Starting fresh, where to begin?

I used to play Guild Wars off and on, the original Prophecies campaign, then real life kicked in and I haven't played in quite a lot time.

I recently started again, and my husband bought all of the expansions for me to go with it.

I'm kind of at a loss where to start; should I just start with Prophecies and work my way thru them in order? Or would I be better off starting with one of the expansions first?

I haven't even settled on a profession yet; I'm toying around with a few to find what I like. I figured I should start with Prophecies, but then again the hero's sound pretty attractive too, and I read that Nightfall was a lot of fun.

Any suggestions? Thanks

prophecies is the most fun place to start, but its much slower and you dont get heroes for a while.

nightfall is the fastest but you miss a lot of gradual development that makes you a better player.

my vote is for prophecies just because it teaches you how to play slowly and you can learn things one at a time in depth. most people, when they get heroes as fast as possible and arent experienced, give heroes terrible builds and it makes it harder on them than henchmen would be...

go with NF for the heroes, then go finish proph with them. Believe me, they're a lot better than the henchies in proph. I say stray away from Factions though, it's the most difficult of the 3 to start off in, because of the high learning curve, but also the highest reward, since you're able to get to level 20 in only a few hours there. So if you think you have enough experience, go for Factions if you wanna get up to lvl 20 quickly.

Proph-->NF-->Factions, then EotN if you have it.

Couldn't agree more, try not to rush out of presearing. Enjoy the scenery and stuff lol.

For the professions, check out the stickied guides in the Campfire section subforums. They go into detail about each profession and include single campaign skill bars that are effective.

With all three campaigns, you should have 8 character slots. Once you decide on beginning professions, you can start a character in each campaign if you wish and see which one you prefer.

Agree 100% with the Proph - NF - Factions plan of action. Although it is the longer, slower progressing campaign, it also has a large number of skill quests through-out (in NF and Factions you get a limited number of starting skills, then have to buy the rest).

If you do start end Prophecies though, would suggest that once you make it to Lion's Arch do the quest to take you to NF (or EotN if you have it) so you can get some heroes, then head back and finish Proph (if nothing else, at least get yourself a hero monk - Alesia is just plain scarey!)

Have fun.

I like starting in prophecies for a bunch of reasons. You get to experience presearing, which you never can if you start anywhere else. Plus you get skill quests to build up a lot of skills, which in the other games you usually buy most of the skills you need. It's a slower start, but imho its the most thought out, interesting, varied of the games. I agree nf next, you get heroes and it's a good money maker (free treasure chests, good drops etc) factions is pretty quick compared to the other 2, then eotn is quick but if you're not a good player you'll get stuck a lot and be frustrated so it's best to save that for last. Mostly, find a good guild cause they'll help when you get stuck and it's more fun doing stuff with people you trust.

Seeing as this is your first post here, I'd like to suggest you use search for questions such as these. This question has been asked more times than you can shake a stick at. Look around the forum, read some threads and do some searching. I'd also like to suggest you read Q&A forum rules and FAQ's as the FAQ may answer many question that you might have and maybe even some you haven't thought of yet!

Welcome to GWG!