Potential new player with some questions

Hello! I'm 90% sure that i'm going to buy Guild Wars in the next few days -- one of Prophecies or Nightfall -- most likely Prophecies.

I just have a few questions i'd like to ask about the game before i decide to buy it.. I'm sort of an MMORPG newbie so i apologise if some of these questions have really obvious answers to them. Anyway.. on with the questions:

#1: I understand you get a free trial access key with the game.. It's just one, right? Also, i live in Australia, so would i be able to give the free trial access key of mine to someone in America or Canada?

#2: Once you choose a server, is that your permanent server, and can you only interact with others on that server from then on with your character or is it simple enough to switch servers? Also on the topic of servers, i'm assuming it's easy enough to play with someone in America or Canada, even though i'm living (and playing) in Australia, right?

#3: How would it run on, hypothetically, a computer with a pretty good internet connection, but only 504 mb of ram? Horribly?

Also, as i live in Australia i have a pretty lame cap on my overrall internet downloading/uploading which caps out at 25 gig a month (and half of which usually goes to my brother).. Would this be a huge problem? Would playing it be much worse in terms of MBs downloaded/uploaded than playing Halo 3 online? I tend to get along pretty okay (in regards to the monthly limit) even when i play a lot of Halo online.

#4: A copy of Guild Wars from America or Canada or.. England or something would work fine on my Australian computer, yeah?

Thanks for any help at all. I really like the sound of this game -- looks absolutely awesome, so i'm excited about the prospect of potentially getting it.

P.S. Nice forum.. That stickied thread up the top about which copy of Guild Wars i should buy answered a lot of my questions. =)

1. trial key can be used by anyone

2. default server is permanent, but you can switch between servers to play.

3. check the game specs for Eye of the North on the guildwars.com website; thats the basic for good response. The game can be touchy.

4. doesn't matter where you buy the game; you choose your default server when you install.

Thank you for the compliments; this site tries very hard to help everyone. Welcome to GW. You won't regret your purchase.

1. Free key would work for any nationality.
2. The Australian server would be your accounts permanent server but you will be able to interact with anyone playing GW no matter what server or country (so long as they have the same campaigns as you). NOTE: The private message feature and some chat channels work across the game, so even if you only have Prophecies and someone else only has Nightfall you CAN chat with them.
3.GW runs well on most low to mid range performance PCs. Connection speed tends to be the biggest issue (Dial-up greatly extends load times)
4. If you can run other U.S. based Windows software on your PC then GW will should work as well.

I have a number of Aussies in my guild by the way; My IGN (in game name) is Tahl Biko. Add me to your friends list and I can put you in touch with them. They will definitely be able to answer your questions.

Good Luck and welcome to Guild Wars.

Thanks a ton for the quick replies guys.

Really nice about it, too. Appreciate it.

Eased most of my concerns a lot. I'll just see whether i can get it from Ebay/Amazon or whether i'll have to buy the store version (it's really expensive over here apparently, in store -- like $70-90 for Nightfall).

Again, thanks a ton for the (quick) help.

I will. Thanks. You mean once i get the game, right?

(big smile) well yuh.

1) I'm not sure if they still come this way, but the original Prophecies only came with a Prophecies-only trial key. While NF comes with a NF-only key and an Epic trial key(good for all 3 campaigns). And yes, you can give them to anyone, anywhere.

2) Currently, the only separate server is the Japanese one(which Anet intends to integrate into the rest, but God only knows when). You can switch between them via a simple drop down menu. Btw, there's no Aussie server.

3a) 504 mb ram leads me to question your vid card. But the ram itself shouldn't be a problem. I use to run GW off my laptop, which only had 256mbs.

3b) Initial updates may be a problem as the fully updated GW.dat is 3.7 Gb large. But it doesn't eat up all that much bandwidth after that.

4) Yes, there shouldn't be any problems with that.

Okay, cool. Thanks.

Umm, that question was more for a friend, so i should ask her about that? My computer's actually 1.0 gig ram and i can't remember what the vid card is, haha.


Err.. yeah 3.7 gig may be a bit of a problem. Is that amount for all of the games? Like if i got Nightfall instead would it still be 3.7 gig, or would it be less (because i'd assume a lot of the update stuff would have been already put in Nightfall?)?

There are two ways to install the game and for both the CD is not that useful. The data on the CDs is:

Prophecies - 3 yrs old last April
Factions - 2 yrs old last April
Nightfall - 2 yrs old next October

Basically, you download the game client from the guildwars.com website. Then you download the basic data (which is probably what is on the CD).

Then you either download a data update everytime you enter a new zone or you add a command to your icon info called -image and download the whole dat file while you sleep.

The complete gw.dat file is about 3.7GB and contains all the information for all three chapters and the expansion. When you add an access key to your account it unlocks the new areas, but you will not need to do any more massive downloads.

The dat file contains no information specific to your account, that is all kept on ArenaNet's server, so if one person has the complete dat file, it can be copied to another player's computer and save them the big download.

Hopefully, I have not confused you.

Simply put, when you update the game, you download data for all the chapters and expansion, regardless of whether you own them or not. The client is not tied to any account, because more than one account can log into your Guild Wars install.
In my past experience, RAM mostly effects on how detailed you can set your textures. The game stuttered horribly on any setting above "low" with 1 Gb of RAM, but ran smoothly on "high" with 2 Gb of RAM.

I would recommend running GW on the low video settings with only 1 gb of ram. If you don't you will have a lot of lag.

Okay, thanks. So i could get someone else to do it for me and then just give me the file(s) on a DVD-R/CD-R?

Okay.. =/ That sounds fine since i was planning on having the quality set pretty low anyway since i thought that might help a little with the MBs (it would, wouldn't it?). Thanks.

Again, thanks for all the help guys.. I'm gonna have to see about getting someone else to download that big GW.dat file for me, i guess. =/

Hey for once I'm actually at my home PC while perusing this forum which means I actually have the game open!

So if you've bought the game Rivers you can look for the IGN I gave you. That is if you just HAPPEN to be in the forum right now AND happen to have the game running.

You can just run guild wars with the -image switch, which will automatically download everything and you can leave it running overnight and have the file in the morning, or maybe after a few nights if your connection is very slow. If you have access to any kind internet cafe or somesuch with a high speed connection you can do this then burn the file to a dvd and take it home. If you intend to pursue this method just ask and we can give you more detailed information on how to activate this switch.

You really should download the whole thing though, because on a slow connection downloading an entire area's contents while loading the area is going to take quite long. If you are in a group they will probably assume you lost your connection during the loading process and leave you.

Remember that even after you download the whole thing updates for the game ARE made every once in a while, so you should expect anywhere from a 5-25 MB update at least once a month

There has gotta be some other things going on there, Guild Wars works fine on one of my systems with 512 MB ram at medium textures, and before my gaming system got upgraded to 2GB I had 1GB ram and was able to max every option in Guild Wars and maintain the maximum framerate even in kamadan.

Does your video card have a relatively small amount of memory? The same symptoms could appear if you have 64 (maybe even 128) MB or less of video ram, but as long as you have more ram then that on your video card all of the textures will be in your video card's ram and not taking up space in your main system memory. As long as all of the game's textures fit within that video memory you should have no apparent slowdown between low and high detail textures, just slightly longer transition times while the textures are loaded. Its a pity that a lot of computers are marketed these days as being 'high end' while still having a rather low end graphics card.

the game performance is affected by only two factors: CPU, and graphics card.

if you have a bad graphics card, the game won't run well even if you have an intel QX9770 and 124259182470147gb of ram.

if you have a bad CPU, the same as above.

GW can effectively run on 1gb of RAM, providing your CPU and graphic card are decent. since it's a fairly old game now, anything better than a pentium 4 2.8ghz and a geforce 6600 will be sufficient.

1. Yes
2. If I understand what you are saying, there now is only 1 "server." They connected all servers to allow transport between all of them not too long ago. Just so you know how GW works, its combat areas private and towns are online. Chat is everywhere. Towns have different districts which encompass different areas of the globe. You and your friends can play together anytime both of you are online.
3. Its not as much your RAM as your internet speed. I am assuming you mean a 512MB RAM, it should be fine as long as it meets the min specs on the box. As for downloading, the entire .dat file for the game is <5GB total.
4. Yes unless you have some weird drive instead of CD

GW doesn't have 'servers' in the same sense that games like WoW or LotR do. GW is all 'instanced', so there is no need to have individual servers - and there is no PvP during PvE, so no need for separate servers there either.
GW just has "regions" - such as America, Europe, & Asia - which are more for ping leveling and time zones than anything else. You can freely travel between regions, so you can play with your Canadian buddies on the America servers (note - it's America, not AmericaN ) or, if pings are a problem, you could try the International districts.

Wow, just stop right there!!

I'm an Aussie too and bought both proph and factions here and they certainly aren't $70-80! Where are you buying them from? Have you tried a discount games retailer like GameTraders? Even buying the games from the GW store is cheaper than that (I believe EOTN, the newest one, is $50 USD which is about $55 AUD).

Just letting you know not to fork out $70 for the game because it's been out for years and no retailer I can think of (even though game prices here at stupid) would sell a 4 year old game for $70.

Also, I would caution you from buying the game from eBay.
It's not that its bad but you are running the risk of ppl scamming you... You know like selling you a used access key which you can't use anymore...

Amazon is fine though.