Way out of the loop - can you fill me in?

Guild Wars and I go back a loooong ways - I was in the original beta. That being said - I have NOT played in ages.

My latest = Guild Wars Factions.

What do I need to get up-to-date so I can enjoy this game again?

I would really like YOUR thoughts on this and look forward to info in this thread.

THANKS in advance for any and all feedback!!!

I'd recommend buying both the Eye of The North expansion and Guildwars Nightfall. They shouldn't be too expensive. Both EoTN and Nightfall add heroes and new skills to the game. (Well technically EoTN adds only mostly overpowered pve skills + heores, which makes the game a lot easier, whereas Nightfall adds lots of heroes and normal skills + some sunspear pve skills + 2 new classes, dervish and paragon.)

Play the game for awhile than ask ….. You missed ~ All of Nightfall which means you are not tainted with heroes. You missed all of EOTN expansion. Which means you are not tainted with the HOM and all its grinding glory. You missed the Battle of LA pretty cool update but has since lost its luster little bit of grinding and a big battle at the end. The marriage thing …never grabbed my interest I guess Cyrsis maximum edition has taken my attention for the last month sorry someone else can update you.

well, a 4 year or so break....welcome back!
Yeah I think I would also hit the store up for nighfall and eye of the north, when you left heroes had not yet happened and they changed the game quite a bit----though you did miss the whole assassin shadow form stuff (which is good) and a whole lot of drama (which is also good to miss)....

so yeah before we go and tell you what to do---besides getting the last 2 parts, I would dust off a character and play a bit...and THEN get some heroes outfitted------

Thank you all for the info!

I was just reading up on what I do have and - am I right - Factions is a STAND-ALONE?
Do I need to load the original Guild Wars then Factions OR is the origanal GW Within Factions?
THANKS again!

prophecies, factions and nightfall are stand alone chapters which means you can play them without having another----eye of the north is not--it requires one of the others to play.
If you already have prophecies adding factions and nightfall to your original account is what you want to do (log in and select I have a key to add to my account or somesuch message otherwise you will be creating a new account that is not linked to the others!)...if you get eye of the north you will ONLY be able to add it to an existing account.

Yes, Factions is a stand alone game just like Prophercies and Nightfall. Yes it is. You only need to download the gw client from www.guildwars.com. (That is if you originally linked your Prophercies account with your Factions account.)

Factions is a standalone game but you would be well advised to simply add the code to your prophesies account.

If you add all the games to one account then all characters can move from game to game as if it was all one world "which it is"

Separate installs means you have no crossover or sharing of resources.

Thanks again for all of your help! I reallllly appreciate it.
I am loading the original + Faction now. After the original was loaded I could have played then (all 6 characters were still there) but decided to load Factions as well.

I will need to start a brand new character to "brush up" on this game LOL.

What is YOUR favorite character to play. My highest is a Ranger/Elementalist (that I have forgotten how to play lol) and the NEW character (as above for re-learning) should be The Easiest To Play....Suggestions?

Next highest is Assassin/Monk - only lvl 8 btw - with a Ritualist at only lvl 4 = geesh must have started this one over!
Thanks again!

You get 2 free character slots for each standalone you add. That is, you have 4 from Proph + 2 from Factions and will get 2 more when adding Nightfall. If you need more they can be purchased in the GW store. Do not delete your old characters, they will have birthday gifts, of which some are quite valuable.

DON'T delete your characters! You can purchase extra character slots from the store, which is accessible from the launcher.

The "Birthday Presents" that each character gets will accord you minipets, which are now selling for a lot of coin, due to their inclusion in the Hall of Monuments. Or, you can simply use them to place in your Hall of Monuments display yourself

It's not exactly like that. It's not 'stand alone' games.

It's more like one single game, and you pay for access to the its different parts. Its 'pieces of content'.
Meaning that if you fully download the game, you'll download everything, but if you don't unlock the areas by adding the keys for the different campaigns, expansions and other content to you account.

So, you don't load the 'original GW', you load Guild Wars, plain and simple.
Steam changed their entries in the Steam cliean to better reflect that.
Whatever part of GW you buy, you get just "Guild Wars".

But what you can do, what you can get and where you can be depends on the keys the account you login with has.

Never delete your characters. Guild Wars is best experienced hen you have at least one character of each profession.

OHHH THANKS for the heads-up! I was just about to delete my lowest character - SOO glad I came here and read the above first!

So = WHAT Profession should I choose for this new charater I will add = your fav so far??

If I understand,your restarting on factions? Well it really depends on your playstyle,but i enjoy the ritualist alot. very fun to take down enemies with,especially with the right build :P

Ele is also a good proffesion choice for factions IMO
and of course theres the sin...

I beleive a warrior is the best profession to choose, they are really balanced

First, let me say welcome back. I've been a player since the original Beta as well. As for a place to get caught up... to be honest? You're reading it. I've been reading Guild Wars Guru for sometime and this site has helped me through a lot.

One thing I will say is that, unless you've been living under a rock and haven't heard, Guild Wars 2 is in development and will hopefully be out this year. I bring this up because I would strongly advise getting the Eye of the North expansion as it will give you a series of quests that connect your Guild Wars account with your Guild Wars 2 account. If you research "the Hall of Monuments" you will get all the information you need. Happy Hunting and again, welcome back.

Thanks you all again and thanks for the info on Guild Wars 2 - I had not read that and will go ahead and get the 2 packs I have missed (each for a different reason lol).

And I do appreciate the welcome back! As I fiddled around today with (an old) character I realized how much I have missed this game.

I have A LOT of catching up to do and will defenetly look into the value of my existing inventory.

Question - mini pets - what value are they? I read that they have no fighting ability and are only for 'show' - so why keep them AND why do they have any value. AND where do you sell them - the merchant(s) I looked at offer $0 for them....

Glad to be back and I am sure I will have a BUNCH more questions - been away WAY too long!

Mini's are collectors items. I used to collect every birthday mini that I could get. I have almost all of them up to the 4th year minis.

The 5th year minis are so expensive because of so few people being around that long. I am sure that there are quite a few 5th year birthday presents sitting unopened in inventories of people just like you. Lots of people never came back to the game but their characters still accrue birthday gifts.

Being a beta player like you I might be able to give you some advice.

1. First and foremost read the official wiki if you are having trouble with a mission. Jut type /wiki mission name

2. Check out the Price Check guilds here on Guru. There is a special thread right at the top for mini pets http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/price-check-f39.html

3. Go look at gwpvx.com - There are lots of people that will tell you that those builds suck or using that site isn't 'doing it yourself' but here is what I think. The place is great to get a good grasp of synergies. It has some fantastic builds that WORK. It will go a long way in helping you to create your own builds.

4. Make sure to look at the wiki front page EVERYDAY (or at least each day that you play). Just type /wiki with nothing after it in game. The Zaishen Missions / Bounties / PvP will be in the upper right corner. They change daily at 9AM PST (Noon EST).

5. Get your 10 free Zaishen Keys! Go to Great Temple of Balthazar and visit High Priest Zhang. Not going to go into the whole story but there were some problems with a tournament prediction deal. They closed it down but gave everyone 50 points (5 points per key = 10 keys)

6. As people have said before, get Nightfall! The heroes will help you out quite a bit (use that site mentioned above to get some decent hero builds!) given the smaller player base. Eye is a must have also due to the rewards that are available for GW2 from the Hall of Monuments.

7. Don't be put off by the amount of things you think you have to do. I hadn't touched things like Obsidian armor and other high end items until the HoM calculator came out. It really only took a matter of weeks to get to 50/50 playing casually at best.

8. If you need some help, send me a PM. We can set up a time where I can help you get through a mission or two if you want. I am located in the Eastern USA time zone fyi.

9. Best money I EVER spent aside from buying the games in the first place was to buy the Skill Unlock Packs. While your PvE characters do not get all the skills unlocked for them your heroes do! You also get the benefit of being able to purchase any skill (aside from elites) that is in a campaign from ANY skill trainer. You don't have to wait for the skill trainer that is in a particular town.

10. Have fun.

If by the mini pets you are talking about the miniatures (like those that come in the birthday gifts) one use they have is as dedications in the Hall of Monuments in preparation of Guild Wars 2. They are associated with one of the Monuments as a "record of your achievement". Other than that, they're pretty much for show. I've seen some players offer to buy, trade or sell them.

WOW LordDragon! What an amazing amount of info! I am soo impressed and tickled to get it all. I can't thank you enough. I will contact you if I run into some problems. I DO have a couple of the 5th B-Day mini's - LOL
Sketch - thanks for the Monument info - appreciate it.

I will check out the site link and builds - in the morning - after coffee.......

favorite character depends on your play style--do you like melee? then the warrior is good ...do you like to hang back---ranger...do you like to see things go BOOM!--ele, do you like to have little minions running around with you-necro etc...since you have factions the ritualist is also a good profession to play.

minipets...the white ones are not as in demands as the purple, gold or green (green are the most rare)...if you need some cash check out the price check forum here---but also note that the prices are out of date a weeee bit....but you will get an idea of the value (or look thru the sell and buy sections and see what is more valued that not)

enjoy playing--its a fun game with plenty of hours of enjoyment.

EQ2 Mappam? if so welcome back to tyria....

LOL = yup one and the same....good Eye Lasai!

Cosy - thanks for the info on the pricing. I have a purple or two but no green etc on the mini's. I will go back into the game and check to see what exactly I DO have then check the pricing.

Edited to add = EGADS the more I read the more I realize how much I DO NOT KNOW about this game now! Wow - there is sooo much to catch up on - from the builds to the maps and merchants. Henchmen, quests, pets, armor, weapons.....Tonics? hmmm...

I am OLD (retired granny from Florida) and as soon as my Social Security Check (told you I was old!) arrives tomorrow I will buy the last 2 packs. This will give me 2 more character slots I can play/learn on. Plus help get ready for GW2.

Suggestions for a build? I like my ranger/Ele - the firestorm and bow is a nice combo for me (along with the pet!)

In other games I do like a Zerker type character (EQ2) or a monk (healing along with fighting) type. I like dual wield swords/daggers (my Sin has this on GW now and I need to play her a little bit to catch up).

I like to solo - and love the henchman idea - have Not figured out which combo works best for me but always add the healer.....

You guys are AWESOME!!

A very nice build for a ranger starts with a Ritualist Factions Skill.

Splinter Weapon Weapon Spell. For 20 seconds, target ally has a Splinter Weapon. Target ally's next 1...4...5 attacks deal 5...41...50 damage to up to 3 adjacent foes.

Plus

Barrage Elite Bow Attack. All your preparations are removed. Shoot arrows at target foe and up to 6 foes adjacent to your target. These arrows strike for +5...17...20 damage if they hit.

Think if you hit 6 foes all bunched up. Each foe slams every other foe with the Splinter Weapon damage.

That is a major synergistic combination for a Ranger. You can cut a groups health by 1/3rd (or more) with one shot.

Then just add Distracting Shot for those pesky healers and a few more skills of your choice to round it all out. Maybe some defensive stances or such.

Just try and keep the skills limited to two main ranger attributes. Don't spread out your attribute points more than you have too.

Oh man, you've missed some of the best drama involving ursan and shadow form.

This is good advice for all classes. Don't spread your attribute points too thin. I like to only rely on two lines that I can max. Some builds require a split into three though.

I play as a primary ranger (mostly). Splinter/Barrage works great in almost all normal mode areas. Hard Mode enemies scatter and it's harder to keep them balled up where that build really shines.

R/Rt SoS spirit spamming is almost stupid easy but killing bad guys without getting killed yourself is fun so a lot of people play that way. I've tried being a touch ranger with is fun in some areas. And more recently (you'll never win any speed clear records this way) going R/D and setting traps, luring baddies into them, then running in with a scythe and mopping them up as they lie on the ground, crippled, bleeding and on fire. I'm sure to many that would be a slow and boring play style but I like it.

So pick a character and play style you like as they're all viable in their own way.

Well, if the last thing you played was factions, here's some things you should know:

1) The game has changed significantly.
2) The PvP scene has stagnated significantly. That does not necessarily mean it is not worth getting into, however. There has been a recent movement to get some new players into it here on Guru. But be aware that if you choose to get into PvP for the first time (or return to it, depending on whether or not you did it before) you will without a doubt find yourself being beaten repeatedly for a while before you get the hang of it. RA, as the lowest form of PvP, is perfect for building your skills. Just ignore the people who flame you.
3) The introduction of the Nightfall campaign added a lot of power creep to the game and more titles. The Eye of the North expansion made it even worse. Since then, Anet has had a very difficult time trying to balance the game, and more often than not their solution to power creep has been to add more power creep. As a result, many of the tactics and strategies you would have once employed are now obsolete (in general, pure damage and defense are now all that is needed to win in PvE). Fortunately, the game is also significantly easier now as a result of the power creep.
4) Nightfall also added two new classes: the Dervish and the Paragon.
5) You probably remember each class being good at a certain role. Power creep has significantly changed what some classes are good at.
6) You should probably find a guild, if you haven't already.
7) As a few people already mentioned, Nightfall and Eye of the North introduced "heroes", which are essentially customizable henchmen. You make their skill bars, you make their equipment, and you can even micromanage them if you so choose. Currently, each player can only bring 3 to a party at a time (though that may soon change).

Start at least one player in Factions because pretty soon now "Feb 3rd" will be the Canthan new year festival and you might as well have a character in that start area to take part.

You guys are AWESOME!

Gremlin - I have a couple of characters based in Canthan - but didn't know about the New Year Festival - good info.
Reaper - Boy tell me about the changes! I feel SOO lost with all the new content.
THANKS again!

I don't think its really a spoiler to give a heads up about festivals as opposed to the general game.

There are some Chefs in shing jea during the festival and they collect ingredients to create a celestial banquet.

If the players in your district can complete all the dishes you get a better reward.

Some districts are sponsored by very nice guilds and they bring all the necessary items.
Worth looking out for this and of course thanking the nice people for their service.

install game
create account
click exe icon
all answers are found inside

Put that on a sticky its actually the answer to every question ever asked on the forum or is ever likely to be asked.

Well nearly every question

Shady - thank you for the offer! I have no idea WHAT I want or need at this point......but SOO appreciate the offer.

Today I will get the 2 remaining Packs and then create another new character to test out.

I have 2 full pages of handwritten notes from research I have done while trying to catch up on this game. I have taken my Ranger/Ele from lvl 11 to lvl 14 = so I am progressing a little on a lot of the game-play.

There is still soo much I need to figure out that at times it is almost overwelming!

I sound like a broken record - but Thank You All SOOO much - your help has been very helpful AND you are all so friendly - gives me a wonderful feeling for this community AND the game!

By all means pick up the other two packs.. Heroes add so much to the casual game and it fun to gear them and expiriment with stupid grouping. Personally I love Elona, NF and the char faces from there. EoTN is a lot of fun, with more of the dungeon style instancing we had in EQ.

I'm also older and retired, enjoy the casual/nonsub pace of this a lot. I have no great urge to revisit Nektulos even after 5 years there. Smed seems driven to destroy any and all SOE games.

Welcome back again. I remember you well from the crafting boards. my forum handle there was Lycantha..who was my SK..

....

You go granny!

HI THERE!

I do still play EQ(extended) as I LOVE the housing and crafting associated with my Carpenter! But I have to agree with you on SOE......

I am really enjoying Guild Wars (again) but feel soo lost. I just loaded Nightfall BUT NCSoft has blocked me from loading Eye of the North until later (interesting security measure!!) I have NO IDEA how long I will have to wait before I can try again (site doesn't list the Amount of wait there is).

I am mostly a Solo Player so the henchman option is awesome for me! No waiting for someone to walk their dog or loosing connection while in the middle of a quest/dungeon/etc. No having to wait for a healer to join the group or or - well it fits my play style soooo well.

The Hero will be fun to fiddle with and I look forward to getting back into the Swing of this game.

I Love being retired so I have my days (after my to-do-list is done lol) to play as much as I want!

Just had a thought of the retirement homes of the future the staff trying to organise Bingo and old time dancing while we are all online in GW2 or maybe 3 for some of us.

There will be a shakeup coming in geriatrics as the Hippies become elderly
followed by The the Heavy metal adherents then Glam rock, Punk rock etc.

Goth grannies lol

there are quite a few 'mature' players out there (heck one of my mods in Ventari's is about that age)...as well as us not quite baby boomers who are also playing. AND there are TONS of ladies who play (me for one).....so welcome back and you have a place right here always!

(ps...ranger and ele---fire storm is bad now---the mobs run away from it, ....might want to check out some of the builds for rangers in the ranger section here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/ranger-f209.html)

I strongly advise you to read this guide, for the Hall of Monuments, incase you are planning on atleast getting 30/50 on the HoM Calculator and play GW2
http://massively.joystiq.com/tag/the-road-to-50

Also, KISS is a very good alliance, 1700 members and the biggest alliance in GW and events and runs through pretty much everything are hosted every day.

Just ask around in the big cities for an invite to it .

The thing about groups that go for numbers is that they generally suck and kiss isn't an exception.