Considering Buying GW

Hey everyone,

So I'm currently thinking about starting Guild Wars, but I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a few questions I have:

Is it plausible to jump-in this late? (Note: Did a little research, and noticed that GW2 is a new MMO, and characters wouldn't be transferable - so, does anyone know if they are shutting down GW at GW2's release?)

Which game should I begin with (out of the 3), and how would this affect me at end-game?


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I spent the past two years playing WoW and got fairly progressed, almost reaching 11k achievement points and realms firsts, etc - but I simply don't have the time anymore to invest into raiding five nights a week to remain ahead of the curve on gear and accomplish all that other stuff.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, does Guild Wars require as much of a life-drain as WoW? I heard a long time ago that it cut out a lot of what makes some MMOs so time-consuming, but never checked up on it.

Appreciate all the insight and help.

- K

So far as I have heard there will be no transfer of characters or items from GW to GW2 except for a few items located in the display area of EON. These are very limited and take a long time (playing) to get. My information to this point is that GW will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. Probably not much new material added though. So fear not, you have years worth of playing time left on Guild Wars.

Absolutely! Unlike WoW, the game isn't gear reliant - you don't have a huge long progression to max level and then raid daily to max gear out. You can join up and play casually through.. you'll soon get to max level and ability to get max armor/damage weapons.

Not to say this is where the game ends - You will still have multiple campaigns (if you get the trilogy for instance) do do, multiple challenge missions you can do, multiple "end-game" area's you can do, Farming to get money to get "elite" armors (these armor's don't give special benefits, just look different/better), etc.

So realistically, you can start a char and within a week or 2 or 3 (depending on how you play.. could even take longer.. lolz) be lvl 20, have max gear, be able to pvp if you wanyt.. but still look forward to 80% of the game still ahead of you.

ANet have stated that they don't have any plans to shud the GW server's down when GW2 is released, or anytime afterwards either.

Each campaign is seperate from the other. so it doesn't matter which campaign you start with, you will still be able to do 90-955 of the other campaigns anyways. The only effect is you won't be able to do the "starter" area/quest's for the other campaign.

Such as if you start in Factions or Nightfall, you won't be able to do the Prophecies starter area which is called "Pre Searing".. but you will be able to do all the main missions and any quest's past a certain point of the storyline. And if you start a character in Nightfall or Prophocies, you'll be able to do the 2 "missions" on Shing Jea Island in Factions, but none of the quest's - as this is Faction's "starter" area.

Nope - it can be played as little as 30 min a day or now and again.. log in, do a quest or 2, do a mission if you want.. log off. Most missions can be done within 30-60 minutes, some quicker, some longer.. but the game itself is casual friendly in this respect.

If you want to make money, get all the titles and elite armor's.. well, you'll need to put some effort into that - as that would require farming and grinding titles and such.. but these things aren't "needed" to succeed in GW.. unlike Wow.. where if you want to be the best, you have to grind the right rep's, raid for gear, etc.

If you just want to play, finish the campaigns, get max level and max gear, get decent selection of skills to use.. it's not a bit huge time drain to achieve.

Kamatsu already gave answer to your question but ill answer them also :P


First of all let me welcome you to the GW community.
For any questions you have in the future this website will be able to help you a good amount http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page it is kind of like Thottbot for WoW, but in my opinion its much more detailed.

Yes, it is very much possible to start now.GW 2 is at least one year away and probably about 2 years away near the end of 2011 from what we could gather and hope for.That is more then enough time to get yourself very well set into the GW1 world.You can get to max level in as little as a day or two to about a couple of weeks.You could be set to do most things in as little as those couple of weeks and about a month of done slowly.

They have said that they will not shut down the GW1 servers after gw@ is released or any time after that.



Well, in general the games are pretty similar
There is a few differences though, the first campaign includes the 6 core professions warrior,ranger,elemantalist,mesmer,necromancer and monk.The first three classes you probably recognize.

The mesmer is a class that WoW does not have a similar class. they punish the enemies for using a skill or doing a action by either stopping them, either by actually stopping the skill, by disabling them or causing a punishment for using the skill, by making them lose mana, or suffer from a condition, which makes the enemy think about if they really want to use the skill (wasting time) or if they use the skills causing a negative effect, losing energy, condition etc,in most cases the outcome is in your advantage.

The necromancer is like the warlock, except the WoW warlocks are much more overpowered then GW necromancer :P
The monk is the priest obviously.

The second campaign Factions has the core professions plus it brings in two new professions, the assassin, which is similar to WoW rogue ,but instead of having stealth skills, the assassins has shadow step skills, skills which teleport you to a different location, to the enemy, away from the enemy, random to ally etc.

And we have the ritualist which is similar to WoW shaman.


The third campaign gives us the 6 core professions again and this time gives us another 2 different new professions.

The dervish, which is most closely like WoW paladin, they are holy warrior,which can heal allies and themself and cause a good amount of AoE damage, from its weapons and a bunch of skills in its arsenal.


GW Prophecies has the slowest learning curve from the three, you get a lott of skills for free by doing quests to gain them.It is also the slowest one to level in, but the slower leveling lets you learn the game at a much unpressured rate.

GW Factions has the steepest learning curve and is the campaign which lets you reach max level the quickest.GWF has a pvp mode called Alliance Battles, which is kind of like WoW battlegrounds, in which you have certain points you have to capture, there is no final capture point however, you win by gainingthe needed points faster then the enemy side, you gain points for each capture point you have and for killing enemy players.There are few skills quests in this chapter, but to balance that you get more money when you do quests/missions.

GW Nightfall is the middle ground, the learning curve is not too steep or too low.GWN brings in npc characters which you can modify, by changing their armors and attributes, which weapons they use etc.This addition gives you as the player much more control over how you play the game.There are again not many skill quests, but you get money to buy them.


No, GW is easy to put down and pick back up.Weapons and armor don't get better over time, whenever you get max armor it will be just as good later as it was when you got it,same with weapons.The only thing that changes ( and which will be what you will be "farming" ) for is skills , skills might get better or worse as skill updates are released.But when that does happen and you want a skill which you do not have, you simply go to the npc that sells it and buy it.

The Elite areas take at most 3 hours to complete, most are done in 1 or 2 though, but those areas, you will only be doing IF you want, as the reason you would be doing it is either to get money,because there are good stuff that drop in these areas, or you want that shinny weapon that drops in that elite area.Besides that there is no reason for you to have to do it.



Have fun!

Guild Wars was designed to be a casual play game. There are no penalties for not playing, no time consuming boss camping, very few mission/quests that require other people to help (you have henchman in all campaigns and heroes if you own Nightfall or EotN), easy availability of max armor and weapons, no permanent penalty for deaths, and the ability to respec (attributes and secondary profession) in any outpost or town.

While this might make the game sound like kindergarten, it's not. The focus is not on acquiring levels or equipment, but skills. You are only allowed to use 8 skills at a time and learning which ones suit your profession (primary/secondary), the party synergy, and the current foes will take time.

Our Campfire section has sub forums for each of the professions. Each subforum has a stickied basics thread which will give you insight into that profession and help you start off on the right foot.

As stated by everyone else. buy it and play there's still lots of time before gw2 comes out. Each campaign is fun and there are still plenty of people that play.

Regarding the 8-skills-at-a-time thing: Finding an appropriate "build" of 8 skills for the upcoming fight/area/mission is the essential and never ending challenge in Guild Wars.

Every time you reach an outpost, you can change your build, so don't be afraid to fill up your skill bar with useless skills at the beginning. You can always change everything sooner or later in the game: Equipment, build, attribute point distribution, secondary class. The only thing that is fixed for your current character is the primary class. But you have 8 free character slots, so you can always roll a character with a new class without the necessity to delete an old one.

1. start gw1 today

2. buy all 3 campaigns plus the expansion 'eye of the north'...

3. enjoy all things available to you (since you'll have all 3 chapters plus expansion)

4. when gw2 is released, assess and verify utility of gw2, then continue gw1 if you feel its better than gw2

.....its that simple and definitely worth the price as gw is a great game.

-.-

Hot Dog! Edit a few things. add a few things. Makes a good sticky for all these treads were people keep asking these same questions.

Just an update: I got the trial to play it for a few hours today, created a character and messed around for a bit.

However, every time I try to get back into the game I get stuck at the loading screen - I even tried creating a new character but couldn't even get back in playing something new.

I lowered all my graphics settings and I can't think of what else it might be - my comp is only a year old and in decent condition. And to be honest, I'm not going to re-download the entire trial again just because of this...

Has this happened to anyone else before?

Thanks,

K

not sure about that does it get stuck ona little pop-up saying "connecting..."?
is it possible your trial has ended?

Not sure what that could be either, but let me just say that buying GW was one of the best gaming decisions I have ever made

Hmm, dunno - I only played like an hour of the trial so that's not it, and I've tried restarting my comp. No boxes come up, it's weird, I hear the sound of being in the game but the loading screen freezes and that's all I see. Every other game I login to is fine - Oblivion, GTA SA, Fallout 3...

I'm thinking the trial download is just corrupted or something. Anyways, not a great way to entice me dropping 40-50 bucks on the 3 chapters, let alone the expansion.

Could you post your computer specs? If you have an onboard video card, it could be the cause of the problem - some onboard video cards seem to have issue's playing GW for some reason (and there are work arounds for most of them I believe).

Have you tried disabling any anti-virus or firewalls you have? - Good way to test to see if for whatever reason they are blocking you loading the game.

Have you contacted GW support?

Is your computer have a single, dual or quad core cpu? sometimes dual/quad cores can have issue's with GW.. (and again, there are work arounds)

Does your computer have windows XP, Vista or 7 on it? If it's Windows Vista or 7, does your account have admin rights? Do you have UAC (User Access Control) turned on or off?

You might want to post your problem in the Technician's Forums here - the people who frequent these forums generally have a lot of idea's about these matters.. and likely can help you out more with this problem.

It may just be that you've got a minimal data file and the poor thing is trying to download humungous amounts of data as you try to play.

Make a shortcut to gw.exe, right-click it to edit its properties, then in the "target" box, right at the end of the existing text add a space and -image.

The text should look something like this (depending on your version of Windows and where you installed Guild Wars):
Now double-click the shortcut as usual and leave it a few hours (depending on your broadband speed.)

That should sort it (maybe.)