose skills and equipment you can control);

4) Guild Wars:Eye of the North is the 1st expansion (not a campaign, you need to have a campaign to use it) which extends the continent of Tyria (but you do not need to have the original game, only one of the 3 campaigns) with your level 20 character (and you get access to heroes too).

Each of these four gives you access to core elements of the Guild Wars game, plus elements specific to each campaign or expansion. You can of course combine them, and travel with characters from one to the other. One last thing: the game has two sides to it, PvE (Player vs Environment) where you play "against the computer" (possibly with some friends in groups) and the PvP (Player vs Player) where you play against other players. Each element gives you access to both, though only with the skills of the corresponding campaign. You can also buy PvP-edition where you can only play the PvP side of the game.

Bear something in mind: when you buy one of the games, you in fact buy an "access key" which gives access to the particular campaign or the first expansion to your account (you'll be asked to create one when you first run the program). You only need this, the rest can be either downloaded from the net (with the GW client, available here: http://eu.guildwars.com/support/cate...nload_client/), or also installed on your hard disk via CDs (if you didn't buy the game from the the NCsoft website http://www.plaync.com), each campaing putting around 1Go of data on your disk.

The "Platinum" edition bundles Guild Wars (original game) with Eye of the North. Each campaign also has a "Collector's edition" which provides a nice box with goodies and a few minor in-game stuff (one minipet, some equipment, one emote).

I'm most likely just paraphrasing the "Player On A Budget" thread here, but…

Prophecies was the original. It has a very gradual learning curve and relative to the other campaigns, you do a lot more before becoming level 20 (max level). Its probably the best choice for a beginner. The six core professions are available: Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Monk, Necromancer, and Mesmer. Also worthy of note is that since its the oldest, its also the cheapest.

Factions came next. By the time Factions was released, there were a lot of players who had completed Prophecies and were bored, and the design of Factions reflects this: it has an extremely steep learning curve. Your time prior to level 20 is extremely abbreviated, and even as a noob the introductory phases talk about much more advanced game concepts than Prophecies (though this may arguably be good). Factions is probably the worst choice for a new player but is excellent once you already know the game. It adds the Ritualist and Assassin classes.

Nightfall is the final full campaign. Its learning curve is somewhere in between Prophecies and Factions. Due to its introduction of Heroes (customizable, fully controllable AI party members) however, it may also be an extremely good choice to start with. Nightfall adds the Dervish and Paragon classes. Nightfall also introduced a lot of extremely powerful new skills to the game, known as the "power creep," which will make it very desirable once you get experienced.

Eye of the North doesn't really count, as its not a campaign. Its an expansion that requires an account made with one of the above three campaigns. It mostly just adds some pretty decent PvE content for otherwise-bored veteran players.

You do only need one of the three campaigns to create an account and play the game. However if you decide you like the game, you're probably going to want all three, and eventually Eye of the North as well. Each adds new skills, content, and armor options.

Wow. thank you all so much for the info. VERY infomative and nary a flame. I realized just after I posted that there was the sticky at the top. I read that but your input helped the most. Thanks for not eating me alive

4 if you consider the fire islands also

I had Prophecies since it came out, but took a very prolonged break from it. I recently got both Nightfall and Factions, and I find them to be superior to the original. I like the faster progression, and the more diverse settings.

Prophecies really feels like a prototype when compared to the other campaigns. There is a lot of refinement that came out of the developers' experience w/ Prophecies, and I just like the non-European settings better.

I would suggest Nightfall, since it has heroes, and it really makes things easier if you can't find a team and need to solo...

True. But Prophecies also has the longest story with plenty of missions and a lot of diversity (but there are many side quests in the other campaigns, see for example the Luxons/Kurwicks ones in Factions). I must admit that, despite loving Prophecies, Nightfall has some truly amazing stuff too, and heroes made life a lot easier (too easy according to many people, and I'd tend to concur).

Nightfall is definitely the easy step into GW, Prophecies is more useful given that it is "extended" in Eye of the North. Factions is a little alone on the side, unfortunately, which has apparently been confirmed with the news that it may not feature in GW2.

Thanks for the correction silv3rr.

You can clearly see an improvement in graphics from Prophecies to Factions( a lot ), and from Factions to Nightfall/EotN ( even more scenery )

Gotta get them all, like pokemon to have the most fun.
It was always part IV - A new hope, Even in 1977, When it was released.
/end irrelevent info

Let me chime in with a slightly different point of view here.
I am a very new GW player (less then a month of experience), and a group of my friends just went through this very same decision process. We read the sticky post here (and other reviews as well) and after gathering lots of data chose Prophecies, in the form of the “Game of the Year” edition.


Let me give you some details of how we decided:
We quickly eliminated Factions as not a single source recommended this as their top choice for a starting point into the game.
We also eliminated Eyes of the North (and the Platinum edition with both Prophecies and GW:EN), since it is an expansion, and with us not knowing if we were going to like the game enough we didn’t want to waste money on something we might never play.

So that quickly moved us down to Prophecies vs. Nightfall.
Nightfall offered 2 extra classes to play and Heroes to help you out. Although for a brand new player it didn’t seem that the Heroes were really all that much better then the Henchmen you could hire in any of the campaigns.
Prophecies offered a longer (and in what seemed like a majority of people’s opinion, better) story line. As we were focusing on PvE, the longer story line felt like a plus to us.

In the end the 2 games seemed comparable, so for us the final decision came down to money. At the time the best price we could find for Nightfall was $50 while the Game of the Year Edition (which is Prophecies) was retailing locally for $30. We couldn’t argue that Nightfall was a $20 better game given what we were looking for.

Recently another friend of mine who I didn’t realize had been playing GW for a long time let me take a look at the other campaigns (he had bought them all). I don’t think that the environments looked any prettier then what I’ve seen in Prophecies. As a brand new player to GW, I like the fact that Prophecies has a slower learning curve built into the game. Nothing I saw on his game made me feel that I had made the wrong starting decision.

However, as a final note, our group has also already decided that we love the game, and plan on eventually buying the other 2 campaigns and GW:EN!