A few questions before I buy the game...

after that if you like pvp, DO NOT buy more campaigns just for their skills (backtrack: you can only unlock a certain skills depending on what campaigns you have. Prophecies has A LOT of skills for the core 6 proffs, while the others have less for the core 6 but have 2 extra proffs you can play with.).

Buy the pvp unlock pack that will allow you access TO UNLOCK everything needed to pvp, you won't automatically have it, but you have the potential to get everything in game for pvp (for 20 dollars). If you love pve way more than pvp, get GW:EN

If your only going to buy one, proph has a good skill pool to work form, longes (some say most boring) campaign, good looking armor, but only 6 proffs. Factions has a STEEP learning curve (but you max out fastest), 2 extra proffs, best pvp content of the 3, but least pve content. Nightfall you get heroes, 2 extra proffs, most balanced length of campaign (note that if you don't plan to get NF but get the expansion pack, GWEN, instead, you get heroes from there too)

I was thinking about Nightfall, then Eye of the North.

Nightfall is good, Eye of the North is an expansion pack, while it will work with Nightfall it really has a continuation of the story started in Prophicies.

This does not mean you wont understand it or follow the story in it, just that it answers some questions that are raised in Prophicies.

GWEN(guildwars eye of the north) does offer you some of the best looking environments of the entire game, and the powerfull PvE only skills as well.

Yeah, I know. PvE is one player, isn't it?

I would buy Platinum Edition so u have both Prophecies and Eye of the North at a better price. No, PvE is cooperative, u play with a party of other players or henchman, it's not one player.

in pve you can do it with up to 8 humans or by yourself with and npcs and heroes. At really hard parts you HAVE to do it with ppl, because the npc and hero AI is DEFINATELY not top notch (unless your INSANE at hero micromanagement).

Every part of PvE can be played with other people save for a few solo quests/missions. Party size changes from the start of each chapter from 2 in Prophicies to 8 for most of the missions in Nightfall and everything in GWEN(except mentioned solo parts).

There is no part of this game that you can not do solo, I have completed all of GW, all 3 chapters + GWEN with just Heros and Hench. This is on normal mode.

Once you have unlocked Hard Mode you will find some areas require the help of live players to completed without extreme effort.

All of GW is more fun with other people

Oh, ok. Im still not quite sure what to get. :P Oh yeah, if someone has Nightfall and EoN, and I get Prophecies and EoN, can I connect to them with EoN?

Yes, you can meet up with them in EotN.

Basically PvE play is like this:
You are in a big town, with lots of other players.
You can form a party with those players, or with hench (NPC's)
The party sizes can be two people to eight people
When you leave the town through a portal, you leave all the other people behind expect those in your party.
Then you go round killing stuff

Lol, sounds like fun. I think i'll get Prophecies, then maybe EoN if I like Prophecies.

Prophecies is the best place to start. Good luck, and don't let Pre-Searing confuse you to much Try not to go over the wall too early either, it can be quite painful.

I have one more question, is it possible to change professions when you buy a new chapter?

Every character can have 2 professions. Your primary profession determines your character's look and armor, and certain attributes can only get point put into them if you have that profession as your primary. So, for instance, warriors have an attribute called strength, and only warrior-primary characters can put points into strength. Other characters can take strength-based skills, but they won't be as effective because they can't put points into it.

At some point in each campaign, you can change your secondary profession, but your primary one is locked when you create your character. If you make a warrior primary, and later want a monk primary, you'd have to make a new character. You can, however, make your warrior a monk secondary and later change him to a ranger secondary, if you wanted to.

In general, people refer to characters in shorthand, like:

w/mo = warrior - monk
e/r = elementalist - ranger
me/n = mesmer - necromancer
a/rt = assassin - ritualist (factions only)
d/p = dervish - paragon (nightfall only)

Other than armor, (and general looks), your primary-profession-only attribute is important; necromancers, for instance, get 'soul reaping' which gives energy when things near you die. Warrior get strength, which helps your melee attacks do a bit more damage. Mesmer get fast-casting, which allows them to cast spells more quickly, etc.

The best thing I can tell you to do is to do a google search for 'Guild Wars Wiki' - it's a very useful resource...

Oh, so you have to start from level 1?

Let's say you make a warrior, get some levels and equipment, but decide you want to make a monk. In that case, you have to make a new character if you want a different primary profession. Keep in mind that you can make your warrior have monk as a secondary profession, and get a majority of the functionality of a full-fledged monk, but basically a character who has a profession as their primary will almost alway be better at that profession than someone who has it as their secondary. Pretty much every character profession is good to have, so I wouldn't just trash 1 character.

Ask around - most frequent posters here have multiple character at max level and having completed at least 1 campaign. It is definitely worth have a max level warrior, necro, etc, to team w/ friends or just mess around with. Even after you beat a campaign, you'll find there's more to do.

Keep in mind you get 4 char slots when you purchase your first chapter, and 2 more for each chapter after that. So you can create more than one char.

Once you create a char, its primary proffesion is locked and can never be changed, a Warrior will always be a Warrior, however its secondary is flexable and can be changed as often as you like once you reach a certain point in the game.

In Prophicies once you select your chars secondary proffesion( the primary is selected when you build your char, setting hight/hair/face/skin tone/ect..) it will be stuck with that secondary until you unlock other secondarys via quests that are found later in the game(exact details I'm leaving out as it is story related). Once you have unlocked new secondarys you can change back and forth as you desire, you do not lose anything by doing so but can only use skills from the currently selected secondary proff, even after unlocking all of them. ie you cant use War/Monk/Ele/Ranger skills all on one skill bar.

To better understand, each campaign/chapter takes place on a different continent.

When you move your character from Prophecies to Nightfall, he's travelling from the continent of Tyria to Elona. The character doesn't change at all, but now he has access to all the weapons, armor, skills on that continent.

And I'd recommend Nightfall, simply for the hero's. They add a new dimension to the game.

Well, not to confuse you.... but... you CAN start at lvl 20 (maxed) if you create a pvp-only character. PvP Chars have access ONLY to the arenas, guild battles, alliance battles, tournaments... they do NOT have access to any towns or explorable areas in the PvE side of things.

I bought a few extra character slots... I have one character from each class, a perma-pre (dont ask), a storage character, and a dedicated character slot for making/remaking pvp chars. Ive been here for quite a long time however..

Other than that, I agree with most of these other guys here.... Id say Nightfall is the best chapter... and if you find yourself really liking the pve play, then definately get the Prophecies/Eye combo (platinum) Personally, I happen to really like factions... and you can probably find it for cheap these days if you decide you want to start playing Alliance Battles pvp, or have access to the Ritualist or Assassin class.

When you get your character to lvl 20, don't stop and start a new one. Just because you maxed its level, does not mean you've maxed its skill. Keep on going through the game. Each new area gives you new challenges. It will push you to try to improve yourself.
Play through the game in order first time through. Try to refrain from buying runs. No real advantage to running on your first character. You won't be able to afford the armors. You will be beat into the ground by the high level mobs.
While in explorable areas, talk to every collector you see. They may have a better weapon to trade for, or a service you may want or need later.
If you want to learn the story, watch the cutscene movies. Ignore those that rant because someone didn't skip it.
There are a lot of players out there that think their way is the only way. Be open to ideas and suggestions, but play the way you want to play.

ok ,lol i would highly recomend start in nf ,why cause u get heros that will help during missions/quest ,also no one likes to be poor ,right? so you get this thing called treasures in nf which gets you 20k per char which you also get some rare drops but the amount given and drops are lower each month you can only do this treasure run each month so... get nf it will get you some decent armour and weapons