installing a new campaign

Apologies if this topic has been explained numerous times before. I ran a search but something in the wording of the answers left me a little uncertain.

Also if this is in the wrong forum....sorry.

I've enjoyed Prophecies very much and would like to continue the GW journey with Factions. Why? Because I would like to experience them in chronological order. (I could sense the Factions bashing coming on)

My question....(finally)....is this. When I am ready to begin Factions, do I need to install the game using the CD? Or do I just merge the key into my existing account and automatically get the "new" content?

Yes, I am a noob. Saving the time for those who were going to say it.

Well, you merge the key to get the content, but then you'd have to download large amounts of files, whereas if you install it to the same folder as your current install of GW, I believe it adds the Factions-specific stuff and then you just have to download patches and smaller bits of content. I think.

You dont need to install the cd at all. All you need to do is get your access key card from the box, and log in to the game. At the character selection screen, you'll see "manage my account" on the buttom right. Go in there and pick "Add a new access key to my account", key in the new access key and that's it.

DO NOT MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT!

OK....ADD the key to my EXISTING acct. Do NOT make a new acct. Got it. That could potentially save some headaches. That's cool that all you really need is the access key.

But will I, as stated in the previous post, be downloading all of the Factions content the first time I go certain places in game?

Thx for the quick replies...wow.

Make a new shortcut to: "C:/Program Files/Guid Wasr/gw.exe" -image (or what ever your path is )

You'll download everything you'll ever need ( including NF and EotN )

^ Yep as Yan said. Image command is magic, you can do it from start, run as well just incase you dont want to make a short cut. Anyway what -image does is download all of the game data in one go, so you dont have to wait for the dl everytime you go to the new places.

Go make a cuppa tea or something while you wait, the time it'll take to dl is depend on your connection. And dont stop it half way, it might corrupt your game data files.

Using the -image switch takes a lot of time - depending upon the speed of your connection it can take from 3 hours to overnight (it's 3 or 4 gigabytes). If you have a fast enough connection, and if you are playing solo, the time it takes to load each part as you go, isn't that bad. Try load-as-you-go first, but if you find it too slow, do the -image thing.

Yeah do it over night

wow...i do like to play in groups (lol..that sounded bad). But I don't want people to have to wait for me to download.

I appreciate the help...but I don't really understand the -image thing either.

Can I...would it be easier....to use the cd after I add the key to my account?

On your desktop, or on your quick launch bar, or in your Start menu, you have "shortcut" to Guild Wars (the icon you use to start GW).
When you want to download the image - right click the GW shortcut. Off the little menu that pops up, click "properties", which will open another box with info about GW. At the top of this box there are some tabs - General, Shortcut, Compatibility - click on "shortcut". In the box that then opens, you'll see a space near the top marked "Target", and in the Target box will be a line something like "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe". Add "-image" to the end of that line, without the quotes and with a space, so that the target line looks like:

"C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe" -image

Click OK, and then double click (or w/e) the shortcut to launch GW. It will not actually start GW, but instead it will start to download all the GW data.

When it's finished (next morning ) edit the shortcut again to remove the -image.

ok...and then after the -image is deleted it will then open GW again.

I think I've got it. Thanks.

I'm assuming that those are the only steps that I need to follow. It will download all GW data that can be accessed by the keys on my acct that I don't already have? What about patches?

ok..It's a good thing that there are people smarter than me out there. If there weren't this world would be in trouble.

Correct.

It'll download the latest versions of every single file currently used by the game, so no need for downloading patched content and stuff as you enter areas (until new patches come out, at least). I'm not sure if it'll restrict itself to downloading stuff your account can access. In any case, doing the -image thing should drop loading times to a few seconds on a decent computer.

No it'll download everything, it cannot detect what you have or not.

But I won't be able to access everything, correct?

If I only have a key for Prophecies and Factions, then I will only be allowed to access that content.

Now, since it downloads the newest files for all content, do I need to uninstall anything else first?

I'm really not trying to make this more difficult than it should be. I just want to make sure that I do it correctly.

It does all the work, you don't have to delete anything. The same comes when there's an update- you just need to re -image to download all the new content, there's no separate patch programs around here.

It downloads everything from all the 4 games.. It can't detect what you don't and do have, but when you login you are restricted due to access keys that are valid and assigned to your account...

Ok...thanks for the great info.

Now the tough part....."Honey, I've been thinking about buying ANOTHER Guild Wars game. What are you doing with the pepper spray?"