Wow Veteren Looking at GWs

Hey everyone, as the title says I am a wow player and have been for sometime reaching a lot of the end game content. I am thinking of purchasing GWs though for a bit of casual play between raids but I have a few questions first

- Firstly, do I need to purchase all the expansions to still be a part of all the end game fun? For wow, if you don't have the expansion pack then you are absolutely no one and worthless scum

- How do the classes work? Is it similar to wow in that you have a typical tank/healer/dps setup? Do classes have multiple specs/builds so that, say a monk isn't doomed to be healing the whole time? If anyone could do a brief run through of class roles that would be great.

- How much can you customize your interface? One of the things I love about wow is how you can download an endless stream of mods to make your ui look however you want and show pretty much any piece of information you could imagine. Hows the GWs modding scene?

- Lastly, is it really worth a new player going for GWs now or holding off until GW2?

Thanks,

Vel

1. You can buy any of the campaigns, for a starter I would reccommend you buy the Prophecies and EotN bundle (Platinum Edition I think it was called)

2. Classes, you can have a primary class and a secondary class
for example, Warrior/Assassin
thought classes would have ages to explain so I reccommend you go here http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Professions and here http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Attribute
and monks are not limited to healing though thats what everyone wants them to do

3. GW interface customization is less than WoW's
there are a few mods you can add but I reccommend just using the default interface
You are allowed to move things around in the options, like the health/energy bars, the XP bar, the party window etc.

4. Playing GW1 and earning titles will get you bonus items and unlocks in GW2 and GW2 won't be coming out til next year so I reccommend you start with GW1

For PvP yes. Guild Wars doesn't have end game. Nothing compared to WoW anyways so you should be alright, just make sure you buy Nightfall.

- How do the classes work? No, we generally need monks, but it's not as game breaking in WoW, you won't spend 30 minutes lf tank or lf healer here, mostly because you don't need PuGs to do dungeons and stuff. You can level as a monk but if you join a party, you will probably be expected to heal, sounds familiar doesn't it ?

How much can you customize your interface? No customisation at all, a few tweaks here and there, but you can't download mods or fancy stuff like in WoW.


I'd probably say No since you already got a character raiding in wow, it wouldn't be worth it tbh.

Now for a useful answer rather than linking to the wiki.

1. Yes, the expansions are definitely an advantage. A larger variety of skills and classes and more endgame stuff to do across all of them.

2. It is pretty much the same as WoW for the most part. Monks are generally stuck with healing if you join random groups, but a monk also has the ability to smite, which deals double damage to undead. An elementalist can use fire for raw damage or earth to mitigate the damage across the party, for example.

3. GW has TexMod, which allows you to change the textures of armour and weapons. The interface customisation is generally done in-game, but only really to the extent of changing how it looks rather than any real function like in WoW.

4. Yes. Things you do in GW can be taken over to GW2 through Eye of the North and the Hall of Monuments. For example, completing a campaign gets you a statue you can put in there for unknown rewards for GW2.


Lastly, the game is a team game. You'll be pretty much in parties all the time. Only GW has heroes, customisable AI in which you can change their skills and items, or hench. These hench are AI which can't be customised in any way.

1) There is only one true "expansion" (Eye of the North), the others are standalone games. It would be best to buy one of the stand alone games and EotN now. Each game introduces new skills that you can only access if you own that game. If you don't own all the games, some "builds" (collection of skills) will be inaccessible to you. However, you should be able to get by nicely with just the skills from one game in PvE. In serious PVP, you need all the skills.

2) In PVE, pugs (pick up groups) people often choose to have (a) tank(s), nukers, healers. However, many of the areas are very flexible and a variety of builds work. If you find a good guild, play styles are more flexible.

Typically monks always heal in PUGS. However, monks can also solo farm. Again, in guild groups the role of monks is more flexible. In some zones (eg Shard's of Orr dungeon) monks smite (do damage) instead.

3) TexMod. see http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10232579 for an example of UI customisation.

4) If ur intending of playing casually, perhaps buy one game (pretty cheap nowadays) and see if you like it?

My parts are Bolded:

Thanks for the quick replies guys. Still unsure whether to buy it or not though.

I am not really up for a long grind to the highest level just to reach a playable level like 1-70 in wow. What kind of /played are we talking about to reach a point where you can hit the decent pvp games?

Also, Franko, you say there is no end game? What do you do when you hit 20 apart from pvp?

Heh, sorry for all the continued nooblike questions but how does the gearing system work? For wow its all about kill mob X for Y% change of dropping big axe. Play pvp for Z amount of hours for really big helmet. Find lots of random ore to make spikey boots etc. Similar sort of system in GWs?

To an extent, having all of the campaigns will make you more powerful. Every class is perfectly capable of finishing all of the areas with only the skills in their home campaign, but having more choices will often let you pick better skills to be used for an area. Its not like WoW though where everyone lvl 70 automatically wins vs lvl 60s. Everyone in GW gets to lvl 20, the difference is in the skills they select for their build. The only thing I think as a PvE player you should really look for getting is Heroes. Heroes basically let you have 3 customizable AI's following you, which is very good in the places in the game where there aren't many players any more.

I would recommend getting Guild Wars Platinum Edition. It contains the original Prophecies campaign, which is the longest and the one which will give you the best introduction to the game (the other campaigns have rather rushed tutorials not as good for introducing new players). It also contains EotN, which is the expansion which has a great many dungeons and such, along with a number of heroes to play with which can give you a good taste of all of the other classes.

Well, monks CAN do damage, the problem is usually all groups have a shortage of monks and so the monks are forced to heal/protect. Generally all classes have their specific roles, but the also combine very well. For example, an ele can use a fire build to do high AoE damage. They might add in a little bit of earth magic and use a ward against melee, which gives their party 50% block against melee opponents. Or they might go Air magic and spam blinding flash, which will blind enemies making them do even less damage. Also, there isn't any tanking in good groups. Warriors output the highest single damage in the game and are used for that.


The UI can be reskinned using third party mods:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide..._modifications
but there aren't any real huge additions to the game like in wow. You won't be able to get any addition information through the UI. Most players just refer to to the wiki as posted above.
If you are asking if playing in GW will help you in GW2, the answer is not really. All players in GW2 will start over again, but they are allowed to link their accounts through the http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hall_of_monuments
Doing some certain tasks will unlock stuff in the Hall of Monuments in GW1 that will somehow transfer over to GW2, but the differences are supposed to be purely cosmetic, IE if you put a certain armor in the HoM, you will unlock another certain armor in GW2, but the armor won't be any better then the ones everyone else can buy, just look different/better.

But, unlike WoW, getting a character to max level and such is far less of a grind and time waster. Whereas wow players can spend hundreds of hours and still not get to the top level with the best equipment, in GW most experienced players could probably reach max level in a few days. So its not like you have to worry about wasting 1000+ hours that are just going down the drain, you won't be spending that much just to experience the game. Players with that much time are all just going for prestige items/titles for fun, but they have no real advantage over you.

Your first character could take you any amount of time to get maxed, from around a week to a month depending on how much side quests you are doing. I would say around 50 hours for your first time if you really try to progress through the game ASAP, maybe 75-100 hours if you instead hang around the areas and finish up all of the side quests and aren't using a guide to tell you where to go to do everything as fast as possible.

If you want to PvP, any person can create a PvP-only character which automatically has perfect armor and lvl 20. You have to unlock some small weapon upgrades and new skills either through PvE or PvP play though, but if PvP is what you want you can get into it in a matter of days. If you want to get in the highest forms of PvP though you will need to have all of the campaigns. If PvP is just what you want I would recommend Factions, which gives you Alliance Battles which would probably be the most WoW-like PvP style and less demanding then the other PvP types

Generally getting the best items is pretty easy. For example, just about any certain weapon with certain stats will have a 'green' version (which is a specially named boss drop) costing on the order of a 5-10k gold (gold btw is far more easily obtained then gold in wow, so it will be hard to compare these numbers to wow but trust me, a few k gold is pretty low for GW. Clearing a dungeon or something might take an hour and give you 5kish, and serious farming may get you 5x that). Armor is bought from NPC's in exchange for some materials and gold. Max armor might take around 10-15k gold, but if you just play the game you will usually have enough by they to buy it. All of the hugely expensive stuff (50k,500k, 5,000k gold levels) are just prestige items that wont give you any advantage in combat other then looking cool.

Most of the game is spent at level 20. In Factions and Nightfall you'll reach level 20 in a few hours. Prophecies takes quite a bit longer.

As far as equipment goes, it's mostly about looks. You can get a max damage weapon with whatever mods you want very easily and very cheap, but if you want a particular skin then you have to work more. Rare skins can be quite expensive, however the stats are no better than any other.

In PvE, each time a creature is killed there is a percent chance of it dropping something. In PvP stylish amour is unlocked through tournament award points. However, one must know prestige armor only LOOKS better - it has the same function as max normal armor.

Basicly farm alone for endless titles that you will probably never max, or do 8 man dungeon areas that have a 100 worse drop rate then a Dragonspine Trophy in Gruul's Lair. There's nothing like BT/Hyial here, heck, not even Kara.

Guild Wars company is constantly fighting themselves, they either focus on PvP and make this seem like a PvP game or focus on PvE and make this seem like a PvE game, which really, the pvp is good, but if your focus is PvE then stick with WoW, GW has the worse PvE I've ever played but I'm not a pve player so works for me, on the other hand, WoW has the worse pvp i've ever played, so , it depends on what you planning to do, if you enjoy raiding then I'd stick with WoW, it's your choice + your money mate.

Dont worry about the long grind to max level in GW.

The max level of a character is 20 here... which means that you can get to max in a few hours/days at most depending on which GW game you are playing (Prophs being the slowest and Factions being the fastest to level up).

After taht its all down to how well you play instead of how great and epic your level and equipment is.

It seems to me you're looking for another WoW type game, and if this is what you want, don't bother with GuildWars.

Now i'm not saying GuildWars is bad, just that it's very different from WoW.

Basically maximum level is 20, the game is designed so that you normally hit level 20 quite early on and after that there is no more level grinding but still LOADS to do, pretty much 70% of guild wars is end game. Level 20 can easily be obtained within a day to a week depending on the campaign and how much you play really.

Now if you want to PvP as I seen you mention, you WILL need all of the campaigns, apart from Eye Of The North, which does help, but isn't a gamebreaker. If you're a PvP'er though, once you start to get into GW PvP you'll start to see how complex and how rewarding it is. It's about skill and NOT your equipment which plays a big part in WoW. This is because you can instantly create a PvP only character that has max armor, max weapons etc etc the downside is they don't have access to alot of the pretty weapon skins and armours.

Well, as you say, I have wow for pve. Might be nice to have a casual game on the side that does pvp well.

I do enjoy the occasional BG/arena match in wow but it is far from perfect and with gear focused fully for pve its hard for me to get much out of it.

So I can just start a new character straight at level 20 and just hit the arenas (or w/e they are called in GWs) without any sort of gearing up/leveling? Whats the draw back?

The drawback is that you wont have all the skills and armor upgrades (runes etc) unlocked right away. With PvP, you earn Balthazar Faction. You can use that faction to unlock new skills. In the beginning, you will only have the starter skills, so it might be hard to earn the faction to unlock it all (or you can buy the PvP unlock packs in the GW online store)
Or course, you can also unlock the skills and armor upgrades by PvEing. Every skill or upgrade you unlock in PvE, will become available for all your PvP characters

The only drawback would be that you can not enter PvE area's with these characters.

/edit: And what ^he said.

Yes, you can, but you won't have enough skills unlocked to make a good build. Besides, if you have never played GW before, I wouldn't start with the arenas. If If I were you I'd just finish one campaign, so you can buy yourself some skills and get used to the GW gameplay. Don't worry, a campaign won't take NEARLY as much time as getting to a decent level in WoW.

you should just buy the game and try it out, to get a real feel of the game, asking questions wont give you any experience of guild wars then see if you like it or not....fairly cheap these days

Couldm't be bothered splitting quote and got hit with 12chars

I played WoW from alpha test phase on the original game until 2-3 months ago when I picked up Guild Wars.

The first thing you need to know is they are two seperate type of games. While GW is very similiar to an MMO, it is not technically one. The official site even states this (calls it an CORPG [competative online RPG).

I think one of the main differences in GW and WoW is GW has an "end", where WoW has you raiding the same thing at end-game. Each of GWs campaings (and the expansion), have a congratulations you beat the game type area.

Classes in GW are much more versatile due to secondary classes. For instance, a Warlock is a Warlock in WoW regardless of spec. In GW, the equivalent class (a Necromancer) can have any secondary and have any number of roles in a group (from it's traditional role to healer or anything else you want to pick as a secondary).

Guild Wars is also more single player friendly. You will never HAVE to wait for a group to complete areas. You can pick up heroes (if you have the right game) and/or henchmen (in all games) and complete ANY area of the game with ANY class you've chosen.

UI customization is nowhere as complex as WoW. You can rearrange your layout, but you can't do most of the stuff that addons allow you to do in WoW.

As for which/how many games to purchase everyone has thier own opinion. I would say to pick up one game and the expansion (platinum edition of prophecies would work) OR pick up Nightfall without. The main reason for those two choices are the heroes. Heroes tend to be better than henchmen due to customization options. Either Proph+Eye of the North OR Nightfall should cost you about $40. Prophecies is a little slower and has more area to cover than Nightfall, but both can be fun.

I personally picked up the platinum edition of prophecies with the intent of playing it for a few months, then going back to WoW. I have since purchased all the games, and won't be going back to WoW before the next expansion comes out (if I even go back to WoW when the expansion does come out).

Velshinathey I have PMed you with a free trial key to Guild Wars, it consists of the 3 campaigns (everything but Eye of the North). It should still be usable, so check your profile!

Figured it'd be better for you to decide this way, rather than reading everyone's separate opinion.

I just want to say 1 thing... PvP. This game has simply the best PvP combat system on the marked when it comes to magic, swords and that kind of stuff. I have played many online games but none can match the GW PvP system.