in need of guidence

Hi all,??RED ENGINE GO??Let me apologize in advance as i'm sure you have had these questions asked countless times. I am going to start playing this week but I am pretty confused as where to begin. I used to play Lineage 2 and I know how WoW works. In those games all expansions are just additions to the game and you do not have to switch anything around. But as I understand it with Guild Wards they are completly different games. Meaning if I were playing one and my friend were playing another I could not interact with him. So this leaves me guessing which version to get. I wish to PVe and Pvp so i'm interesting in the game with the most players in order to achieve both. Can someone tell me which game/s to get and in what order to play them. also if I were to get one and then another later will I have to restart my character on the new game and lose all my abilities and weapons???RED ENGINE GO??Thank you so much and I appreciate everyone's responses.??RED ENGINE GO

Each game is standalone, except Eye of the North. However, you can combine them on one account to have access to all the content. So if you only buy Factions, but your friend has Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North, you can still play with him. The only limitation is that you can only play with him in the Factions campaign or the PvP settings.

If you want to PvP, you need all the games. Each game has a set of skills exclusive to that title. In PvP you need access to anything and everything you can to be successful. So not having access to key skills for a build will make you less effective and easier to kill. Factions and Nightfall also offer 2 extra classes each, which offer more options on character design.

If you can afford it, I would get the Trilogy. It offers 3/4 of the titles for about $40 US. But if you want to test it out, you can also get a free trial from Guildwars.com. If you insist on just 1 title to start with, I'd choose Nightfall. Nightfall offers 8 classes instead of 6 like Prophecies and heroes and PvE only skills. Some of the more commonly used elites are also available in Nightfall.

The trilogy is actually $20 on Steam atm.

Yeah $20 for the trilogy and $20 more for EoTN expansion is a deal. You'll get a ton of game play and no monthly fee to play it.

get em all, connect them all into one account, play nightfall, prophecies, factions, eotn in that order.

I've got another question,

When I played lineage 2 you were at risk anywhere in the world except of course castles and towns
Meaning that if I were trying to farm I could be attacked at any time by another player, say of a rival guild. Now
I don't know if I am misunderstanding but is this not possible on guild wars? Do I need to go to a specific area in order to kill other players?
So is it always a competetion? The best part of lineage 2 was "assasinating" rival clans as they farmed. And I liked being at risk of the same every time I went out.

No you can't be killed by any other players except for PvP settings such as Alliance Battles, Guild VS Guild etc etc

Guild Wars is based on what skills you have on your bar, which is always better with a larger variety. Trilogy gives you the most class skills by getting you 3/4 of the titles. Eye of the North only has about 10 class skills for each class, so you're not really missing anything right off by not having it. Also, I've had several friends start playing GW lately, and we have found trilogy (with all three of the campaigns) a lot better for new players than just the box set of Prophesies and EotN (which is a bad combination of the easiest and hardest titles). But then, trilogy on sale on steam for $20 is the real seller anyways.
For play order, definitely start with Nightfall like Eragon Zarroc said. Factions/Prophesies works in either order (but you will get better skills in Factions for most classes). EotN last.

PvP only happens in PvP areas. Explorable areas (which is anything outside of town) are all instanced, so there's not even anyone else in there but your party.