I just got guild wars about 2 weeks ago. I realize I'm about 3 years late lol. Anyway I'm just a little confused about where the game is going. Is it all doing quests and missions? What do you do when you get to the end of all of those? I've read of hard mode but I'm not sure that sounds fun lol. The problem is I played final fantasy XI for like 5 years and that game had a lot to do at the end of the game. As it turns out ffxi sucks major ass. I'm really impressed with GW and I wanna keep playing it but I just dont know what lies ahead. Gear hoarding? Daily quests for money? Killing gods or big bosses? If the whole of GW is beating the 3 campaigns and the expansion I'll be disappointed.
I'm not totally clueless. I have lived on the wiki and today i finally found these forums (why doesn't the wiki have forums?). I guess ffxi just had an easier view of the big picture and I just cant figure what it is with this game.
Thanks for the help!
Where is it going?
Syxx Seven
Raven Wing
There is lots of stuff to do after you became lvl20 and finished the basic storyline. There are 3 campaigns: Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall and the expansion Eye of the North each with separate storylines. You can play through them all. After that there are elite areas like FOW;UW,DOA; etc that you can try out (would normally require some other players and some knowledge to succeed) There are also all the dungeons in Eye of the north.
And yes there are lots of people who hunt high end bosses and farm to get rare weapons end expensive gear. But that isnt necessary. You can buy maxed out armor and weapons fairly cheap and with a good choice of runes/mods applied it will be just as good as rare expensive armor and weps.
I strongly suggest you join a guild, then you can play with people in the harder areas and get advice etc.
Have fun
And yes there are lots of people who hunt high end bosses and farm to get rare weapons end expensive gear. But that isnt necessary. You can buy maxed out armor and weapons fairly cheap and with a good choice of runes/mods applied it will be just as good as rare expensive armor and weps.
I strongly suggest you join a guild, then you can play with people in the harder areas and get advice etc.
Have fun
x01
To be more precise, you are about 5 years late....come April. But rest assure, you can still start and play now and still have fun. Especially good for when GW2 comes out.
so with many people coming from other MMO games like WoW or FFXI..things are going to be a bit different...
1. Those games are using a persistence world as suppose to Guild Wars being all Instancing. That is a big factor in deciding you will like the game or not. (You can't see people outside of town for an all instance world)
2. Only 8 skills at a time as suppose to a million skills on your bar. But you get to shuffle and reset skills based on the task you are taking inside of town.
3. Level 20 cap....may seem low but that does not have anything to do with how you play the game..After level 20 you get more skills and do more stuff.
4. There are MANY things to do in PvE once you've done with all three campaigns and the expansion..Like going for titles, vanquishes, elite dungeons, etc. OR you can hop over PvP.
Yes, this game is dying...but still it is a good place to hangout until GW2 releases. Out of all of the MMO I've played so far, I've found GW to be very unique in game mechanics and the way things are set up. The instancing bit was a shock at first, but I've learned to love it and I kind of prefer instancing over persistence from time to time...no more loot stealing, no more waiting for ages for npc quests to spawn.
Come on in, the community is still very much alive...GW is a decent game.
so with many people coming from other MMO games like WoW or FFXI..things are going to be a bit different...
1. Those games are using a persistence world as suppose to Guild Wars being all Instancing. That is a big factor in deciding you will like the game or not. (You can't see people outside of town for an all instance world)
2. Only 8 skills at a time as suppose to a million skills on your bar. But you get to shuffle and reset skills based on the task you are taking inside of town.
3. Level 20 cap....may seem low but that does not have anything to do with how you play the game..After level 20 you get more skills and do more stuff.
4. There are MANY things to do in PvE once you've done with all three campaigns and the expansion..Like going for titles, vanquishes, elite dungeons, etc. OR you can hop over PvP.
Yes, this game is dying...but still it is a good place to hangout until GW2 releases. Out of all of the MMO I've played so far, I've found GW to be very unique in game mechanics and the way things are set up. The instancing bit was a shock at first, but I've learned to love it and I kind of prefer instancing over persistence from time to time...no more loot stealing, no more waiting for ages for npc quests to spawn.
Come on in, the community is still very much alive...GW is a decent game.
Nechrond
Elite missions, daily missions, daily bounty-hunts, hard mode, character titles, account titles, PvP missions, PvP battles, PvP arenas and prestige gear. Good enough for you? 
Fap
you do gvg..
Dace Hunters
What X01 and Nechrond said. These days most of the experienced population spend their time either in Elite Areas, getting titles or in PvP.
People love doing elite areas because its a challenge, its a lot of fun and because theres a chance at making quite a lot of money. You receive a chest of random rare items when you complete the area and some items are worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold.
You said you liked to see the big picture so I'll attempt to explain the areas roughly for you.
The Underworld (UW) & The Fissure of Woe (FoW)
These 2 areas are core, meaning you can access them from any campaign. You have to be ascended to enter (this happens fairly early on in Factions and NF but takes a while in Proph)
Urgoz's Warren (Urgoz) & The Deep
These 2 elite areas where added with Factions and can only be accessed from Factions.
You can access Urgoz when you reach House Zu Heltzer and The Deep when you reach Cavalon. These 2 areas are less frequented than the others, probably due to the fact that few Super-rare weapons drop there, but are nevertheless a lot of fun. Also they are the only place in the game where you can have 12 party members.
Domain of Anguish (DoA)
This elite area was added with NF and can only be accessed when you have completed NF. The monsters here have insanely high levels of health and armour and pvp style builds designed to take down players fast. And in Hard Mode your team has constant, unremovable effects. (such as "all attacks have a 50% chance to miss" or "everytime you attack or use a skill you lose 2 energy") meaning this area can be very hard on unprepared teams.
Dungeons
In eotn there were no real elite areas added, only dungeons. These can be accessed as soon as you come across them. Each is unique and offers the chance at rare items upon its completion. Some dungeons such as Slavers Exile are considered elite dungeons and so are much harder and offer better potential rewards.
Also please note that henchmen are not allowed in elite areas (apart from dungeons) so your team must be humans and/or heroes. if you want to know anything else about those areas just look them up on wiki. Oh and i'd advise you to play through the game a little more and get a good feel for it before you go attempting those areas. They're called Elite for a reason and so not very noob friendly. So yeh, theres plenty of you to do when you've done the main quests :P hope that enlightened you a little
People love doing elite areas because its a challenge, its a lot of fun and because theres a chance at making quite a lot of money. You receive a chest of random rare items when you complete the area and some items are worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold.
You said you liked to see the big picture so I'll attempt to explain the areas roughly for you.
The Underworld (UW) & The Fissure of Woe (FoW)
These 2 areas are core, meaning you can access them from any campaign. You have to be ascended to enter (this happens fairly early on in Factions and NF but takes a while in Proph)
Urgoz's Warren (Urgoz) & The Deep
These 2 elite areas where added with Factions and can only be accessed from Factions.
You can access Urgoz when you reach House Zu Heltzer and The Deep when you reach Cavalon. These 2 areas are less frequented than the others, probably due to the fact that few Super-rare weapons drop there, but are nevertheless a lot of fun. Also they are the only place in the game where you can have 12 party members.
Domain of Anguish (DoA)
This elite area was added with NF and can only be accessed when you have completed NF. The monsters here have insanely high levels of health and armour and pvp style builds designed to take down players fast. And in Hard Mode your team has constant, unremovable effects. (such as "all attacks have a 50% chance to miss" or "everytime you attack or use a skill you lose 2 energy") meaning this area can be very hard on unprepared teams.
Dungeons
In eotn there were no real elite areas added, only dungeons. These can be accessed as soon as you come across them. Each is unique and offers the chance at rare items upon its completion. Some dungeons such as Slavers Exile are considered elite dungeons and so are much harder and offer better potential rewards.
Also please note that henchmen are not allowed in elite areas (apart from dungeons) so your team must be humans and/or heroes. if you want to know anything else about those areas just look them up on wiki. Oh and i'd advise you to play through the game a little more and get a good feel for it before you go attempting those areas. They're called Elite for a reason and so not very noob friendly. So yeh, theres plenty of you to do when you've done the main quests :P hope that enlightened you a little
_Nihilist_
What can you do end-game?
You're asking the wrong question! You should be asking "What can I do in-game?"
With a level 20 cap it's not very hard to get your characters to max level, but the point isn't to rush them to max level and only do end-game content, the point is to enjoy the game to the fullest extent.
I've played my main character for just over 4 years, and I haven't even visited all of the end-game content yet. Why? Because there is far more to do than just rush to the finish line.
Sure, some players will tell you to max your character level ASAP, grind out your EotN rep ASAP, and farm end-game content as quickly as you can, but do you honestly want to burn yourself out on a game that offers as much as GW does?
It's more difficult now to experience the "fun" side of GW because "fun" is subjective - some players like taking in the scenery, some like to farm, some like to Speed Clear (SC), some like to stick to PvE only, some will only PvP, some like to play only the most efficient character and team builds, some like to roleplay (this is what I did for my first full year - I only played my main character, I only changed his secondary Profession when trying them out in Pre-Searing and when completing quests in the Crystal Desert, then he went immediately back to being a Warrior/Necromancer) and use all sorts of odd skills that may or may not be efficient but might "feel" like what the player wants to convey with their character. Because of the different ways of having fun, and because many people have been playing for 4+ years, a lot of them won't form Pick Up Groups (PUGs) because of the high rate of lousy communication and party wipes, which was, when the game started, one of the best ways to find like-minded players to form Guilds with.
Don't let it discourage you, though. If you want to do end-game content, there are plenty of opportunities. You have 10 Professions available to play, so you have 10 possible characters to get through FoW, UW, Urgoz' Warren, The Deep, and DoA, not to mention to try out in PvP. Before you attempt end-game content, you're going to need to learn as much about the Professions, skills, and tactics as you can, get those characters leveled up, get your weapons and armor, modify your weapons and armor with the upgrades you want/need, and get them to the areas that you want to go to.
tl;dr - There's plenty of end-game content, 10 different primary Professions to experience the content with, and as always, don't just rush to the end because it's the end - enjoy the journey and learn while getting there!
You're asking the wrong question! You should be asking "What can I do in-game?"
With a level 20 cap it's not very hard to get your characters to max level, but the point isn't to rush them to max level and only do end-game content, the point is to enjoy the game to the fullest extent.
I've played my main character for just over 4 years, and I haven't even visited all of the end-game content yet. Why? Because there is far more to do than just rush to the finish line.
Sure, some players will tell you to max your character level ASAP, grind out your EotN rep ASAP, and farm end-game content as quickly as you can, but do you honestly want to burn yourself out on a game that offers as much as GW does?
It's more difficult now to experience the "fun" side of GW because "fun" is subjective - some players like taking in the scenery, some like to farm, some like to Speed Clear (SC), some like to stick to PvE only, some will only PvP, some like to play only the most efficient character and team builds, some like to roleplay (this is what I did for my first full year - I only played my main character, I only changed his secondary Profession when trying them out in Pre-Searing and when completing quests in the Crystal Desert, then he went immediately back to being a Warrior/Necromancer) and use all sorts of odd skills that may or may not be efficient but might "feel" like what the player wants to convey with their character. Because of the different ways of having fun, and because many people have been playing for 4+ years, a lot of them won't form Pick Up Groups (PUGs) because of the high rate of lousy communication and party wipes, which was, when the game started, one of the best ways to find like-minded players to form Guilds with.
Don't let it discourage you, though. If you want to do end-game content, there are plenty of opportunities. You have 10 Professions available to play, so you have 10 possible characters to get through FoW, UW, Urgoz' Warren, The Deep, and DoA, not to mention to try out in PvP. Before you attempt end-game content, you're going to need to learn as much about the Professions, skills, and tactics as you can, get those characters leveled up, get your weapons and armor, modify your weapons and armor with the upgrades you want/need, and get them to the areas that you want to go to.
tl;dr - There's plenty of end-game content, 10 different primary Professions to experience the content with, and as always, don't just rush to the end because it's the end - enjoy the journey and learn while getting there!
Darcy
As Nihilist said, don't plan on rushing through. My account just had its 4th birthday and I also have yet to do everything in this game. I have taken my main character, a warrior, almost everywhere, and done almost everything, and yet I still enjoy taking her out several times a week just to have fun. She has 21 titles so far and is working on several more.
The rest of the time I spend with my other 8 characters who still haven't finished all the campaigns or gotten more than one or two character-based titles. I do different things with guild mates and friends from vanquishing to dungeons to elite skill capping. I farm the weekly items for Nicholas and help guild mates get to him. I have never logged into GW and had nothing to do.
The rest of the time I spend with my other 8 characters who still haven't finished all the campaigns or gotten more than one or two character-based titles. I do different things with guild mates and friends from vanquishing to dungeons to elite skill capping. I farm the weekly items for Nicholas and help guild mates get to him. I have never logged into GW and had nothing to do.
Zebideedee
OP for me after I got through first campaign, then I done other two, after that I tried to get Masters on em for title, then I buffed my heroes so it was possible for me to do HM without relying on others to do so and also get titles. If you think once you finish the game nm it's over, you're very much mistaken. Think of nm as your first bike (with stabilisers) hm is when you can cycle without 
Ps. (why doesn't the wiki have forums?). They do but it's like wiki talk or something, some people just ramble on there, at least here you should get decent help
Ps. (why doesn't the wiki have forums?). They do but it's like wiki talk or something, some people just ramble on there, at least here you should get decent help
Syxx Seven
Wow im astonished at how forthcoming and kind you all are. I guess the ffxi community was a little different but a post like this usually wound up in a flame war lol. Thanks a lot to everyone for the help. I did find a guild although they seem to run no more than 4 members on at any given time but noobs cant be choosy.
Technical question... titles are for personal accomplishment and bragging rights or do they do something else? Is it like achievement points?
Technical question... titles are for personal accomplishment and bragging rights or do they do something else? Is it like achievement points?
GODh
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Syxx Seven
Technical question... titles are for personal accomplishment and bragging rights or do they do something else? Is it like achievement points?
|
Dzjudz
And other titles are for fun (vanquisher is fun imo).
pinkeyflower
There are two disciplines, PvE (campaigns) and PvP (actual multiplayer). You can do both but if you focus on PvE and have finished the campaigns then you can do vanquishing, farm, try and max out titles in preparation for GW2 (be warned that this involves major grinding). If you do PvP you'll need to learn about the mechanics of the game quickly otherwise you will not go far. In my opinion PvP is far better than PvE but it suffers from rank discrimination almost anywhere you have to form your own party. As such, it can take a long to progress to high-end PvP (HA, GvG).
Whatever you choose I suggest you find a friendly and tolerant guild to help you through the early parts.
Whatever you choose I suggest you find a friendly and tolerant guild to help you through the early parts.