Questions about Guild Wars

How's it going people?

First of all, I want to say hello! Debating on joining GW after playing so many MMO's. I actually saw videos for GW2 and it got me interested enough to think about buying the other games first.

I just got into WoW, and already... I hate it. People are always like 'This game is so good! Get it!' Well, I did, and I'm sad to have wasted so much money on a game that doesn't hold my interest. Questing was fine. Some game mechanics were neat. PvP? Garbage. Balance? Garbage. Community? Well, there's a reason I dubbed WoW's community as /W/.

Forgive me for that mini rant, but just still pent up aggression.

:P

ANYHOW. This brings me to ask about GW. To get to know a little about the game before I buy into it. As I mentioned, watching vids for the upcoming GW2 got me interested. I liked the idea of the combat system, the graphics, and the neat little perks like dynamic events. Plus... NO SUB?! Bonus!



First of all... what is the GW community like (in and out of game)? I mean, is it a bunch of self involved jerks and players that look down on others who aren't as good as them? Or is it a more mature community? I mean, do you have people insulting one another left and right, claiming 'trolling' abound, or are people more chilled?


What about the gameplay itself? Is it complicated and requires hours of studying, or can people quickly adjust and learn through trial and error? I mean, is it a difficult grindfest, or a nice casual game?

How about combat or PvP? Is it all 100% level based? Or like, can players accomplish feats based on skill and determination? (Not sure if there's even levels in this game..) I mean, I've played games where someone 5 levels higher can demolish you, and others where I could take out players 10-15 levels higher. Is pvp balanced in any sense of the word?

Questing- This one is a big one for me.. How is questing is this game? I mean, can one level or reach goals through questing, or can you get bored pretty fast?

Is group play an absolute requirement or can players opt to try playing solo for a while? Don't get me wrong.. it IS an MMO, but there are times when I just want to do my own thing.

What about content? Are there any side game play? Like collecting things, mini games (pvp or pve oriented), mini-quests etc? I love to be entertained and I love large games that I can explore and find fun things to do.

Customization- Exactly how customizable is GW? I mean, do most people look the same? Or is there lots of room to be 'different' so to speak.

Also, I was wondering, when it comes to the games themselves.. are GW and the expansions one whole game? Or are they like seperate games altogether? Like, if I buy the first copy of the game, do I need expansions to access all of the content? Or is each expansion a whole new ballpark?

Lastly, how many games are there, and what are the rough costs for each? I will most likely buy them all after playing the first one- if I like it enough. :P


Sorry if there are too many questions.. but I thought I'd get to know about the game more, before immediately jumping into it. I'm also sorry if I'm blunt about some questions (like about the community), I just need to be thorough as I've seen some really bad things like this in many MMO's.

Thanks for reading!

Right I'll try to answer as much as I can, will contain a lot of personal opinions though :P

Community - Mostly I have found that the people I encounter are very friendly. Many people have been more than willing to help me out with learning things in the past and I will do the same for them if I possibly can. Yes you get trolls who rant at you, as I'm sure you do with any game, mostly I find them in PvP when they think everything is everyone elses fault, but I just ignore them because theyre not worth any hassle.

Gameplay - It doesn't really take much to learn how to get around in GW. You will pick up tips along the way but it really isn't too much to ask.

PvP - With PvP, every player will be max level (level 20 in this game), and therefore the same number of attribute points as everyone. There are millions of skill combinations so having a good build is vital and at times PvP can be unbalanced (particularly the 'Random Arena's' where you could have 4 healers versus 4 tanks).

Questing - There are tons and tons of quests, I've probably got like 100 active quests atm. If questing is what you like to do then theres certainly a lot to pick from, but theres also the main storyline missions to break up quests aswell. It all depends on preferences, I don't overly quest but I'm sure some people really enjoy it and get a lot of goals complete with them.

Grouping - Unfortunately Guild wars grouping community is dying, and in most cases you will require the use of AI henchmen to finish your party, or if you have Nightfall or Eye of the north you can customise your own 'Hero' AI. There are daily activities for Zaishen Rewards which can produce quite a bit of interest for grouping up for missions etc.

Extra content - As far as collecting things you can collect almost anything. Most races will drop special items specific to them 'Trophies' which will be collected by someone called Nicholas the Traveler on a weekly rotation, so there is a different trophy that is desirable to be collected each week. Some people also collect weapons, but this is very expensive habit and may not be feasible for someone new. There are also miniquests found along the way that can be played daily in an attempt to get on the highscore tables. Furthermore there is also end game content for each campaign which opens up the possibility of access to high end pve, probably the most challenging Pve content imo. Anet are also releasing 'Guild wars beyond' content which starts to build the story linking guild wars 1 and guild wars 2, and this content comes completely free of charge =].

Customisation - Across the 10 professions there are several different armour sets which can be collected and coloured using dyes to make it more personal, but yes you may see some very similar looking players. There is also customisation in the way you set out your screen as every element can be moved and resized how you like, but this isn't visible to anyone else - just thought it fell under customisation xD

Each of the first three games are played on separate continents of one whole world, what you have done in one game won't affect what happens in the other game, but your characters can freely pass from each continent via a boat, providing you have done the required quest. The eye of the north expansion is played on the same continent as the first game, but once again it has no impact on the first storyline. It can be done in any order that you please.
If you are from America, amazong is selling the main trilogy for $28 and the eye of the north expansion for $9 for a rough estimation.

Hope all this helps =]

There are good people and there are bad people, but this is inevitable really. People in random groups are often highly critical and will be very rude if your build is even a little bit unoptimized or you aren't familiar with the game in general. PvP is a lot like this too. Newbie friendly guilds are a good place to find good people.

GW is easy to get into. Prophecies has a very slow learning curve so it's good for people new to RPG/MMO games. Experienced players often prefer the other campaigns because they feel it's too slow. How quickly you get immersed into the mechanics is pretty much up to you.

GW isn't about levels. It's designed so that becoming statistically optimal is trivial. What matters is the skills you choose to use, how well you use them, and other things like positioning. That said, ArenaNet skill balances consist of massively overpowering whatever sucks at the current time so PvE (even Hard Mode) takes very little effort once you set things up properly.

Barring some quests which are marked as primary (these lead you to missions, which deliver the story content) the quests are entirely optional. They give money, xp, skills, and sometimes equipment, but these can easily be acquired by other means. However, there are two quests in each campaign that award additional attribute points and it is important to do these.

Nope. Every single aspect of PvE without exception (even elite areas in hard mode) can be completed with just you and AI companions. Grouping is hard now that the game is old and no one has much interest in the beginner stuff (it's mostly about getting ready for GW2 now) so a lot of the time you'll be without other players because you don't really have a choice. You can join a new player friendly guild though and perhaps they'll be happy to play with you (or perhaps you have real life friends/family who would be interested in starting GW with you).

Not so much. There are things called minipets which are collectible, but they're completely useless and fill up a lot of storage space. If you like them that's fine, but they're completely impractical. As far as minigames go, there's polymock, but no one really cares about it because it's really crap.

There are only so many combinations of armor, hair, etc. No one can really claim that they look unique. Some people are creative and mix armor sets, but this doesn't happen often, and when it does it's usually crap (that said, there are some mixes that are quite good). As far as appearance goes in GW, the only one that cares about how you look is you. If you're hoping to look unique to impress other people (or whatever), you're out of luck.

There are three full campaigns: Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall. These are stand alone, and you can start playing in whichever you like. The stories are independant for the most part, though some stuff later on in Nightfall references things that occured in the previous campaigns. Eye of the North is an expansion and requires you to own a campaign in order to play. As it is an expansion, it focuses on branching GW1 into GW2: introducing new races and certain key events. Also, it's aimed at experienced players so you'll want to do the campaigns first. If you want to access all the content, you'll need to buy all the campaigns and the expansion.

Good. Thanks for asking. Although, you're going to get a ton of responses, as it seems.

No. But you do get those. Especially in the PvP format and higher-end PvE areas; only in the true competitive areas do you find this.

Yes. I've seen very few x<13 year olds.

You get your fair share of it, especially in PvP, but only in rare cases do you run into this problem. Most people are chill.

Last note on community- probably the best I've seen from every MMO I've played. Although, rumor has it that the EVE community is the best hands down. That's one I haven't played yet... >.>


Both. The concept of the gameplay is simple to grasp. To do higher-end things though, is on a completely different level, though.

Level cap is 20. You can grind there if you want; it is completely unnecessary to do so. There is no real grind fest, farming for money, titles and items are the only close comparison to it.

Level cap is 20. If you start a PvP-only character, you will automatically be given a level 20 character. Level means NOTHING. Skills, usage, timing, positioning, brains, etc... are what count.

To the first question, yeah, skill answers for a lot of things, but determination is another matter completely, and is really luck-based.
As for PvP balance- it comes and goes. New metas are ushered in with every major update to the game. At the moment, it is Dervish heavy due to a total rehaul of the class' mechanics and skills, making the Dervish superbly overpowering in most cases.

Questing is completely unimportant. Sure, you have to follow the primary quest chain to view the main story. But as for secondary quests, you don't really have to consider doing them unless you really want to feel the game to see all the work that's really been put into it. That being said, the secondary quests you should, and probably will perform are the Attribute point quests (give you extra points to use in skills) and the Hero quests (get you another ally). Reaching level 20 is easily done by simply following the campaign.

You are in luck. You'll more than likely be on your own for most of the game, due to recent updates allowing a player to fully customize their own AI party. Regarding playing with other people, if you join a good guild/alliance, you'll find help when you need it. Otherwise, cross your fingers and hope you'll find a good group. When you get to the higher-end PvE areas, you'll find where all those other 1 million players disappeared off to ;D

Tons. You can do all the secondary quests (not too rewarding, unfortunately, but fun nonetheless). All the high-end content. Holiday events. You can collect whatever floats your boat. Whether it be trophies, weapons, rare items... anything you find you like.


Very customizable IMO. You reach the maximum armor defense level early in the game. From there on out, you get anywhere from 15+ different armor sets to choose from to wear on your character (all with max protection). While some armor sets look better than others, it's ultimately your choice. And you can mix armor sets as well. Although, this is difficult art to master to make it look good.


You will need the whole game to access all content, as well as play PvP competitively. Each expansion has it's own unique features and differences in terms of scenery, difficulty, story, etc...

They are not games you can purchase separately (you need to have at least Prophecies aka simply Guild Wars). But each brings you to a new continent, or in the case of Eye of the North, simply a different region of the world.

I personally wouldn't call each area a whole new ballpark, even though it is. So you are right in calling it so.

Separately-
Factions-$10-$20
Nightfall- same as above
Eye of the North- $20 (ANet is having a sale right now i think! hurry!!!!)
Trilogy (Factions+NF)- $30
Complete Collection (Factions+NF+EotN)- $40

Agree with all of the above, as for getting GW why not its pretty cheap and you could get a lot of fun out of it.

Caveats

GW2 could be out in about 6 months and is a totally different game.

You can play GW1 and get some nice rewards to take through to GW2 but as to how far you get in the game and what rewards you could achieve by the end of the year depends on just how many hours you play.

So I guess its all down to reading all the data and deciding for yourself, it is a great game and I have had 5 great years playing it far more than most other games I own.

Ha. Already the community seems nice.

Try asking this stuff in another game that I recently played, and it would be 'look it up n00b' or 'TL;DR'.

Thanks for the replies, peeps! I'm liking the info about the game already. The idea of so few levels... pvp where skill > level, the option to play solo if necessary, not a grind-fest, etc.. I'm totally happy with this.

As some of you have said about 'jerks' in PvP and such, that is one thing I have come to expect in any game. I've been competitive in PvP in just about every game I've played, and know exactly what sort of behavior it can bring about. However, just the initial responses here have shown me that, so far, GW seems to have a groovy community.

A couple more questions came to mind while reading over your responses, though. :P

Firstly, I know there's no sub... but I was wondering, are there 'perks' that people can get with cash? Pets, items, 'services'? Many of the MMO's that I've played have gone this route eventually, and it cheeses me off at times. <.<

Secondly, what is the terrain like? More specifically, I mean- Are there many invisible walls? For example, in WoW (sorry to bring the game up again xD) there could be a hill in the middle of a field. Yet for some reason, some angles automatically stop you from going up it, even though it's not even that steep. I have seen some cliffs in another game, that don't allow you to jump/walk off of it, because the devs want you to walk aaaaaalll the way around. It's not a huge concern, but it would be nice to find a game that has no limits on climbing obstacles like this, other than tall mountains that separate the game's continent from 'no man's land'.

Last question! What is the guild system like? Do you have to 'level' up guilds? Are there perks that guilds benefit from? (Other than camaraderie, having people to play with, etc) And IF you can level up a guild, is it difficult, or generally pretty easy?

That's all for now, but I'm sure I'll have a couple more later. :P

1. WoW experience very much depends a) on the server you happen to be on and b) your guild. There are some excellent guilds there and mostly some very terrible ones.

2. GW only has one server so that variable is removed. Guilds same thing, though. Have to look around. Join a guild when you like, or don't. You can solo the game PvE, though a lot of the high end in hard mode is really stressful.

3. The GW Community in general is IMHO more mature and more polite than the WoW Community. Not sure why that is, but it is my experience. That being said, GW has scammers you need to watch out for.

4. The company store sells items and services. However there is nothing for sale that is essential for game play. You cannot buy better pets, gear, or weapons. Some items like skill unlocks or pet unlocks are attractive but can all be earned in game. All pets are equal in everything except appearance. You can get elite armor but it only looks different; stats are exactly the same.

5. Yes, there are invisible walls. Worse yet, you cannot jump! No mounts, no flying, no swimming neither! Nor can you fall off cliffs. Whenever I go back to WoW I usually die from falling a few times.

6. Maps in GW are very large but operate by different rules than WoW maps. There are alternate ways to get from one point to another but sometimes these are not obvious. I like the art in both games, just different styles really.

7. In WoW gear and stats are primary important. In GW skills and personal skill make all the difference. However there are a very large number of skills in the game and it takes a good while to get them.

8. GW is not the cure to all of WoW's problems. It is a different game with its own problems; but I like it.

Guild Wars 2 will be out in a year and will be a whole new ball game for everyone. Check out:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/ for further info.

You will have to refer to the wiki and it's a good idea to read the basic guides here on the forum in each profession's section. Once you take in the types of skills and the basic game mechanics it's just a matter of using your head.

The starter areas do a very nice job of walking you through it, BTW.

There's very little grind required in GW. You can grind if you want to, but you will get all your basic needs covered (max weapons and armor, money, skills, full level) just by playing through the story. Elite areas are just there as an extra challenge. And some people grind for shiny stuff and bragging rights, but it's only about looks, "elite" armor is the same protection as "normal" armor.


Think of the campaigns as different continents. There's port towns and if you have another continent you can travel there. If you don't, you can't. Each continent has its own unique perks (armor, weapons etc.) that you can't get to if you don't have it.

There's 3 campaigns which can be bought independently and one expansion, which requires at least one of the campaigns.

ANet have been careful to never offer stuff for cash which can offer a real advantage. Feel free to browse the store (in-game or online). It's just cosmetic stuff or stuff that saves a bit of running around. Some of the packages look like they do something amazing (skill unlock pack for example) but you still have to work for it in-game, you don't simply get them.

Sorry, same thing here. No matter how it looks, you can't jump, and when you get to the edge of the paths you're supposed to access you can't go further even if it looks like a very simple jump or climb.

But, on the bright side: (a) they make a good job of getting you used with it so it won't seem like a problem after a while; (b) since there's only some paths you can access, it has the perk of being able to auto-move -- you click on a distant spot and the AI can compute how to get there on its own.

Again, sorry, if you want free movement GW is quite limited. GW2 will be different.

There's no guild level per se. Guilds are required for some PvE and PvP stuff. There's also PvE faction points and the PvP guild ladder, but that's automatic as you play the game.

Guilds can have self-designed capes and a guild hall which can have useful NPCs and a training area. It saves some time but it's not crucial for PvE stuff. There's also a guild roster window which allows you to keep in touch easily with mates, and dedicated guild and alliance chats.

I only started playing a few weeks ago, so can't answer much. But one thing I would say is the community is good - people have been really helpful, answering questions, and one dude from this forum actually came and helped me through a mission I was struggling with.

I played wow for 2-3 years pretty solidly. For me, there is a really different "feel" to the games, perhaps caused by the fact you never see anyone at all out in the world thanks to instancing. But having got bored+burned out of wow, and looking forward to GW2, I picked up GW1, and I have to say I'm enjoying it. It's quite chilled out, I feel I can amble through it at my own place. Levelling really doesn't feel important (I reckon I will be lvl20 before I'm even half way through Prophecies), gear sorts itself out either through drops or a quick trip to an armor vendor. I guess if I get in to doing hardmodes and pvp I'll have to put in more effort, but the story is pretty absorbing, and at the moment I feel no pressure to "progress", "gear up", "farm*", or anything else.

*I have started an alt to do Legendary Defender (go 1-20 in the start zone basically), and that's a farm . . . so if you WANT a grind it's available - just not necessary if all you want is to play through the game, see the content, and experience the story.

Clicky for trial.

Afraid you will find a few invisible walls in GW, plus some rather visible ones in certain locations that need a quest completion to allow you further progress. That being said there is a great deal of freedom in GW and it is most certainly worth playing.

While I am strictly a PvE player I did form a guild some 6 years ago and have found it to be a great place for meeting with friends and also equiping skills or setting up hero's. Since my guild is complete (you need to purchase NPC's such as storage and merchant) it makes for the perfect spot to log on and off from.

Hope to see you ingame!

Crom The Pale

Rock on, diggin' the info.

Sucks to hear about the invisible walls, but I can live with it, right?

If I have any more questions, I'll be sure to post again! Thanks for the link, Arduin! I'm gonna download the trial on Sunday, after work and give it a shot.

I'm sure I'll be invading your game soon enough.

Rock on people, and thanks again! \n/_