Should I buy the game?

I am a newcomer to MMO's, played FPS and RTS for about 12-14 years now. I recently stopped playing live wow a month ago. I am running my own server for me and the gf to just mess around on.

I saw this game and the reviews don't really go into detail too much. I am thinking of getting the box set aka the trilogy that they sell in retail stores. I am looking for a PvE experience, and I was wondering what the pve consists of. For anyone who has played wow, PvE is raiding. What is the PvE like in this game? Is it wow-like where you have 25 people working together? (Which I did and loved, but is too time consuming) I would really rather not have such a big group experience. Is this game more raids, instances, soloing? I just don't really know what the PvE in this game is like, in terms of difficulty, how you get gear, group size needed, etc. I am looking for a game where me and my gf can play together without 23 other people, Civilization 4 is getting a little old lol.

If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you for your time.

Mike

Well of course now that you've gotten a forum account you should get the game.

Jk. But seriously, yes, it seems like Guild Wars would be a game you're looking for (don't mind the people who claim the game is dying - they've been saying that for the past 2 years, and at any rate from these threads it looks like people are still beginning to play). Since I was a little confused too before I bought the game, I figured I'd clarify some things.

Guild Wars, as my formerly-WoW-playing friend often tells me, is not much like World of Warcraft. While grind has increased in recent years, it's still nowheres near the grind level of WoW. You level to your maximum of 20 in the natural course of the game, and max gear is also easy to acquire - weapons will drop naturally for you, and all armor is made at a crafter, so all you have to do is find the max crafter, pay him in materials and cash, then take your new armor and buy or find runes and insignia to attach. GW is very oriented towards putting all players on an even field very quickly so that they can easily hop into PvP or tougher PvE without worrying that they don't have the level/gear necessary.
It seems one of your main concerns is grouping, and from what I can tell GW's system would work well for you. In normal PvE, the maximum party size is just 8 people, though in the Elite Missions Urgoz's Warren and the Deep it is increased to 12 (and there are a few Factions missions where another party from a different outpost will join you, but you don't have to coordinate that). I believe the PvP limit is also 8 (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Furthermore, you can fill empty slots in your party with local Henchman NPCs (in all campaigns) or your customized Hero NPCs (if you have Nightfall or Eye of the North). Thus, you and your girlfriend can party up without worrying about trying to find other human players, as you can just add 6 henchmen or heroes (this is preferable, IMO - you each get to take three) so your group is at maximum strength.
PvE in GW is mainly about completing the main storyline, earning titles, improving your character's build and items (armor art is separate from armor function in GW, so even if you have perfectly good armor, you might find one you prefer the appearance of and earn enough to buy that - the same goes for most weapons), and generally having fun planning builds, fighting monsters, and exploring the beautiful world of Tyria with friends.
Also, everything in Guild Wars is instanced. That means that it can get a little lonely at times (but you'll be with your gf, and if you find a good guild you'll have friends who'll join you), but it also means that nobody will run in and bother you while you're playing - no spawn camping, no kill stealing, etc.

I highly recommend that you visit GuildWiki: http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
This site is essentially the Guild Wars Player's Bible. It will tell you everything you need to know about game mechanics, storylines, quests, items, and skills.
There is also an Official Wiki (Guild Wars Wiki), much like GuildWiki (though it is sometimes considered less accurate/helpful for people trying to find information), which is, like Guru, frequented by Guild Wars staff who can tell us about updates and planned projects (and confirm whether that skill/quest/character is or is not a pop culture reference!).

I hope this helps! If you do get the game, you can feel free to ask me anything. I play a lot of different characters, but just add me to the Friends panel as Qing Guang and you'll be able to find me no matter which character I'm playing. Good luck and have fun if you decide to get it.

I am getting this game lol. Wow that was much more than I expected! Thanks for your honesty, and really giving a good description of why I should get this game. It really made my decision!

On another note, what is the maximum number of people you can do PvE with? 12? Just wondering!

Thanks again!

2 elite missions have 12 char limits, a few early areas have 2, 4, 6, but over 90% of the game is 8, so get used to that.

yes, 12 is 2 areas of the game. Personally my favorite 2 (Deep and Urgoz). This game is amazing, don't listen to other people. Find a nice guild and have fun

As Quing said above, maximum party size in PvE is generally 8, though 'newbie' areas limit party size to 2 or 4, and a hefty chunk of Prophecies (The first game in order) is capped at 6, and the 2 specific Elite Mission areas which allow a party of 12. This is not taking into account the occasional mission/dungeon/area where you obtain help from NPC 'Allies'.

Edit: Yes, my post is redundant, only because I took so long to type it.

It depends on where you are. The start of the first game (Prophecies) only allows groups of two, and as you go the group size increases to 4, then 6, then 8. 8 person groups make up most of the game. Note that there are 2 12 person missions, but you don't need to do those.

Get it from Amazon.com then! You can get Trilogy + EoTN (all games) for 46.99-49.99 (fluctuating price) till the 22nd. best deal ever. EDIT: it's actually out of stock, that sucks! you can get Trilogy for $30 at GoGamer I think though.

PS: I like the official wiki more than the wikia one lol. It is organized better and usually the info is the same at each.

The Official Wiki http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page while sometimes lacking in the "how-to" on the older wiki, is available in-game as Help on the Menu or F10 or by typing /wiki in the chat bar.

The wikis explain the different professions and the use of the mandatory secondary professions. For more detail about playing any particular profession, visit our Campfire section and check the sticky in each of the suforums. Don't feel that you will be locked into one character, as you receive a total of 8 character slots with the three campaigns. There is no penalty for re-rolling a character.

While the maximum (and optimum) party size for PvE is 8 in the max level (20) areas of any campaign, this does not mean you must have 8 real people. You can play alone with 7 henchmen/heroes or with any number of real people and just fill out the party with the NPCs.

A fact the seems not to have been stressed enough is that you will rarely need to group with people. You + 3 heroes (You'll have them if you buy the trilogy, NightFall heroes and MOX) + 4 henchmen can usually get the job done. When you can't do it with that, then I assume you can play with your girlfriend, so two people + six heroes. if that doesnt get the job done then most other people have trouble with it too, and you can see them saying stuff like LFG Mission (looking for group). You just join up, do the mission and sometimes go on as a group or just split up at the end.

Something that you'll have to live with like all of us are the morons that exist in all MMOs however.

No the game is too addicting.


P.S. that means yes you should buy it

I could say you should get the game but I have to ask you this... Do you like Diablo?

If you do a little research, you'll find that many developers of this game worked on that and WoW, so you have a common playing field here if that's what you're into.

kk, I bought the trilogy for 32.99. I started off as a Warrior/Monk. I am playing prophecies atm. Around what level can I add npc's to my group? How do I add them haha? For the hero's is that only in a different version aside from prophecies?

Diablo was a very good game, it just feels really dated now. Can't wait for D3 tho.

Ah, the Whammo, a classic. Be warned, though, that while they're fairly steady in PvE you probably shouldn't try to PvP with him - while they're not intrinsically bad, a minority of bad players have given the combination a bad name.
You can't add NPCs to your party in the area you're in right now. The party cap will increase to four and you'll gain access to Henchmen until you finish the test that will complete your training at the Academy (basically, it's a quickie little 4v4 PvP match of randomly assorted teams, which then go on to do a short cooperative mission).
Heroes will become available when you get to Nightfall (or when you decide to make a Nightfall character). Until then, you'll have to make do with henchies.

Wow, it's tough not spoiling the plot! I'd forgotten how many spoilers have entered our general discussions. (If you're worried about those, be careful around plot discussions here or on Wiki. If you're not, just ignore all the little warnings that are still on Wiki, and feel free to read everything on Guru.)

EDIT: Oh oh oh! I forgot M.O.X.! He's a hero that'll become available to you once you've reached both level 10 and the campaign capital of Lion's Arch, regardless of whether you've been to Elona or not. He'll be waiting outside, where you can then recruit him. Just be warned that he is a Dervish, so if you haven't been to Nightfall yet he'll be stuck with his initial skillset for a while until you get there and unlock some more skills for him.

So I can not add any NPC's for now then? Also I will be able to carry my character over to nightfall after i finish at the academy? or no

Once you are in post searing you can add npcs called henchmen.

And you can carry any character you want through any of the 4 campigns ( must be lvl 10 min to for to eye of the north campign though)

Ahhh kk, sittin at level 5. When is post searing? Im a newb lol

The tutorial area - the Academy - is commonly called Pre within the community. You'll enter Post when you leave the Academy (why it's called that, I'll leave you to find out - was trying to avoid using the term entirely but I guess it's such a part of our vocabulary it's hard to avoid). All I'll say is that the tutorial is a time, not a place - so be sure you've done everything you wanted to do before you leave. I generally finish that area up at around level 8, which also helps ensure success in the mini arena battle as the opponents you'll face are often level 2-4 people anxious to get to the rest of the game, and the henchies are low-level as well.
Once you get to Post, you'll have a much bigger world to explore. You'll have access to all kinds of NPCs that aren't available in Pre - Rune and Crafting Material Traders, armor crafters (who are vastly superior to the collectors that give you armor in Pre), Weaponsmiths, Skill Trainers (very important in Factions and Nightfall, not so much in Prophecies, where you can do quests to obtain skills - but they'll still be your only source of the Signets of Capture needed to acquire Elite Skills from dead bosses), and perhaps most importantly, Henchmen. The henchmen will begin at a low level, but their level will become higher as you reach towns that are further into the game.
You'll be able to explore freely, and you can do missions that further the plotline. Both of these will eventually get you to Lion's Arch, from whence you can travel to other continents, but many who are looking to visit other campaigns early choose to pay for a run from Ascalon to Lion's Arch (it usually costs a platinum or two, depending on your starting outpost - a good idea if you want to save money is to wait until someone who's testing their build shows up, as they'll often run for free). Be warned that the quest to take you to Elona (Nightfall) can be very difficult, especially for a low-level character; it's probably advisable to first travel to Cantha and take the quest that gets you to Elona from there instead, as in Kaineng City you'll have access to a full party of 8 and level 20 henchmen instead of the midlevel henchies and 6-man cap in Lion's Arch.

Ahhh kk, Thanks I am at 6. The help is much appreciated, especially the depth you all are going into haha, saves me from a million questions!

No problem. Helping newer players is one of my favorite pastimes in GW, actually; I used to run "Xuta's Help Desk" in the starter Factions area with the express purpose of offering both verbal and active assistance (in the form of Protection Prayers) to new players or people trying out new characters. Sorry if the giant walls of text make stuff difficult to read, though. I think I ought to start putting spaces between paragraphs so you don't go blind or something.

Just out of curiosity, what are the advantages fo guilds, clans, etc.

guilds allows for a greater coordination with the people you like, assuming you have those people in a guild. at its very basic, a guild is like a greatly expanded and improved friends list. members of a guild gets to have a guild tag and cape, and if you can afford it, a guild hall that your guild members can hang out in.

guilds are also the centerpiece of gw's pvp experience, being that the highest form of guild wars pvp is guild vs guild (gvg for short).

for one, not being in a guild means you can't use guild or alliance chat channels, as well as not being able to do Alliance Battles or GvG (not sure about FA and JQ). guild can be really good for NPCs too, way better than any outpost since the NPCs are really close together.

Ahhhh, kk. Kind of reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies a tiny bit.

I can elaborate a little. (warning: huge wall of text incoming!)

Guilds help you focus on and progress in your favorite part of the game. Thus, they are usually divided into PvE and PvP guilds (there is also the occasional PvX guild that focuses on both areas).

A PvP guild will focus primarily on PvP activities, mainly Guild Battles. They are usually interested in ascending the Guild Ladder and competing in tournaments or just generally competing against real people. They're a good place to build coordinated groups for Team Arenas and Heroes' Ascent (particularly useful in the latter, as PUGging HA is not only unadvisable due to lack of coordination, but the people there looking for PUGs tend to be elitist and look for only experienced people - it's commonly complained that you need Rank to find a group for HA... but the only way to get Rank is through Fame, which is gained in HA. A guild that's interested in HAing circumvents that.) Having never been in a real PvP guild, I'm not going to say much more for fear of telling you things that aren't as true as I thought.

A PvE guild will focus primarily on PvE activities like questing, doing missions and dungeons (our version of raids - multilevel instances with an end boss and potentially rare gear at the end, though normal party size rules still apply), leveling your character, getting titles and elite items, and exploring. They can often be broken down further into casual PvE guilds (which tend to emphasize a warm community where people have fun playing together, but aren't going to spend forever perfecting their Urgoz's Warren build), high-end PvE guilds (whick work primarily in Hard Mode and on getting Hard Mode titles like Vanquisher and Guardian, as well as doing Elite Missions and high-end zones like the Underworld, the Fissure of Woe, and the Domain of Anguish), and roleplay guilds (interested mainly in - you guessed it! - genuine roleplaying). One important thing to note is that while these guilds emphasize PvE, they will often do 12v12 (or more correctly, 4-4-4v4-4-4) Alliance Battles to gain faction. Those guilds whose members donate the most faction to their alliance (we're talking millions of faction here) will be able to control a town in the Jade Sea or Echovald Forest areas of Cantha, gaining discounts on merchandise and being able to set off fireworks... at least until the Luxon-Kurzick border shifts and a guild from the opposite faction will get to take control. The active border movement resulting from this also has a small effect on towns beyond which guild controls it - if you're a Kurzick in a Luxon-controlled town, even if it's technically in the Echovald Forest, the merchants and traders won't speak to you, and vice versa.

Okayyy, got sidetracked a little by Alliance Battles. You won't have to worry about those until you start playing Factions or join a guild.

By now, you've probably gotten spammed with invites to join the guilds of people who've never spoken to you. You can join one of those, but I wouldn't recommend it. The best way to find a guild, IMO, is to PUG around a little and, when you meet someone friendly, ask them what their guild is like (or see if they move to recruit you) and, if it sounds interesting, ask if you can join. I got recruited to my first long-term guild by someone I befriended in a PUG (and my new guild is an offshoot of that one - beware guild drama. It will ruin your game experience. If drama shows up a little, sit it out, but if it really starts to flare, get the heck out before the whole place goes up in flames. You probably realized that already, thoguh), and it's how I get all my recruits (though it does leave me somewhat behind on recruiting compared to other officers in my guild). I don't believe in randomly spamming in towns in hopes that someone will be interested, because the recruits garnered there are usually 1-day wonders (join, get bored, leave within 24 hours), and the recruiters are less interested in a close community than in expanding their guild.

In a guild, you'll get to use Guild and Alliance Chat. These two chats mean that you can communicate with anyone in your guild or alliance from any location. They're great places to solicit help or ask around for anyone who's interested in doing something, as well as to just hang out. (in a less friendly sense, they're good places to rant if you're in a PUG with some guildies and a few random people and one of the non-guildies is not cooperating - if all else fails, you can plan your escape and all leave and regroup if it's not working out)

Guilds also have a couple of optional perks that, while not included in the formation of a guild (well, I'm not sure about capes really, but I think you have to pay even for your first design), are nice to have. These are:
A cape. Our version of the tabard, this is just an aesthetic thing to show allegiance. PvP tournament victories can you a colored trim to show off your win.
A hall. This is huge, in terms of usefulness. While expensive (it requires a Celestial Sigil, which is fairly pricy, to purchase at all, and hiring all of the NPCs takes several hundred platinum - hence, many guilds do not have a complete hall or even own one at all), it's got multiple benefits. It allows for GvG competition (or at least, I have no idea how you would GvG without a hall to defend - would you always be the attacker on the opponent's map? someone correct me if you can actually do this), makes for an excellent staging area for groups (in Guild Chat, after a request for help and an offer of assistance or an agreement to do something as a group, you'll usually see the response "Okay, meet me at hall."), and allows easy access to all the various NPCs (not all the NPCs are available in all outposts - most places have only a merchant and a Xunlai storage agent, maybe with a skill trainer at best - only region capitals like Ascalon City, Lion's Arch, or Droknar's Forge have all the NPCs), meaning you can always go back to your Guild Hall to pawn off that valuable but unusable rune you just got, rather than having to travel to the nearest capital and beat through the crowds. An extension of this last is that if your hall has a Skill Trainer, you will have early access to Signets of Capture, the skills needed to "capture" powerful Elite skills from bosses you will encounter later in the game. You would normally only get these after reaching Lion's Arch and completing a quest, but a Hall trainer allows you to get one as soon as you enter Post. In Prophecies, there're no elites to be captured until long after you get to Lion's Arch (bosses don't have elites for much of that campaign), but you can also use them to capture skills that would otherwise only be available at a trainer much later in the game. These skill trainers also offer all core skills for your profession that you have unlocked, meaning that you don't have to travel to the outer reaches of Tyria to pick up a core skill that you've already unlocked on one character.

I think that's all I have to say about guilds, except: choose wisely! A well-selected guild can be your greatest ally in the game.

Seems like a mix of WoW and Star Wars Galaxies. Seems like it is done better than WoW, as it is very minimal to what you can do with a guild as a community.

I tend to wait before I choose a guild, as it just saves you time int he long run, and sometimes frustration

Thanks for the info, didn't really know all of that.

Is the guild hall instanced I assume?

Whoo! Teeny tiny post time!

Guild halls are essentially a guild's private outpost, so they function in the same way as any town. The only differences are that you must be a member of that guild or its alliance or have a guest invitation (useful primarily if you want to attend someone's party or do Alliance Battles for the other side) to visit it, and there are no districts due to the limited population.

Speaking of districts, it's important to note that you can not only change districts within your home continent but actually switch to other continents. This is a good tactic if you're facing horrible lag or want to easily find an NPC. My Guild Leader and I generally use the Chinese-Traditional districts (a division of Asia, naturally) if we're just working together, because you don't have to sift through crowds of people to find each other, and his computer lags terribly in heavily populated areas. The Asian districts are almost entirely abandoned (I've encountered maybe five people, tops, in them throughout my time there), so any of them makes for a good spot if you don't want to be disturbed or want to eliminate lag.

Okay, okay, that was longer than I thought. Oh well.

Haha, yea but it is a useful tip. I am gonna test it out a little later haha.

Ah, well at least it did some good then.

I won't be around tomorrow (RenFaire whoo!) but I think you probably have a pretty good handle on things now, and if you do need help there are plenty of people here ready to offer advice.

Good luck and have fun in your adventures!

Musemike, welcome to gw's

I was in about 10 guilds before I found one that I liked, do a bit of guild hopping!

Ps. Mike, I only skimmed, press P (in towns/outposts), from that menu you can add other players or henchmen if no players available (they steal some of your drops though), bah humbug!

Thanks for all the help. Regarding the guilds I am gonna look for a more pve oriented guild, I am sure I am gonna want to do more "raid-like" stuff, at some point.

Do not be surprise if noone really cares when you say "Tank LFG" and nobody pays attention. Most dungeon runs arnt done in the traditional Tank / Dps / Healer style. Most places that do use a tank use a group called 600/smite, which is a monk with certain skills tanking while the "smite", also a monk, provides damage. Or perma SF, which is basically a 99.9% god assassin.

Don't know why I elaborated on those, the only point was - No many people use balanced groups.

Well, first you have to get EotN. All the dungeons are in that expansion, though Urgoz's Warren and The Deep are also similar to raids.

Canine Teeth's got a point, though; most people just 600/smite their way through the dungeons unless they're doing the abridged quest versions. Like with HA, having a guild will make it easier to get a group to do this sort of thing. I've run balanceway with my guild for this, though we also do a variation of 600/smite. I've also done a few dungeons with henchies, so it's not that it's not possible, just that most people prefer the fast, gimmick way to the more social, strategic one.

one thing that that better be fixed in Guild Wars 2. <_< Funny how Assassins and Monks are used for farming, while supposed to be squishy characters.

My girlfriend and I are playing through Nightfall right now and she is forcing me to play. All we are doing is filling a party of 8 me with 3 heroes (customizable sidekicks) and her with 3 of her own. Its a lot of fun just blowing through quests

At what level do you get heroes?

You can get heros at any level, they are chapter based not level.

In Nightfall you begin with a war hero right off the start.
Gwen will give you 2 at the start as well, ele and monk.
If you have Nightfall then you can unlock a hero in Factions and Prophicies once you make your first visit to Nightfall to aquire the needed quests.
If you meet the proper requirements, which I can't recall of the top of my head, you can unlock MOX as soon as you reach the main city for each campain.

If you have a prophesis/faction character, you get 4 heroes at the arrival in Nightfall (if I remeber it correct you get them in the first primary quest you get when arriving to NF). After that, you get 1 more in nightfall, and then you can get 2 more (one in prophesis and one in factions).

In Eye of the north (EotN or Gwen for short) you get 2 heroes right at the start, and another one not far in the storry, and 2 more if you do the norn tournament in Gunnar's hold.
+ MOX, who's requirement is being lvl 10 and having Gwen (if I'm not totally lost...).

KK, I just got to Lion's Arch and now I am looking to get out of this Ascalon Armor!

Your best option might be to go to Kaineg Center and pick up max armor, though that will make the rest of Prophicies a cake walk.

Alternatively you could go to Bergen Hot Springs and pick up the next tier of armor and just continue with the storyline of Prophcies.

Lots of options for you at this point. Everything from picking up armor, picking up heros or even jumping chapters and leaving the rest of Prophicies until later.