I haven't played any of the previous GuildWars games and am looking forward to playing GuildWars2. Do I have enough time to play GuildWars and Eye of the North before GuildWars 2 comes out?
How long does it take to advance through these games?
You've got plenty of time. GW2 isn't even coming out until 2009. Keep in mind that that is tentative, but the beta is supposed to be towards the end of this year.
Prophecies took me around 2 months of non-hardcore playing to beat. Factions took less, maybe a month. Same with Nightfall and GWEN.
If you're a hardcore player though, you could beat the games within a month if you tried hard enough.
Also keep in mind, if GW2 coming out soon is preventing you from trying out GW1, how many games have you played for an entire year. So there is still a good amount of playing time. Also when GW2 comes out, GW1 will still be going and will not end any time soon.
Yeah, you got plenty of time to play through any campaign at a slow pace. If you get Eye of the North, you can add some achievements to the Hall of Monuments which will get you something in GW2. You can even play longer after GW2 is out and keep on adding achievements to your HoM.
Note: no one knows what the rewards in GW2 will be, so don't bother asking.
There is three years of content in the first three (and a half) chapters of GW: go through them at the pace you want to and don't worry because people are not going to suddenly quit GW1 the day that GW2 hits the streets.
The first one is easy to learn, and concepts are introduced slowly (too slow for some people), Factions has a fast rate to level 20, with little time fore learning and Nightfall has a medium amount of time and learning. you cannot start in eye of the north
prophecies has a good learning curve for people starting out. Nightfall has heroes which are customizable henchmen that you get at the beginning of the game and throughout. Factions has alliance battles and um, assassins.