Considering buying, have a couple questions before I decide.

Hi all,

Well as the title says I'm considering whether to get GW. I've looked around and it seems prophecies or nightfall is the way to go for newcomers.

Anyhow, I'm wondering whether joining this late in the game's lifecycle is a bad idea. The social aspect of a game like this is very important and I don't know anybody in the game. Are there many guilds recruiting novices like myself or is the community rather closed at this stage?

Another thing; PVP is important to me and as far as I've understood different pvp modes are tied to specific campaigns. Which PVP modes are the most popular and what campaigns are they tied to?

Finally, should I get GWEN on top of the campaign I decide on or is it not vital for endgame PVE and PVP?

That's about it, thanks for listening

GW2 won't be out for at least 1-2 years if not 3-4. The beta will start late this year and ANet is not rushing the game to market.

Even then the GW servers will remain up and active with continued events and bug fixes as long as people are playing the game.

PvP is explained in the wikis
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page

GWEN is not a requirement, just additional fun. There are no new PvP skills in the expansion.

Some of the earlier areas might not be that populated, but there are often people making new characters starting out. Unlike a lot of games like this, it is very common to have many multiple characters. There are plenty of people to play with and the game is still fun. There are thousands of guilds out there. Finding a good one can take some time. Don't join ones randomly. Be selective, and you'll find a good guild. It is also possible to play much of the game with NPC allys, so don't worry. If you play at 5 in the morning and there are not a lot of people in some obsecure area of the game, you can still play.


Most PvP modes are not tied to specific campaigns. In fact, the main ones (GvG, RA, TA, HA) aren't. Only Alliance Battles and Hero Battles are tied to specific campaigns. Alliance Battles requires Factions, and Hero Battles requires you to have either Nightfall or Eye of the North. Alliance Battles are kind of a begginer form of PvP. It is a lot of fun, but a lot of the players are kinda scrubish, so if you want to get serious about PvP you don't really need this. Random Arenas (RA) is avialable through all the campaigns and is a similar place to learn the basics. Hero Battles are generally VERY unpopular and disliked. Few people play it regularly so you aren't missing anything there.

Edit: Incorrect Darcy, there are over 100 new PvP skills in Guild Wars: Eye of the North. There are no new elite skills.

Eh i wouldn't suggest it, even though GW is fun, if you want lots of talking, it might not be the best time, I might wait until maybe the new weapons come in, or maybe my guild could help you out.... Or any other one, but right now when you start all the missions will be blank as a slate in population, its best getting a guild right away if u wanna start this game

its not really worth gettin into this late, most of the players have everything, the market is horrible, it gets lonely with henchmen cuz groups are bad, pvp is ruled by gimmick builds where you need every game to have the skills. just not worth your time

Id say play so long as it makes you happy and yes there are guilds that recruit newbs

but for the love of god DONT spam guild chat asking for help 24/7, quite possibly the most annoying thing ive ever come across

How is that any different than any other time in this games history? I have been playing for two years and the good players always took only henchman and left the rest do missions 5+ times with different pugs hoping for a good combination. PVP has always had gimmick builds (IWAY, bloodspike, thumpers, etc) because less skilled players still want to win. I don't pay attention to the market to much but it used to be everything was fairly expensive but you could get decent money farming, now it is things are more reasonably priced but you can't get jack from farming.

As to the question of weather to buy it or not, go ahead. The original (and widely considered the best) can be found for $10 which is a great price and the rest can be found fairly cheap if you look around. If you want to do some serious pvp you have to buy all three campaigns and probably the expansion or you can just buy the pvp unlock packs (unlocks all skills for use in pvp only, on a pvp character only) for $20 each.

Crap, I just bought prophiceis for $30 lol.

Anyway, I started guild wars 1 month ago and it is very fun! In prophicies, the beginner towns are usually filled with people and I never find it hard to get people to do a co-op mission. It usually takes me 2-3 minutes. Nightfall cities are pretty populated to. Not sure about factions.

Speaking for myself, I hero-henched on my main character through most missions to ensure that I got them right.

Now that I'm bringing my other characters through the various missions, I'm more tolerant of forming my own PUG or joining one -- heroes and henchies aren't the best conversationalists, plus I've found good players that became frequent playing companions in those groups.

But yes, also take your time in finding a good guild, there also are recruitment pages in this forum. Between Guild-sponsored activities and non-guild friends, you'll always have someone to play with.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I've gone ahead and bought the platinum edition.