what is guild wars

I have been an avid MMO fan for over 12 years now, but I don't understand Guild Wars. With GW2 on the horizon somewhere and my playtimes changing with life needs, I have found an interest in the "lobby style" MMO.

I do not understand how each of the "expansions" tie together. Does everyone share the same lobby regardless of the xpac version they have or do only people with all 3 xpacs share a special lobby etc.

I do not understand if there is a trading system and rare, valuable items to be found solo and in a party.

I do not understand if you can gain "cool items" like armor sets and weapons that give you advantages in combat and make you valuable in a group beyond your skills etc.

Are there solo epic quests?

What is the "end game" ? Is there one?

Etc - what makes the game tick - why play beyond just enjoying hitting mobs or pvp, I enjoy finding items and progressing my character in both items and skills.

Is this game for me?

In PvE there is solo-material/item farming, but for the most part Guild Wars is a co-op game. You have a team of humans or AI buddies to accomplish your goals. There are some high end and harder areas.

Guild wars proph, factions and nightfall are all stand alone games which each have their own story but tie together at some points. factions and nightfall each have two new proffesions that are unique to those games but can be taken to all the other games. Eye of the north is the only true "expansion" as you cannot create a character there.

There is trade chat which can be done in any town but the Main trading towns are Kamadan (nightfall) and Lions Arch (proph). If you use trade chat everything you say there will be broadcast to all the districts in that town.

There are "cool" items and higher end items/armor you can get but they are only for looks. This game is about skill and about how you use it not about your gear. Once you have "max" armor and weapons they are, in the end, the same as an item someone spent 10 mill on. Its all about looks and epeen.

You can solo farm in the game but there are no real "epic solo quests"

At the end of each game and throughout some of the others there are "elite areas" which drop expensive items that you can sell.

After you have beaten the games, which most people have, they just farm elite areas with their guilds. There are titles which people work for in prep for gw2 since some titles unlock certain things in gw2 (nothing game changing though).

This game is 5 years old so unless you find a guild there won' be alot of people to help you out in towns etc.

After you have beaten all the games people just farm titles (some which help you and give you buffs) and farm elite areas so they can buy shiny things.


The game is free to play so there is no pressure to continue playing and you aren't forced to play the game. You can pick it back up at any time.


Welcome to GW if you do choose.

Guild Wars is a series of 3 Chapers (Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall) and an expansion (Eye of the North).
Each chapter can stand alone, but can also be combined on the same account. You have to have at least one chapter to add the expansion. there is a story to each which are self contained, but follow on into a larger story arch

I'm not sure what you mean by lobby, but i think you may have a misunderstanding on how GW works.
As you move through a chapter's story, you pass through towns. Towns are areas where all players in a district can see each other. Outside of a town the world is instanced and so the only other players you'll see are the ones in your party when you leave town.
Only players who have reached a particular town have access to that town, but once you've reached a town, you can go back to towns you've previously visitted with a couple of clicks
PVP is mainly accessed via a group of towns shared by all chapters, which are sometimes referred to as the lobby for thei particular flavour of PVP

the game's trading systems are pretty basic. Almost anything can be sold to merchant NPCs in towns for a nominal ammount of gold. Trading of rarer items is mainly player controlled, as there is no aution house system. Players trade between themselves, and prices are based on what players are willing to offer each other.

Unlike other MMOs max level armor and weapons are easily accessible and affordable. Differences in rarity is more asthetic rather than functional. armor is not tradable, but various weapons, due to their appearance, or infrequency of their dropping, are traded between players for prices greatly in excess of their value at the NPC merchant

There are no "cool items" such as you advise, as max weapons and armor are ealsily accesible. Guildwars is about skill rather than equipment, which is also the reason why the max level of 20 is easlily reachable

Guild Wars doesn't really have Epic quests as such, and certainly not solo-able ones. The Instanced areas utside of towns are intended to be faced in a party, usually of 8. That can eather be real people or you and 7 henchment NPCs, or a combination thereof

End Game is different for many people. Once you've played through a chapter you can replay in Hard Moade, which is the same locations with the monstor strengths ramped up.
There are replayable dungeons, and elite areas. there's various different forms of PVP, some you can go into alone and get randomly partied up, some which require you to work as a organised team. For those who like it there are various titles, covering achievements for clearing every area of all its monstors, to visiting every corner of the map, to capturing every elite skill, or for unlocking loot chests, and many more.

If you're looking for a WoW clone, then this is not for you. If you're looking for something a bit more casual, that you can dip in and out of, with no subscription fee, and, since it's 5 yers old, a reasonable retail price, then by all means give GW a go

Give the trial a go.

http://www.guildwars.com/freetrial/

Players can play with anyone who has the same expansions as you. If you only have Prophecies, you will be able to play Prophecies missions with people who have all 3 games. Also, there is no central "lobby" for a game; each game has many towns and missions that are there own "lobbies", and you can freely travel between any town or mission city that you've previously been to.

There is a trading system, but it is rather rudimentary by most MMO standards. There is a party search window where people post items that they're buying or selling, but it can only be seen in that particular city (across all of the districts at once). The upshot is that most trading occurs in one particular city (Kamadan, in the Nightfall expansion), with some other large cities also being worth checking out. There is no auction house, so forums like this one have stepped up as the primary means of conducting auctions and high-end trading in the game (see the trading forums).

No. The level cap is fixed at 20, and similarly max gear is fixed at a certain, somewhat easy to obtain level. Max weapons are not difficult to buy from players, and you can even get some for free from collectors in exchange for certain items you can farm from mobs. There are certainly "cool" weapons and armor that people pay crazy amounts of money for, but these offer no benefits in combat over standard issue max weapons. You pay for prestigious looks alone in this game. The good news is that, as a new player, you should be 100% as powerful as a 5 year veteran within maybe a month, and then it all comes down to how well you play. Don't get me wrong, everyone is not on an even keel when it comes to wealth; at this point, I doubt it would be mathematically possible for you to amass as much wealth as the top 0.5% of the players of this game have. The rarest and most expensive items in the game have actually nothing to do with combat, and they can go for truly boggling amounts of gold. If you want a goal to chase, chase that I suppose.

No. This is a team-based game, and save for solo farming (which there are many builds available for) you'll probably be in a full party all of the time. Parties can either be composed of humans or, especially in the earlier missions where few people are playing, AI companions.

Elite dungeons, title hunting, rare item farming, PvP, mastering your class(es) (which, I can assure you, will not be something you'll be able to do quickly).

Well, see, in this game, you're supposed to actually enjoy combat. Seems like you've become used to the notion that running on a treadmill is fun. If that's what you find fun, you're not going to find terribly much here....discovering and utilizing new and creative skill combos is probably about the closest you can get to "progressing your character", but that, like most things, really is more about progressing yourself as a player.

It's definitely going to be different for you. Come in with an open mind, and don't worry about nabbing the phattest l00t, and you'll enjoy yourself. If you can't get your mind around that, well, it might not be for you.

good question, good answers.

I suggest you buy Nightfall first and create your character there so you can unlock heros early on. Heros are a type of AI party member that is superior to henchmen.

As a matter of fact buy the trilogy for 20$ from steam and buy eye of the north for 10$ from steam or amazon/newegg.com You will not regret it.

Guild Wars is an amazing game with 5 years worth of stuff to do and it's still one of the best looking mmo rpg's out there. Now, how do they do that?

I'd recommend starting with Prophecies. It has a slow learning curve, and lets you play by yourself at the start so you don't need to worry about co-ordinating your team.

In regard to heroes, they are the same as henchmen, except that you set their builds, upgrade their armor, set their attributes, etc. It's like your own character except they're controlled by AI. This is great, but not so much when you're starting off. You won't have any skills unlocked (heroes can only use skills you've unlocked), you won't have any cash (to buy runes and insignia for the hero armor), and you won't have any idea about builds. Prophecies gives you time to figure out your profession and how it works, but with heroes you'd need to understand those professions too without being able to actually play them.

Not to say that starting in Nightfall is hard or bad (heroes do come with a preset build), but I definitely wouldn't recommend it over Prophecies to start in.

While everyone is trying hard to explain how GW works, it is very difficult for players of typical MMOs to understand. This game is not based on the usual D&D setup of leveling up forever and uber weapons & armor. It is more like Magic: The Gathering in the sense that what skills you have are more important than your weapons. It would be better for you to take Arduin's advice and just try the game. Hope you enjoy it.

I'm a big MMORPG fan too OP, all the other games I've played though are focused on grinding till you puke and/or the cash shop. Gw's isn't really like that. Sure you can farm/grind for rare weapons, titles & items and there are a few cosmetic cash shop items available. But it's not a necessity for your characters to grow.