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

-------------------
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 =)

If you both need to play at the same time then you need to "separate accounts"

So lets say the first account is one @ youremail. com and the other is two @ youremail. com

If you have Prophecies then you need 2 keys, one for each account.

Now if you decided to get Factions then you need 2 keys, one for each account as well. Make sure that you link the Faction key to the account you already own, so your current characters can have access to the new campaign.

You don't need the CDs as you will download from the internet, the cds just speed the process, but they are outdated anyway.

Ah ok i didt realize you can get it of the net as well. Thanks for the info

If you think the graphics are good in Prophecies, wait until GW:EN. The scenery in GW:EN is amazing.

Yeah!! another husband and wife team!!! welcome!!
My hubby got me started on this one 2 years ago....and we are still going strong with it (though I get to play more than he does ).

Enjoy the game, we sure do!

Sorry my bad! I hadnt considered you would want to play at the same time. As others have said, you will need seperate CD keys for when you install the games on different machines.

It may still just be cheaper to but one copy and then by another account online.

Another point I should have said, is that factions, prophercies and nightfall are all very different games.

Prophercies (which shares the map with eye of the north) is a much longer, deeper game. It takes a long time to reach lvl20 there and to get access to max gear.

Factions is alot faster and nightfall is kind of a happy medium. Although I think prophercies is the best, ive found ive created most of my characters in factions to level up fast.

Its best to have factions because it means you can travel to the capital city there and get max armor for your characters from prophercies and nightfall faster.

Yea we have been playing games together since we meet in 99. We actually meet in Ultima Online, as he was in sweden and me in the US. Well 7 years later, still playing games, married and I am living in Sweden now.
Hmm although after it snowed all day yesterday dunno if I should smile.

Yes we are deff getting the other 2 campaigns in a couple weeks. I will check to see what it cost to buy an acct code online and if its cheaper will just get one box game of each. What sites do you use to buy your acct codes, the main one?

I've heard this said many times - however just stop and think on it.

If you just now are starting and you see the Necromancer can only going X number of energy every few seconds from deaths are you going to go say "Ah, they ruined it, I can't spam skill like crazy". No, it is just normal and they do like every other class in that game does and take e-management skills.

Too many old timers are not flexible, they think the game is MUCH harder now than it used to be because they use two year old builds and/or tactics and try and force everything to fit that way of thinking.

Give this person a few months to really get their head on straight in the game and I would bet if it was reverted to one of the original builds that many of us are nostalgic about then they would be as angry as many of us older players are now. It happens in real life too - listen to your grandparents talk about how much better their world was and think if you would really like to go back and live then. And I'll bet when you have grandkids you will talk about how much better now is and they will all think "silly old man" - and of course continue that cycle down until there are no more humans.

At least PvE wis there hasn't there been any more added to learn - each chapter is fairly well contained. Prophecies is still prophecies and is no harder or easier to learn to play than it ever was. If anything it is now easier due to much cheaper materials/runes and the introduction of insignias (no more trying to figure out where you need to go to get the armor stats you want).

It's always interesting to read a review of a new player and notice it was just the same way I felt over two years ago. Heck, it is even amusing to note that many of the new players like something most of us older players hate.

Its always like that with any game that you start playing from release. Even though that game might have been in beta for xx amount of months, they still will constantly be tweeking and improving and or nerfing things. As the saying goes you cant please all of the people all of the time. I started wow from day one, even beta tested it, and every update, I just read what they where doing, if it effected the classes I was playing and then I just changed my playstyle to work with the update. No use whinning about it, learn how to play with it and head on.
There are alot of new players in the starting areas. You can tell by gen chat so this game is still drawing new people. I know they say Eye of the North is the last edition because they are making GW2.

Wow, meeting each other through a game. I'm impressed.

There is an in-game store for purchasing the other campaigns after you purchase the first, they also sell extra character slots (if you end up a long term player you will most likely want one of each class, a pre-sear only, and a PvP char slot - useful for skill unlocks or socializing in The Great Temple of Balthazar (whatever that is worth) even if you do not PvP much). After you log in there is a button in the upper right hand corner (at least that is where it is at for me). I've used it to purchase character slots, GotY upgrade, and Eye of the North - it automatically adds these to you account so no need to enter keys. Sadly, you missed the deadline for the Bonus Mission Pack - hopefully they will offer it at a later date for sale in their online store.

I'm using the American client, as I understand there are minor differences in some of the clients. Mainly what currency they display and language used - however it should be apparent what to click if it is also in a slightly different place. I do not really know how it makes the distinction between them as I have never gotten anything other than American in both currency and language.

As for new accounts I think you have to go through the PlayNC online store or purchase a box. There doesn't seem to be an "online store" button until you log into the game. I tried to create a new account to see but it directed me to the PlayNC website to purchase a key.

You know something else I have noticed about this game compared to others is the monsters AI. Its a bit different from other games. You can hardly sneak past them and they always target the healer henchmen, LOL They tend to run around targetting other players instead of just standing there being tanked also.

I must say that your story is truly beautiful. It's great to see something like that happen.

Lady, some additional advice:

-you'll need a separate account for each person that wants to play at the same time. So, you'll need two accounts for you to play with your spouse. You do not need boxed games, though - you can simply buy keycodes. (to minimize install hassle and save time: buy one set, update fully, then just copy the game to the other computer - you'll only download once )

-remember there's a difference between creating a new account and applying an access key to an existing account. If you want to take a single player through two campaigns, you'll need to have one account and apply both campaign keys to it. Unfortunately, for a total experience for two people, you'll need two accounts, each with all 3 campaigns and the expansion (It's worth it, BTW).

-campaigns came out in different times, and it'll show. Prophecies graphics is much less detailed than Factions, which is less detailed than Nightfall, which is less detailed than Eye of the north. In other words - every campaign looks better than the last one .

-a character that was not created in a specific campaign can't play ALL the content from a campaign where he's a foreigner - but that's only the tutorial bit of the game. So, don't worry, but create a character in each campaign once, just to see what happened there first.

-every character eventually gets the ability to change the secondary profession. However, the primary class is still important:
-it determines your armor and energy regeneration (important: a warrior will never work as a spellcaster)
-it determines what runes you can use (quite a difference: a ranger can get his own attributes to 16 (using runes and armor bonuses), but the secondary attributes are limiter to max. 12 (10 being more realistic - 12 costs a lot of attribute points)
-it determines your primary attribute, which is important: you don't get the benefits (ranger skills will become very expensive to other professions, as they don't get the energy discount of Expertiese) and skills using that attribute will be limited (some still work, some are effectively useless).

-Prophecies specific: Don't forget to go to Sorrow's furnace, too. It's an area added later in the game, but it's definitely worth seeing.

-Factions specific: Factions is much faster than Prophecies - you reach level 20 almost instantly, compared to Prophecies, which is much slower.

-Factions specific: don't get discouraged in Kaineng city. The area is not very nice looking (intentionally - it's a ramshackle metropolis), but keep this in mind: more magnificent vistas avait - the Jade sea is a beautiful sight.

-Nightfall specific: 3 times, you will have to choose between two heroes, as only one will join you. Don't worry - you can get the other one, too, once you finish the game.

-Eye of the North specific: the expansion feels shorter than the other campaigns, but that is at least partly an illusion - the storyline does not take you everywhere. The dungeons, which the storyline does not take you through, are definitely worth at least a quarter of the game.

-See the sights that the storyline does not take you through (for example, there are more
-the mage tower in the mountains of Pre-Searing
-the floating tower, visited during the quest "The villainy of Galrath"
-the leviathan frozen in jade in Rhea's crater
-the vistas of Jade sea
-the sunny southern parts of the Echovald forest
.
.
.

I wish I could play GW again as a new game, not already knowing everything by heart...

Oh, the AI - read up on the wiki's about aggro. Aggroing two groups can be fatal

Haha ya found that out a few times, mobs sneaking around that you dont see. Thanks for the info some very useful things there.
Yea we where planning on creating a char in each of the other campaigns as well. Geez so much to do in this game, even without any crafting, which is good since it lets you do the fun stuff.

I think the main forte of GW is that it doesn't force players to do the usual, repetitive and generally useless tasks that are normal in other MMOs, like traveling by foot, farming money to get enough funds to raise crafting skills or grinding mindlessly just to get that new armor set so you don't get killed when entering the next mission, etc. You can focus on the fun stuff, like you said, and then optionally take up title/money grind if you feel like it.

Then again, many people think GW is "shallow" because it lacks all the usual crafting systems, different races and level grind you'd expect in other MMOs, but I guess that's just a matter of preference. I hope you have a great time playing GW !

It's probably cheaper to buy the boxes for the access keys, if you can find someplace selling the older campaigns for reduced prices. Online store still has them all the same price. GW:EN is new of course, so not much chance of a reduction there.

Well for me all this is a plus having spent 2.5 years doing all that stuff in WoW. I guess as you said it all depends on what a person likes to do and how much time they have. At first though MMO's where comprised more of kids/teens and as the games developed and the computers developed into a house hold appliance adults as well have found the games. Most adults do not have the time to play 15hrs a day just to keep up with the kids. That in itself is a big factor in this game and will be in GW2. We had contemplated playing AOC since we where looking for something else after WoW, (before we started GW) but all indications are that it will also be a raiding type game. I will never ever get involved in raiding games again. I just dont have that kinda time, and if I do I want to choose what I do, not do it because I have to.

I agree about the visuals, but it isnt that hugely notice-able. I finished off SF after 2 years the other day and it looked just as great as GWEN.

But I have to disagree about not getting full access to content if you dont create a character in that same campaign. I could be wrong, but I cant think of an instance when my prophercies elemental wasnt able to access all areas and/or content in both factions and nightfall (aside from maybe the odd low-end pvp arena).

Which content do you mean?

Welcome to Guildwars lady, I've had the game for about 10 months but I took a big break from it for a while so I have much to still learning about the game and with my new ranger i'm working through prophecies and enjoying it

Also this game is great for casual players and since it's free to play once you have bought it you can play it along side another MMO game WOW and only have the 1 subscription.

Also with the ranger you will probley want to stick with skills that you invest attribute points into such as expertise, marksmen and survival.