New to guild wars.

Hi guys. I was very interested in Guild wars 2 but have not played the original yet. My computer can play the penumbra series/Half life source well. I was wondering if I should pick it up an if I do what edition of it. Thanks for your help.

It helps to have the 4 expansions/campaigns so you have access to all the skills.

Proph only has the 6 classes - War, Ranger, Nec, Mo, Mes, Ele.

Faction adds - Assassin, Ritualist

Nightfall adds - Dervish, Paragon

I would recommend factions because you can use the extreme farming potential from both the assassin and ritutalist while allows you to use the 6 core classses.

Proph is a slow pased campaigned but really fun and good to get used to

Faction is the fastest and NF runner up.

Eotn is just an additon to either campaign. you need 1 of the 3 to play. It adds a lot of pve skills to the mix and skills as well.


If you were only purchasing one i would recommend Factions due to the professions and game play. Proph would be next.

The main factor though to Nightfall is the heroes. Heroes are customized henchmen that allow you to change the skills / weapons. like henchmen 2.0

there is a good deal at gamestop or steam $29.99 for all 3 Campagins

The game is definitely worth it, especially if you're interested in the story/GW2 Hall of Monuments rewards. Just keep in mind that GW1 and GW2 are completely different when it comes to mechanics. I also suggest getting all games. However, I believe Nightfall is the best campaign to start in. (Of course if you want to check the Assasin or the Ritualist you'll have to start in Factions.)

There are positive and negative sides to each campaign. If you start in Prophecies you'll get to see a starting area exclusive to the Prophecies characters and you'll get familiar with the lands and history of Tyria, where GW2 will be situated. However, since this is the first game it was supposed to be played with other people and you won't have access to heroes (NPCs that you add to your party) and only to the henchmen, whose AI is terrible. It's the longest campaign of them all and it got many people frustrated back in 2005 at some points.

Factions, the second campaign is the shortest one. You can reach level 20 in about a day. Which makes things really complicated for new players since you also face foes level 20 or higher that have elite skills and some nasty tricks up their sleeve, which you may have a hard time countering. Another negative side of Factions is that you have to start buying your skills almost right from the beginning, whereas you get skills from quests in Prophecies and you have Hero skill trainers in Nightfall where you can get some skills for free.

Nightfall is somewhere in-between Prophecies and Factions when it comes to length. You have enough time to get used to the game in the starting area and you get your Heroes right from the start.

Once you get to a certain point in the game you can travel easily between the continents and complete all 3 campaigns with the same character. The quests to do that are in Lion's Arch in Prophecies, Keineng Center in Factions and after you get to the Consulate Docks in Nightfall. If you start in Factions/Prophecies when you get to that point definitely jump to NF and EotN to grab your heroes.

Depends on what you want out of GW1. Are you going for rewards that you can get in GW2 when it comes out? If you are, buy all the 3 campaigns and the Eye of the North expansion pack. This give you 8 character slots if I remember it right. I think that even if you are only looking for some fun playing GW, buying them all will be a better deal than not.

Mostly, I'd second everything Megera said... but I'll add a few thoughts of my own anyway.

If you were only going to get one campaign, I’d recommend Nightfall hands down. It’s where the series really found its feet, and the PvE is leagues ahead of prophecies and factions. If you’re not that bothered about the campaign and are more interested in the GW2 unlocks... well, Nightfall is still the obvious choice, as it’s the only core campaign with access to elite weapons and a full set of heroes.

As noted, prophecies is nice for lore junkies as it’s the base setting for GW2 and factions has a few more PvP options, but overall Nightfall would be my choice. It even had the coolest setting with its African theme. I would, however, strongly recommend picking up the Eye of the North expansion.

I got the trilogy an am installing now. Should I start out with the first campaign?

that is up to you, but i would start with Nightfall for the heroes.

Hey, congratulations Doctalen, that's great news that you were able to get the Trilogy!

You have 8 character slots... so go crazy and start one in each campaign! I started in Prophecies, and stayed in the pre-searing area until I was about level 11 or 12 - a few weeks. I was reluctant to move into post-searing until I felt like I was ready, especially since you can't go back to pre-searing, and you can't take a toon from another campaign into pre-searing. I'm glad I started there, though, because it really helped me become familiar with the basic game mechanics.

With that said, if I were starting a new toon today, I would start it in either Factions or Nightfall. I'm not 100% sure which I'd choose, but my reasons for it being one of the two goes something like this:

By starting in Factions or Nightfall, you can fairly quickly get access to the other two campaigns in just a few hours time. You can't do that in Prophecies. What you CAN do, however, is start in Nightfall or Factions, and play just far enough to be able to "campaign travel" (check the Wiki) to the other two campaigns. From there, it's easy to backtrack to the beginning and do the missions. In Prophecies, just find someone in Lion's Arch who will "run" you to Ascalon. In Factions, it's a short trip back to Shing Jea Island, and in Nightfall, you're right next door to Chabbek Village and such.

Then you could move forward a little in each campaign, just sort of experiencing them all concurrently. Gives you some variety to choose from as well, AND it's easy to get to EotN from Nightfall or Factions.

But... I still think experiencing pre-searing in Prophecies is useful, at least once. So maybe start one toon there, and just leave it in pre-searing... then start another toon in one of the other campaigns and make THAT be your "primary" toon that you play through all of the content.

Starting in Prophicies is best if you really wish to learn the story in the order that it happens. However it does take the longest time to reach the end game content(ie zones meant for lvl 20 characters).

The henchmen will work just fine for you but they are much weaker then having real people or heroes. If you do start in Proph you can get heroes at about the half way point, right where you can travel to the other chapters or Eye of the North. I would recomend going to EotN and picking up at least the first two heroes.

Keep in mind that heroes are only as good as the build you give them and you will be restricted to skills that you have unlocked on your account. So if you start in Proph you will only have Proph skills unlocked and most likely only for the profession that your playing. Take some time to test out all of the professions, build a different char and lvl up to 10 or so and then try and buy as many skills as you can afford.

After you have unlocked some skills for each profession, and know what one you enjoy playing the most, then move forward into the game and when you start to aquire heros you not only will have skills for them but a good understanding of how each profession works and how best to use them.

Best of luck and have fun.

@Megera, you do get skills from quests in Factions. The profession quests and the Insignia quests will give you a bunch of them. I started a ranger, a warrior, a ritualist and an assassin in Factions and you do want to buy some extra skills when you get to Kaineng Center but not that many.

@Gizzy, taking a foreign character back in the Prophecies story is not very fun. The portion before Lion's Arch is meant for characters who are still in training (under 20). The enemies are weak, you get no XP (neither from missions nor from kills). If your profession is NF or Factions-specific you get no equipment and no skills either.

Still, if you want to do it, you should be something like level 15 when you reach LA from other campaigns, and you should have absolutely no problem backtracking back to Ascalon at that point.

I feel that switching campaign is ok after reaching the port city, but the areas before that are best played on a native character.

Ok I am on the second profession quest in noob area an I did some other quests. I was thinking of doing necro/Warrior. an I am also a PVE character. So should I just leave now or get to the last new area quest then start a guy in factions? I do not really want to skip to nightfall because that is the last campaign an I may miss some stuff. I understand the Charr are at war with the humans. Other then that no clue.

The story of each chapter is pretty much standalone, so you can start characters in each without a problem.

There is an over-arching plot and you might get some spoilers if you go directly to Nightfall, but generally don't let that stop you from playing the campaigns in parallel.

If you're going for the storyline, I'd say play them in order, proph, factions, NF, then eotn. That way you won't be asking yourself "when did this happen?" a lot because NF and eotn fills in a lot of the holes in the story line.

Personally, I don't see any real need to play GW1 if all you're interested in is GW2. Other than the lore, GW2 appears to be significantly different from GW1. So much so that playing WoW, or DDO, or LOTRO, etc., would be just as useful as a "learning" experience.
Try the trial and if you like that, buy the full game (Triology + EotN)
But if you don't like the trial, don't slog your way through GW1 just for the "rewards" you might get in GW2.