guild wars for my son

Agree.

Prophecies was anything but boring when I started playing, and learning the game. Couldn't wait to get home from work (or take a 'sick' day) so I could play.

I disagree.

I found Prophecies to be boring rahter quickly, but ofcourse that could also be because I was playing a class I did not like at all. (It was a ranger)

Then again, I usually find the beginning of a campaign very boring.

i thought proph was extremely boring, until i found that there was a post-searing ascalon....lol

lol......................

I don't know how old your son is, but be warned about some of the potty mouthed behavior that goes on in all-chat. I typically have all-chat turned off to avoid the deluge of idiotic drible and profanities, but tender eyes might still be curious. The chat filters make some effort to clean it up a little, but people "cleverly" find ways around that. Just offering a heads up to what seems like a concerned parent.

On topic: Prophecies is good for it's learning curve. The beginning stage of the game (called "Pre-Searing") is an ideal learning environment for new players. You can learn a great deal about the game by starting there.

Nightfall (the third chapter) would be my second choice for starters. It has a decent learning curve too, plus the advantage of customizable "henchmen" or Heroes.

Factions - the middle chapter, is very fast paced, and some feel it is over a bit too quickly. I would not recommend it as a starting campaign.

As the first poster mentioned, The original guild wars (what we call "Prophecies") was recently made available as a combo with the expansion for a reduced price. It might be worth it to get that if you think your son is going to be fond of the game.

That's my two bits. Take it for what you will.

I didn't find the factions learning curve too much for a new player since it was in a way my first game. I actually bought prophecies first and lost interest when I went to post. Then I decided to buy factions and I gotta say I liked it much better

I would have to say prophecies.
It is the first game and gives him a good and clear introduction to the game. It explains how to use the game and the skills that you earn in the time that you need for it. Guild wars factions, is based on more experienced players and starts with higher level enemies.

Prophecies also tells the story that continues in factions and nightfall. So that might help.

Well I hope he has a happy birthday .

Good luck

No, No,NO!!!!!!!!!!!
Guild Wars is known to be slightly different to tradional mmos but you are all looking at the perspective of regualar rpg players, I have friends who have bought prophecies and don't normally play mmos, they find it easy to pick up but find it too slow and get bored easily. While thoose you got Nightfall found it quite easy and didn't bored so easily, (and my friend prefer mimdless shooting games).
Note: They did stop playing guild wars because they found 'gears of war' that game on xbox360
If your son doesn't normally play mmos get him nightfall

nightfall is the most boring of the three, once i got through kourna i would rather have napped than finished it.

I bought GW:EotN combo, loved both, then got NF, not as intense but still good so far, Factions seems kinda empty, one of the early missions where you need 2 parties I can't find anyone there (although the 1st couple of outposts have loads of peeps, wierd), the other packs are very busy tho, Eotn is the best looking imo, some sidequests (dungeons) pretty damn hard tho

For me, having protector of all three campaigns, nightfall is by far the most fun just because the missions are fast paced and/or mobile with great difficulty accessible in hard mode. + the added bonus of good farming and such.

Prophecies is great and all, but as soon as your son reaches level 20 on one or maybe 2 characters he will be DONE with prophecies, after doing tyrian elite skill hunter I refuse to play prophecies on any of my new characters.

to sum it all up, you WILL end up buying all of the campaigns especially if you reach the PvP stage of guild wars