Hey, a few "noob" questions...

Hello all,

Well, I have been looking for a new MMO to try, and GW has caught my eye. I have known about it for awhile but never played.

I have a few questions though:

1. It seems all the "expansions" are standalone. Does that mean each is a new game? Can a person with one version (ie factions) play with someone in another version?

2. How friendly is the game/community to new players? I have tried various MMO's, ranging from WoW to Vendetta Online and many others. A big turn off for me sometimes is the attitude of the vet's in game.

3. I see GW 2 is slated for release in 2010, which is soon. Will the original GW die out because of this? (ie: is it worth waiting a few more weeks and buying #2)

4. Is GW hard to get into? If I start now will I have a huge disadvantage against the older players?

Sorry for the noobish questions.

1. You can interact with anyone so long as they have the campaign that you own, or you have the one they own. For example: I own all the campaigns (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall & Eye of the North) and I can go help my friend who only owns Factions. They however cannot help me in Prophecies, Nightfall or Eye of the North (Since they don't own it).

2. It's a bit late in the game to be really interacting as a community. It's near impossible to pug missions later in the game, most people will probably be pretty friendly so long as you're polite and aren't spamming: OMG HELP ME PLEASE. You get heroes in Eye of the North and Nightfall which are helpful. They're henchmen that you can customize.

Asking on this forum will probably get you the best answers, or checking Wiki. Joining a guild will make things easier and friendlier as well.

3. afaik they changed the release date till 2011. I would say since the expansions are cheap that you should probably go ahead and try it. You could also get a free trial (http://www.guildwars.com/freetrial/) and try it before you buy it. :]

4. Personally I find GW to be easier than a lot of other MMO's. Catching up to older players is pretty easy if you're willing to work on your character(s) and complete campaigns etc. Learning elite areas, and end game content is pretty easy if you know the right people. There's tons of guides here on guru or on wiki that can help you as well.

:]

Hi there

1 each game has its own map area but they are all part of the same world you can cross from map to map once you access the main shipping ports.
You cannot play on a map area of a game you don't yet own.

2 Its an old game and we have our share of nice people and idiots secret is to find a guild with good supportive people in it.

3 GW2 could playtest in 2010 and be released in 2011

4 in pve you will be on an even playing field with people at your level right through the game, pvp you will be at a great disadvantage against skilled players with access to all the game skills.

Hey there, welcome!

1) Well, 3 of them (Prophecies (original), Factions and Nightfall) are standalone and Eye of the North is the expansion. And if you got the all games then you can play with people in all games, same goes for if you got NF and factions you can play in those two and so on so on, just need to travel to the other continent by a quest.

2) IMHO the community is mostly friendly and warm, well you find some douches in every MMO, right?

3) I wouldn't keep my hopes up for "a few more weeks." Most probably GW2 is coming in the 2nd half of 2010, maybe even 2011, so you've got plenty of time to play GW before it comes.

4) IMO GW aint so hard to get into, the easiest and best for beginners is the first game, Prophecies, cause it has the slowest learning curve. Best thing is to read and remember what the experienced people write and also a good place to learn alot of new stuff is http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page . Many people, including me use it daily to check for a lot of stuff. Mostly I just check something I've forgotten or for some tips...but it has most of the information you need, well, ALL information you need.

Hope I helped, and welcome again

EDIT: wow, ninjaed twice while writing this haha..oh well

Ok, thank you all of the helpful answers. The game should be done downloading soon and I will be in

on a side note, the game is on one server? I did not see a forum section for different servers so am I wrong in thinking its one world? If there are different servers I guess I will have to research them... If I missed something obvious I apologize..

Are there any well known guilds that are willing to take on a new-comer? I have always been pretty self sufficient once I get used to a game but it would be nice to have a starting group

Thanks again.

We have a guild recruiting section on guru, you should make a post and talk to people that ask you to join. Installing ventrilo and joining a guild that makes use of it is a great way to talk to people and ask questions. :]

As for the game servers, you can meet up with friends in different districts, and you're free to swap between them as you please.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...play.php?f=267

is the PvE recruitment section, you can also make your own thread,

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...play.php?f=268

Be sure to read all the rules for posting though. Good luck

To add somethign concerning the community, GW's an old game, so all the trails have been beaten times and times and again. Most people will know the game very well and expect people to know the general mechanism and strategy very well. But as long as you aren't in the "serious business" parts of the game (which more or less mean running and SpeedClears (our raids)) most people will be friendly as long as you are. As Sierra said, so long as you are not begging or spammign for help, you won't have too much problem.

The best advice might be to learn as much about the game mecanism (like the classic "how do I get to [insert campaign's name] from here") either here or on the wikis and the official wiki (GWWiki). By the way, in-game there will be a "/wiki" command that directly open GWWiki and make a searsh. Pretty helpful when you have a sudden question.

1. All expansions (except Eye of the North) are stand alone. Each game has its own storyline and missions, except for EotN, which is an expansion for any of the games. Plus Factions and Nightfall throw new classes into the mix. Say you only have Prophecies and your friend only has Factions, you cannot play with him because there are 3 different continents and you cant access them if you don't have the corresponding expansion. Hope this makes sense.

2. I'd say the community, for the most part, is friendly. There are also quite a few people out there who go out of their way to help the new guys out (myself included). Y'know, teach them about game mechanics, builds, and sometimes even buy them a set of armor or a weapon.

3. Well, GW2 probably wont come out for at least a year so...I would play Guild Wars.

4. I don't think you'll have too tough of a time starting up. There are plenty of new people joining every day that I see. You might want to find a guild that can help newer players because they can teach you about good and bad builds.

If you plan on buying Guild Wars, I HIGHLY suggest buying the Guild Wars trilogy for $50. It comes with Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall. Then later you could buy Eye of the North if you want (expansion).

If you end up buying Guild Wars, or want to ask me some questions, you can send me a message in game. My name is Aidin Swiftarrow. OR, you could message me on here.

Hope I could help!

Again, thanks to all for the replies They have bee very informative.

I agree with what people have said before, and highly recommend that you join a helpful guild. Learning from people who already have experience and can answer questions / help you on a moments notice is one of the best tools you can have as a new player.

Feel free to pm me (add Kitor Death Rose to your friends list) when you get it.

Im new too. I started playing about 4 weeks ago and it is great. Give it a go.

My recommendations are

1) Get the entire GW collection. You can get them cheap online or at retails shops (depending on the country you are in). Nightfall added heros, which makes a big difference, especially for the "self sufficient" player. You can use the heros in all campaings (after you reach a certain "level") if you have installed Nightfall. You can move with your character between the campaigns (after you reach a certain "level"). And yes, you can team up with players from other campaigns. If you pay 50$ for +1yr playing, thats great value in my book ;-)

2) In PvE ppl are normally friendly and helpful, especially to "mature players". This weekend was the first time I had child-like ppl in a group, but even that was not that bad. Just move on. From what I read PvP is "much more competitive", but I have not tried that yet. On the other hand, I asked politely for help a couple of times and always found someone in minutes to help me with a mission or so.

3) You read sometimes here "the game is dead". Well I cant say how it was 1-2 years ago, but there is so much content and still many ppl online. espcially if you play during US / EU hours. Well, if GW2 would be out "in a few weeks" I would say "Wait!" ... but its not going to happen ;-) most likely +1 yr ... and that means all kind of things can happen.

4) There is lots of resources available here and on gw wiki. also the "tutorial area" of the prophecies campaign has some sort of "cult status". There are players who stay there and never move on. It relatively easy to get started and GW has a bit of a "anti grind approach", meaning you can get max armor/ weopon relatively fast. And therefore not have too much disadvantage equipment wise. Skill is an other thing.

Join a friendly guild which has players in your time zone / play time. It takes a bit of time to find one that suits.

Ppl in this forum are friendly/ helpful.

From what I know (as I said Im new too): Most of the "desired/ popular" items in game seem to be more of "cosmetic nature" and do not offer an advantage in playing a game. Minipets, armor/ items with specific looks, titles etc

Yeah, 1K armor (1K a piece) has the same stats as elite armor (15K a piece) and cheap collector weapons have the same stats as weapons worth 100K+. It's just a matter of vanity.

Everyone plays in the same world. The only division in-game are districts. For example, any city has different districts (America-English, Europe-English, Europe-Polish, Asia-Japanese, you get the picture). However, you are not tied to any of these districts and you can travel between them extremely easily whenever you like.

Because of the way GW is structured (it's all instanced), there is no need to divide the population into servers or "realms", so you are correct to think of it as one big world.

Also, you can "interact" with anybody who has any of the games. Ie, you can PM anybody or met in certain PvP areas that are shared by all the games. You can't however, group up and play with that person in PvE if you don't both own the same content.

1. You can play with others but each add on is a whole new campaign as such.

2. Well there's a lot you can do with AI playing alone while finding your feet. Joining a large PvE guild may be useful in finding help.

3. A few weeks? I doubt it, not even in Beta yet, if they had a rough estimate, they'd have it on the website but right now it still just says "When will GW2 be released? When it's finished."

4. Not hard to get into, everyone started somewhere, but yes you're at a huge disadvantage. Though I've just come back from a break of around a year and half, and it's been very easy to get back into. Met new people quickly and joined a good guild etc. Try and get a few of your IRL to join too, then you can help eachother out

I'll try not to repeat what everyone's already said and just give some useful quick info:

2) Get into a friendly guild ASAP. There's lots of them around. If you're looking for good people to play with, your best bet is always your own friends, but many guild are really friendly and helpful and will play the missions with you.

3) Whether or not GW2 will be released in 2010 (which I wouldn't bet on), get GW1 anyway. Certain achievements in GW1 give you a nice title and a monument, and certain monuments can give you free items in GW2.

4) The players will be a lot better to do, but getting a max level character with good items is easy. Skill > grinding in this game, although build > skill