Friendly advice please?

hey,

so i was lookig around for a more mature version of wow and i found this and to get to the point i need some advice tht will help me with the question below...

1. How in gods name are you suppose to download the game because i heard to dowlad whatever yu want as rimary and what want as add ons... idk confusing

2. What is a good noob way to play this game so i can get a feel for it?

3. lastly how nerfed is this gameas bad as ow or a bit more balance?

any other comments of advice would be much obliged thank you in advanced

To download the game, you can go directly to the Guild Wars site or buy an unused disk.

On the site, there's a trial for free. I don't remember for how long it goes for, but i'm guessing 1 day or so.

The game has 2 different "sides", the PvE side is pretty much really easy with all the PvE skills that you acquire through quests and stuff. I'm not so sure about how balanced the PvP is though.

You can download the client from either the official website or the disk that comes with the game (assuming you buy a physical copy rather than via online stores). Obtaining the client and downloading the game is free. To play it you will need to buy the game, make an account, and add CD keys. A CD key will enable an account for the campaign you bought.

Ambiguous questions are difficult and pointless to answer. Be more specific.

It's not bad. The game isn't impossible to win or impossible to lose, provided you use your brain now and then.

14 days or 10 hours, whichever comes first.

It's so balanced, I want to roll a Derv and form GvG team.

PvP has managed to create mainstay team builds. Ballanced, hexways, spikes and vPie (Kinda).

Individual builds will always be the strongest skills, so imagination won't get you anywhere if Visions of Regret (Mesmer hex that causes damage upon skill activation) will cut through the skills you use. People will laugh at you in RA if you create a W/Mo with a normal axe build but with Mending Touch (to remove blind or weakness), simply because of how much stick "wammos" got and still get. So instead of removing blind, be pro and bring Power Spike or Power Block and interrupt it. Either way, you're not blind.

Yes I agree this game is more mature than WoW. But in order to appreciate Guild Wars, it will require purchasing all three campaigns plus the expansion, Eye Of The North. If you're not that fussed and really just want a new story/adventure for kicks - try the trial first - buy either Prophecies or Nightfall, both have better storylines than Factions. Prophecies also has the slowest learning curve.

And the easiest way to get a good feel for the gameplay and overall tactics in PvE/PvP, completely put aside whatever you've learnt in WoW. Don't worry about your DPS, because your max weapon is doing the same damage as the dude with another max weapon. Guild Wars was firstly built for balanced PvP, it was always designed to create a game where skill decided on the winner, so all max armour, max weapons and max level is easily obtainable. And not the fact that after 5 hours of trolling one place, out of sheer luck you stumble across a sword that is unique and kills faster than anything else - no.

Sorry for the rant, but I do hope you enjoy the game.

If you need to ask anymore questions, feel free to contact me in-game (presuming you purchase the game, i don't think you can whisper with a trial account). My IGN is Fate In The Shadows.

Best of luck.

k so all of you thnx or the info im just one of those people who never wil decide on a class i like being the jack of all trades bu not to a pint where th power is spread evenly across now what i saying and also the primary and secondary profession thing is confusing

Don't read into the primary and secondary professions too seriously.

Each of the professions have 4 attributes where when they are upgraded with skill points, skills within that attribute do more damage etc (once you reach level 20, you have 200 points to use). However, 1 of those attributes are unique and are only available if that profession is your primary one, these also have special conditions such as provide more healing, more energy or more critical hit chances.

For example, If you choose Warrior, you have access to Axe Mastery, Hammer Mastery, Strength and Sword Mastery. However, if you are a Ranger with a Warrior as a secondary, you will not be able to have the Strength Attribute. This means you may be able to use Strength skills but there are no skill points towards your Strength attribute and the skills will therefore do very very very little damage.

Also, when you purchase your new account, you are given 4 Character slots to start off with, and with every added campaign, 2 more slots are added for you. It is also possible to use only 1 slot for a PvP character, because you can easily create and delete PvP characters, since equipment and skills are unlocked for your account. PvE items and characters are different (treat them like in WoW).

It will all make sense once you start playing

So when you create a class, you pick a proffesion, may it be any of the core classes which are: Warrior/Monk/Elementalist/Necromancer/Mesmer/Ranger.
When you pick up Factions, you get 2 additional classes which are Ritualists and Assassins. When you pick up the 3rd expansion which is Nightfall, you get an additional 2 classes which are Dervishes and Paragons. All the classes have advantages and of course, disadvantages. So let me try to create a visualization of how Primary/Secondary proffesion works.

So when you create a character, you pick a class. Let's say you pick an elementalist. You get to play the storyline and at a certain point, you can pick a secondary class, and let's say you pick mesmer. This means you can use the skills from your Primary class which is an Elementalist, and also the skills from your Secondary class which is the mesmer. Don't worry about picking the "right" secondary class since once you get "ascended" you can change up your Secondary to any class you want. And also, don't worry about being ascended or anything also, since you'll learn it through the game.




If you're really interested in the proffesions, check this link out

If you have already bought the game then you download it from the disk or from the main GW site (you must have an account for this to work).
http://www.guildwars.com/support/downloadclient/
But I don't think you have bought the game yet, so you don't have an account. That brings us to the next question.

You should try the trial, it is a 14 day/ 10hr trial. Whichever comes first. Link:http://www.guildwars.com/freetrial/
If that was what you were looking for, otherwise please be more specific.

People at Anet are a bunch of balance freaks, in a good way. This is especially true for PvP. You will almost never see one particular build DOMINATE PvP, because it will be nerfed soon. I have never played WoW (only trial), but I can tell you that PvP for GW is very balanced, and it's also one of the best in business. PvE? eh, it's a matter of opinion. It is pretty easy to beat PvE, but it is still challenging. Two basic side of PvE are Normal Mode and Hard Mode. But there is also High end which consists of elite areas. And also PvE is balanced to the degree that you won't see a particular build DOMINATE ALL of PvE, but some builds excel at beating certain parts of PvE. I hope you get the picture.

I'll try to keep it basic. You have a primary profession (class) and a secondary profession. Each professions have certain number of attributes that make skills in the line of that attribute stronger. For example: Swordsmanship makes sword skill stronger, Fire Magic makes skills in the Fire magic attribute stronger, etc. How do you make them stronger? You have something called attribute points. You can put these points into different attributes to make those skills stronger. You are allowed to reorder the points into different attributes whenever you are in a town or outpost. Now back tot he primary/secondary professions. Each profession has ONE stronger attribute called primary attribute. Each profession has it's OWN primary attribute and they have different "powers". That is why primary profession are important. They determines what you look like, what armor you wear, what role you play in a team, and your Primary Attribute. Secondary profession is there so that you have access to the attributes and skills of ANOTHER profession. YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THE PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE OF YOUR 2NDARY PROFESSION, but you WILL receive all the other attributes of that profession. It is there to allow you to have FAR GREATER choices in the game. You pretty much receive 75% power of another profession. And yes you will be able to change you 2ndary profession at will later on in the game. That might have been a bit too heavy for ya, but hope it helps a bit.

Lots of info can be found here
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Good luck, and enjoy.
Words of Caution: GW is NOTHING like WoW or any other MMORPG out there, so get ready to be surprised

just start a PvE person and mess around and have fun

You received a lot of good explainations already, so I'm not going into that part.
I just wanted to add, if you're confuse about secondary professions (and I think probably you'll be until you experience them yourself) don't worry at all about them, just play normally with your primary and pick up a random secondary (or monk, which can be useful in the beginning to have a reusable resurrection skill). By the time you'll get more "the game feel" and will want to consider seriously the secondary profession choice, you'll be able to change it. So don't worry about that in the beginning.
As for the primary, I'd say try them out then decide what you like more. The written description can help you see the kind of profession you could like most (ex. caster or melee etc.) but playing them is the only way to really see what you have most fun with. And, as usually you have enough slots for trying a lot don't limit yourself to the first choice.
Also, after playing the trail, I think the best campaign for a newcomer is prophecies cause, as others told already, it has the slowest learning curve, so you'll have the time to learn how things work while you procede though the storyline.

Even though Anet screwed up a lot of it, the PvP balance in this game is still pretty ok. If you want a challenge don't bother playing PvE, though, as it's a walk in the park.

For a beginner I would start as an elementalist. Its a very flexible class with high damage output (at least in NM) and most of the skills are straightforward and you don't need to know the ins and outs of the game mechanics as much as other classes until later in the game (not saying this class is the easier to play, just less complicated overall).

Don't try and cut corners your first time through. Do quests, especially ones that reward skills. And as scarce as they might be, TRY to group with other players when possible.

I quit wow back around 5-6 years ago. Prolly the best decision I ever made, for decades. Never looked back (5 epic armored/weaponed lvl 70 wow chars, all with epic land mounts and epic flying mounts). I could totally kick myself, for getting my gnome mage exhalted, in order to get a swift stormsaber - or my tauren on a skeletal horse (or those stupid faction nether ray epic flying mounts). Carrot on a string...

Now, rather than wasting all my time playing the gold farm wow daily (faction) grind, I log into GW for an hour or two, here and there, and do weekly/daily quests and the occasional weekend/festival events. Things are so much better!!! It's pretty much the same thing, without the $16/month surcharge (and the 8 hours/day slave labor).

Freedom is something to be sought after - not ridiculed.

Despite the unbalanced nature of pvp, anyone can get into it. Unlike wow you do not need to spend hours of grind looking for the best armor to compete with other players. In guild wars, you can make a pvp character that already has the best armor (actually you will find that amor is bought from npcs and that the only difference in armor is usually looks) all professions have a set max armor level and you get that as soon as you create a pvp char. Your pvp char also has every skill you have unlocked on your accont for that profession.

For pve, try an easy profession like elementalist, necromancer, or warrior to start with and finish any campaign that you have at the moment.

People may hate me for this but pvxwiki: http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page, has a great deal of player made builds that are rated by the community. Just to give you an idea of what skill combinations work well together.

And even though pve has elite areas that are supposed to be challenging for players, people make cheap and easy to use builds with the sole purpose of finishing an area quickly and without much skill involved while reaping the treasures such area presents.

Thank you everyone for replying looks like ill being buying the game within the next month i already know what IGN ill be using and it will be this user name i have here thank you so much