My general overall view of GW as a new player

I wrote this for our site which is our WOW guild site, but from time to time I cover other games ect.
It is a write up of the game and how it works from a New players prespective after playing other mmo's ect.
I think that people thinking about playing Guild Wars or just starting could benifit from the article.
http://wow.vikingsofmidgard.com/inde...84&Item id=79

Grats, you are quicker than the makers of the game, ANet, to realize that!

Your ranger skill bar with firestorm will make people cringe, but you are in the starter areas of Ascalon after all, I am glad that you enjoy the game. Did not think this is still possible for starters, as the game developed so much over the years.

Yea I really am enjoying the game. Hmm Firestorm roxs, LOL I was going to read some templates today actually. Just exploring the skills right now for the Rager/Elementalist HEHE

Glad you like the game and welcome to GW. I just read your overview and it sounds good...you go a few things here and there mixed up but no worries on that. If you ever need help in game don't hesitate to holler.

IGN Coridan A

Nice review, good to see things from a fresh perspective every now and then - makes me remember when it was all new to me - a few bits of "Misinformation" you may want to know (or not)

Actually with NF (Nightfall) you can get heroes at a stupidly early level - at level 2 for a native char i believe (but i think you only have the plat edition right? so it may not apply)

this may be exaggeration, but im sure some lore-ite could give you the amount...7ish?

the newer games you wont, but proph for example can be picked up rather cheap if you know where to look

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I enjoyed the review (and the bar - ahh good times...i miss my mismatched ranger with 4 assassin skills and a sword)

if you ever need help feel free to look me up

<--IGN

Hey, I just read your writeup and clicked on the Guild Wars 2 link and learned something new.
I didn't know the HoM will reserve names from GW1.

I'd like to offer a clarification to the original poster:

You don't get any heroes in Prophecies and Factions. You need to buy either Nightfall or Eye of the North to get access to heroes. Without them, you will only get access to the henchmen (the "preset" equivalent of heroes). They get the job done, but not as easily as Heroes.

Although buying Nightfall is probably a good Idea, anyway, since it has a good storyline, heroes of all professions and some very profitable activities.

Thats a pretty decent and posivite review. My only gripe would be that your screen shots dont do justice to how nice the game can look.

I run the game on a quad core 2GHz, 4GB memory and 8800 Nvidia card. Belief me when I say this game blows the socks off alot of newer games *coughHellGateLondon* on full spec.

For a game which is 2+ years old now, it still holds it own when it comes to visuals! Other then that, the game will just get better once you get into high end areas.

Also you might not realised, but compared to WoW, gold is extremly easy to make and most items are well withing casual prices. You have a selection of cheap and expensive max armor and max weapons too, so you dont have to buy the expensive stuff to be maxed out.

Its a very casual friendly game, if you dont want to spend hours or days saving up for stuff.

Normal and elite skills are also very easy to aquire as im sure you found out and you can change your skill points when ever you want (while inside outposts). You dont have to pay like in WoW.

Once you get more experience and reach high end areas, you may find there is alot of grind ingame. But its purely choice as to whether you grind for the end result (although some will argue otherwise), so its not that bad.

But most things which are important to gameplay are very easily accessed and unlocked or aquired! You'l enjoy it. I've been playing for 2 years on one character (90% of the time) and ive only just now run out of stuff to do. lol!

I have anotehr 3 or 4 characters ingame, but ive virtually never touched them. But the content is that vast that you will have alot to do. Also there is a "hard mode" which is accessible after you finish the last mission of a campaign. Basically it makes the entire campaign alot harder with 20+ level creatures everywhere.

And heroes are a god send! The minute you get access to them in eye of the north, factions or NF you will enjoy them!

Enjoy!

Thanks for all you guys info. Some stuff I didt know as I only have the Platimum pack, will get the other 2 games end of the month. Wanted to be sure I liked the game considering my husband and I are both playing so that is game cost x 2. hehe
You are right the graphics in the game are very good. I am sure once i get out of the burned out lands and up into the other parts it will get better and better.

Welcome. Glad you are having fun with the game. I liked your review, as it reminds me of my early days in Prophecies.

You can play the game a few different ways as others have noted. Just playing through the experiences of all four campaigns, doing the missions and most of the quests, will take some time. You can then choose if you wish to pursue titles (there are many, and they take time but can be fun to set as goals), farm to save for higher end armor and/or weapons, play in hard mode, start another character, try out PvP. Its a casual game if you simply play through it. Its pretty much not if you start getting into these extra things, but the great thing is you get to choose what you wish to do.

Couple notes too:

As others have pointed out, you can get Heroes right away in Nightfall, no matter what your level. The current set of games you have will require you to get to level 20 to get into Eye of the North to get at the Heroes provided in there, so you are right in your review from that perspective.

The forums here are very helpful and there are many places to look for advice or answers to questions. You can always check out Guild Wiki if you need information on a specific quest or activity as well.

Happy hunting!

Yea this game is different though if you compare it to wow or lotro as far as farming goes i think. Here you do it by choice, to achieve or obtain something for yourself moreso as a reward, I think. In wow with the raiding it was more like a job. You had to raid 5 or more nights a week because you had 40 people at first until they made the 25, 20 and 10 man raid instances. So imagine how many times you had to raid the same dungoen to get your armor because there are others of the same class that need it as well. It was not a choice but something you had to do to keep up with everyone else and move on the the next level of raiding.
Here you do what you want to in the time you have to play moreso as you said.

Starting areas of the game in all three chapters are still quite full of players.

Its the midgame that has thinned, but not too much - you can still easily get PUGs if so desired.

I agree Firestorm is an odd skill to put on a ranger. I generally don't use my secondary profession, but in the rare moments I will it is for one of three reasons:

1. Energy management
2. Need a hard rez for some reason - only ever do this to my heroes
3. My monk is stuck in a solo quest and needs an offense

Ranger is an offensive class, and one with some very good built in AoE effects in both traps and, after level 20 and access to GW:EN, Volley. There's also the Barrage elite, but its not the best use of an elite slot considering Volley is almost as good with most mobs (rarely will you be able to line up more than 3-4 in a clump).

It speaks volumes that a game that came out over 2 years ago still brings out such favorable impressions...

and you haven't even seen the areas of GWEN yet!

Lady you dont need to buy a seperate copy of each game for you and your husband!!!!! You can just install the game on different machines and log in using different usernames.

Dont do what alot of people do and buy seperate games for seperate machines at home. Youu dont need to!!!

Your allowed to install the same copy of more then one machine.

Ok so if we have 2 different accts we only need one game? We play together at the same time so i thought that since you needed the codes for the games for the acct we needed 2 seperate games for 2 seperate codes for 2 seperate accts?

No, what Freeked means is that you can have TWO campaigns on ONE account. Just bliss

If they want to play at the same time, they gotta get 2 different accounts = 2 different copy of each campaign

Ah ok I thought you did need seperate copies to play at the same time since you need seperate acct.

You can buy serial keys in the online store or at NCsoft's website.
I don't know if it's cheaper to buy just the key over the box.
Didn't they say they were going to have a pack that had all 3 campaigns in it?

Guild Wars is a very different game from any other RPG I've played. The fact that they force you to choose among hundreds of skills and carefully consider cost/effectively of your synergies makes it really obvious who are the good players and who are the mediocre ones.

If you get into hardcore GW pvp it can be almost as bad as WoW, time wise. If all you do is PvE then you'll have less trouble regarding that =)