The million dollar question

So here's the deal, i've recently bought this game together with 5 friends, we been playing together the last week or 2 and all reached level 20 and well on our way to complete the campaign (Prophecies). We've all been seeing classes from the other campaigns and talked about buying Nightfall and Factions, but we are also a little concerned. We've met alot of what i can tell is oldschool'ers in the game and alot have expressed that the game is kinda "empty" and places where people usualy is hanging out is empty aswell, so basically what this is about is!

Should we buy Nightfall and Factions or should we wait for GW2 ? We would hate using alot of money and time on a game thats slowly dieing, that being said, we really like playing it, all of us come from WoW and been hardcore raiders there, but finallly decided the quit and try something else.

I was told the same thing about Prophecies when i first bought Factions. (Bought Factions first then the other 2

from my experiance there are just about the same number of people if not more in Factions and Nightfall. i recommend getting both Factions and Nightfall = more stuff to do and more places to visit

just my thoughts.

Its not as much the content, comming from a game like world of warcraft, where the player base is high, we are worried about if there will be people playing the game in the future and oldschool players aswell, the fun part about mmorpg's is the social part, no fun in doing the co-ops more then a couple of times since its really just "single player/multi player" missions. Will the towns be dead or is the player base still large enough for the game to go strong ?

a: The game is not dying.
b: If lack of players in your district go to American, Euro, International.
c: Hero's of Nightfall / Eye of the north compensate for pugs.

I would advice you to first get Night Fall then go for Factions. As you would get hero's which aren't in Factions.

Perhaps GW:EN is an option for you? I haven't bought it myself but it's the newest(and first) expansion, so there are probably still a lot of people playing GW:EN.

if you are waiting to buy gw2, you better be patient as it is not even beta testing yet (so wont be released this year...MAYbe next year at the earliest).
So go ahead and buy nightfall and factions, there are tons of people still working thru them (me included)....more than enough to keep you occupied for the next year or two..while you wait.

I usually don't feel the outposts are deserted, except the ones that were like that even when the game came out (like Maguuma Stade and similar small, out of the way outposts). That said Nightfall has probably more people around than Prophecies and Factions. Still if you feel missing out on the social aspect, I'd suggest looking for a nice, friendly guild; in GW's instanced world most of the socializing is done within one's guild/alliance I think.

The player base it still pretty strong from what i can see i have only been playing for about 7-8 months now but, i havent seen any decrease in total number of players. i would say that there will prolly be a decent player base till GW2 comes out

just my opinion though would be nice to see what some other people have to say about it.

You're about two years late to the party, I'm afraid.


This said, if you're playing with an active group of 5, you could choose to care little about the rest of the — indeed slowly dying — playerbase.


If you must play with other people, best bet is to buy Eye of the North and forget about the other two campaigns.


Personally, I'd recommend you just wait for Anet to release a superpack which includes all three campaigns and EotN. Play Underworld and Fissure of Woe for now.

Okay, seems we should just go ahead and buy the games. I dont know how far away GW2 is, just saw it was announced, im still very new to GW, but i like it alot.

Thanks for all the advices.

Every campaign can be H/Hed so why should you need outposts to be full? Besides that, you already have 5 friends to play with so should rarely need PUGs.

Don't bother listening to these "oldschool'ers". They're nothing more than hypocritical idiots who are playing a game whilst believing it's dead.

Well in a mmorpg i also like talking to more people that just my core of friends, thats one of the bonus sides of a mmorpg. So if a game is empty and its just me and my friends (excagerated sp?) its not as fun as if the main towns is full of people if you know what i mean.

But from what i can hear, it seems the game is still going strong.

Its never too late to start playing Guild Wars, even when Guild Wars 2 is out.

This is what I think:
By playing guild wars you get to carry over your characters "trait" ie title that gives you something to make you feel "special" like a veteran Guild Wars Player kinda non playing related "edge" which players that does not play guild wars won't get.

and when these players (that does not play GW) see this, it would be a bit late to start doing that when GW2 is out. Since you have till 2009 for GW2, you still can achieve this special "trait" for your Hall of Monumnet.

while GW2 is being developed, why not have fun playing the GW1 and stop worrying what might happens in 2009.

plus, I am hoping GW2 will have some quest/mission that you need to use your level 20 GW1 characters back in GW1 to do, in order to complete. mwahahahaha... that would be very very awesome!

conclusion: get all the campaign and enjoy the moment!

Yes okay, i think we will do that then thanks for the advice.

A lot of people say the game is dying, because for them it is. For the large part though these people have been playing for 2+ years so it's not very relevant for new players. Also the fact we still get influx of new players shows it isn't dying.

I'd say, if you all enjoy the game, buy them. However wait til' you've completed prophecies (you said you were well on your way so grats ), the expansions are dead cheap now anyway so it's no real loss to buy them.

My impression:

* In Prophecies it's about the same it's been ever since Factions was released, neither increasing nor decreasing.
* In Factions there are much fewer people in the outposts than it used to be. Most of the map is effectively empty. That's not really all that surprising as the PvE content of Factions isn't as good as in the other chapters, and that chapter was mainly geared towards PvP - basically most PvE'ers are now in the other chapters.
* Nightfall: somewhat less people than before Eye of the North was released, but still well populated.
* Eye of the North: people everywhere.

l could care less about statistics on the number of players falling, but when a buddy of x years stops vanquishing with me because they have to move on... *That* in combination with statistics (player base) makes a game die. There are still plenty of people around though, and given their desire to max the Hall of Monuments, they'll be around for a bit. The money you spend now just won't make memories that some of veterans have. Yes, you're late.

Good guilds are still active. Find a good, active guild and join them. Doesn't matter if outposts are full or not then.

I still don't get why people enjoyed Nightfall more. It was horribly long and drawn out, almost as much as Prophecies was, in a big desert. Yeah, different kinds of desert, but a big desert still. Factions campaign was short, but with the exception of Danikas voice acting, somewhat enjoyable, and the environments were some of the best in the series.

This is my experience too, though I would add that Factions has two main filter points - Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters. The missions in between them are mostly around the same level (the Luxon generally being the smaller due to some faction farming things). The noob areas of Factions are constantly full of people, the Raisu Palace areas are dead even at peak.

I suspect that it is for the same reason I only pass those places on characters looking for titles - I am forced to PUG and other than completing them for a title there is no reason to do so (especially with elite tomes). But then, since you seem to *want* to do so then this isn't so much a problem for you I guess.

With five of you playing then missions shouldn't be an issue - the hench/hero can fill those few slots you need. The main towns of *all* the campaigns are quite full and each one has several areas that one can socialize in - I'm a pure H/H player and I still manage to do all the socializing I can deal with. Personally I see the player base as at worst staying the same, but spread out WAY more than before. Each chapter/expansion makes this worse.

In fact, I would say if you start from a position of 5/8 filled then for all except a few mission in *all* the campaigns you can probably create a PUG fairly quickly - once people see that many signing up they are more apt to join in. Effectively the lest populated areas of *all* the game are the Maguuma Jungle (you can easily skip that area) and the Raisu Palace mission (after Unwaking Waters) - you should be familiar with Maguuma Jungle and if you found that acceptable then you are good to go.