Is Guild Wars an active game still?

I'm considering trying it out, but I'm pretty confused, and I have a few questions.

1) Is it an active game still? If I play am I going to be subject to a ghost land where I have absolutely no contact with other intelligent life forms?

2) If YES to the above question, are there servers and such with higher populations than others? Are there servers in general? How does that work?

3) What's the deal with the 3 different versions of the game? (Factions, Prophecies, Nightfall) I have no idea what the difference between any of them is. Are they separate games? (Ex: Can a Nightfall character interact with a Factions character?) Should I start playing, which game should I choose?

4) How do dual classes work? Do you feel like they make the game unbalanced or overly complicated at all?

5) Guilds? If I ended up playing, are any recruiting new players?

6) PvP/PvE. Is one more prominent in the game? How do they work?

7) LAST QUESTION!! I'M SORRY!! Are there lots of fun things in the game in general? Will I get bored fast?

I appreciate any responses to the questions (but thoroughness is always favored ). Sorry about how many questions there are. I've tried to research this kind of stuff, but online sources like blogs and such usually lack sufficient answers.

It's somewhat populated. There are definitely people around, but they're mostly focused on end game stuff, PvP, and getting ready for GW2. A lot of the content you'll have to do with AI companions (called henchmen and heroes). This isn't much of a downside though as most people lack a brain.

There are servers (American, European, and Asian), but you can switch between them whenever you like. American is the most populated.

Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall are stand alone campaigns. They're mostly separate stories (the later campaigns have a couple of references to the earlier ones). If you have multiple campaigns you can join them together, allowing you to travel between the continents and complete the content with foreign characters (eg, a Warrior from Prophecies can travel to Factions and complete that too if you have both campaigns). Check the stickies for more info.

It's not dual classes. It's primary and secondary, i.e, you pick a primary profession that essentially defines who you are and you use your secondary to pick up a skill or two to round off the character. For example, a Warrior primary will always beat things up in melee. Going Elementalist secondary does not mean you should now run around throwing fireballs (nothing stops you from doing this, but it's remarkably stupid). Instead, the Ele secondary could be used for Conjure Flame, which adds fire damage to your hits. Some professions (like the Warrior) often don't use their secondary profession at all because they have everything they need.

Yes.

Originally PvP was meant to be the endgame, but people liked PvE too much and now that's the primary focus. PvP is good but it's suffering from lack of attention/updates.

Regarding how they work, I'm not exactly sure what you want to know. For PvE, complete quests and missions. Go outside of town and fight monsters. It's precisely what it sounds like. For PvP, go to a PvP arena.

Well, it depends on what interests you. There are people who have been playing for 6 years and still find GW fun, and there are others who rush through everything in 2 weeks and quit. If you like WoW type games where you spend ages leveling up, getting better equipment, etc, GW isn't your kind of game. Play the trial and see what you think.

1)Most outposts contain around 2 or 3 people in them and the majority of them don't want to form a party. However, in the higher end areas of the game (DoA, FoW and the Underworld) There are plenty of people always looking for groups in these areas.

2)I think instead of servers, Guild Wars has Districts. These are organised into European, American, Chinese and International. The American districts are always the busiest.

3)The three different games can be played from opening Guild Wars. You can travel between the different maps within one program. All characters can transfer themselves to another campaign.

4)If by dual classes, you mean secondary professions, then no they don't make the game unbalanced or overly complicated. In PvE it means that people can run popular builds to get into groups easily, using their secondary professions. In PvP, a monk could be forced to take an escape skill and so they couldn't use any other secondary profession.

5)There are plenty of guilds who are looking to just build up their numbers.

6)I would say that PvE is more prominent in Guild Wars. You can easily find the different arenas on the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page. In PvE the most highly concentrated areas are where the Zaishen Quests are going on. If you follow those you will be able to quickly get a group.

7)I haven't got bored of the game and I have over 900 hours of game time. There are plenty of different things to do, one of the main thing people are working toward at the moment is filling out this: http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=welcome.

Hope this helps

Mm, the "intelligent life forms" part is funny. Do you find those in any MMO? We have hubs where people gather. But the places where people "hang out" are kind of devoid of intelligence. Smart people usually aren't spending time gabbing -- they're doing stuff.
There are not as many people around as there used to be, and those who are around don't really group up a lot -- most people use their heroes (AI players who fill out a group). But if you get Nightfall and/or Eye of the North, you can play with your heroes, so it won't matter. Or you can join a guild. There are still newbie friendly guilds around, especially if you look around our Guild Connections forums.

There are no exclusive servers like you would find in other games. There are districts, but you can switch between them freely. The only thing separating people are the campaigns (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, North, and their outposts. More on that below).

The different games take place in like different countries. The events in Prophecies take place in Tyria (which is also the name of the whole world -- kind of confusing). Factions takes place in Cantha. Nightfall takes place in Elona. If you get all 3 games, you get a choice of starter areas to be "born" in. As you progress through that country's story, you will eventually reach a port city where you can travel to the other countries and take part in their stories. Any game you own, you can experience, in any order you want. Same with other players you meet.

Eye of the North is an expansion. You must own at least one of the campaigns to be able to add it to your account and be at least level 10 and at a port city to go there. But it allows you access to a Hall of Monuments where you can record your titles and achievements for rewards in Guild Wars 2.

Bear in mind that certain professions and a large number of skills are exclusive to specific campaigns. In order to fully enjoy all that GW has to offer, it's suggested to get the trilogy. It'll work our to be cheaper than buying the games individually.

The newbie's quick and dirty guide to secondary professions:
1) You must choose a secondary profession, but you do not have to use skills from it.
2) The choice is not life or death, as you will be able to change it later.
3) Except for a few gimmick builds and exceptions, it's only there to supplement your primary profession.

The secondary profession system confuses everyone at first. But basically it's just to give you access to extra skills that might benefit your main purpose.

People are always recruiting in major cities, and you can try those. But your best bet is being more selective with the help of our forums.

They are two separate worlds. Your PvE characters can participate in PvP once properly leveled, but it's much simpler to keep a character slot reserved for a PvP character that you can freely remake and equip on the fly. You will need to unlock skills and equipment mods to seriously compete, which is most easily done by a PvE character. (Anything your PvE characters learn will be available to your PvP characters.)

We have various forms of PvP, each with varying levels of difficulty and active participation among the community. PvE seems to dominate, but you can still enjoy PvP if that is your thing. There are still people to play against (in most formats).

That is entirely subjective. The game is immense, there are lots of things to do, but depending on how quickly you devour the content, you could run out of fresh experiences. We do have regular festivals and weekend events, and additional quest content in "Winds of Change" is expected to be released soon. Beyond all that, achieving titles for your Hall of Monuments could keep you busy for a while, if you choose to pursue that. So, taking a guess, I don't think you'd get bored too fast.

I hope I've filled in some gaps for you. We'd love to have you join us.

Some parts of the game are a ghostland , but that shouldn't be a surprise seeing that the game is 6 years old, Ghostland is mostly in early parts of Prophecies and that is partly to blame on that most of the first chapter can be skipped and you only HAVE to do 3 Missions I think to beat the game.


There are no servers like other games in guildwars, there are districts which are kind of the same thing, but unlike servers is easy to hop from one server to another, just click a drag down menu while your in town and choose your district.The most popular districts are America District 1 and Europe District 1, though America has more player on it, but that's because even Europeans play on America district.Yes just because your from America does not mean you can't play with Europeans and vice versa.

They are basically just like World of Warcraft expansions, each one gives you a new map which you can travel to by boat and each adds 2 new classes to the game and allows you to start the game with a new level one character from one of these 3 maps.There is a fourth part that is called Eye of the North, which is not the same as the other two since it does not add two new classes and is only accessible to characters level 10 or above and you can not start new characters there obviously, but it does add a "new" map.Instead of adding a whole new map that exists on a different continent like the other 2, this one expands the first map of the first chapter..

Dual classes are pretty simple.Each class has one attribute line (like Divine Healing which is a monks) which only they can use effectively because only if you are that class as a primary(so say monk/mesmer), can you add ranks to that attribute) .Almost all attributes you have to add points to it if you want the skill of that attribute to be better, so at rank 1 Fireball only does 7 damage but at rank 10 it does 77 damage.This addition doesn't make the gae too complicated though it does require you to think a bit on what class would help you best.So say a Ranger/Monk might not be as great as a Ranger/Elementalist.The same thing also works with skills, so one skill might work better for your class then another one.


Yes.This is the one thing you won't have to worry about, there are many spamming around looking for new members, though guilds like that might not be so great since some require you to farm reputation for them and other might be dead guilds with the leader taking everyone but not really caring about their guild or members, the best way I found to find a guild is to just play, while playing you will find players that you like a bit,if you do find players like this which you think are good at the game or are nice or anything you like about someone then ask them if you could join.


Well... PvE is much bigger then PvP.What I mean by that is that PvE has much more to do, more maps more areas etc.The original idea on Guildwars was that players would play PvE and level up their characters, get skills, learn the game and get better and then when you were good you would join PvP and battle eachother , but that idea got throw out by the developers some time ago.Now PvE has its own pretty big world and you don't really ever need to get involved with PvP if you don't want to.

But still even now, PvP and especially GvG and HA is where the game is at its top.The monsters will always do about the game and they will be the at the same place and in a way be predictable so you will now what skills to take to defeat a certain area and so on, while in PvP that is never the case.While the monks will kinda be the same because their healing and some builds are very common on all classes,you will never be sure what you will be fighting against until you get into the fight and then its up to you to adapt to what you face or end up on the ground.


I don't think you will get bored at least until GW2 comes out, there is plenty of content and its going to take a while to do, so you have a good amount of time to enjoy the game.

Don't be sorry.

This player might be correct but know that nobody except Anet knows for sure.I could say 500.000 he can say 100.00 but we wont know who is really right.


Edit:We all said different things but same things, think this will help the player get the best info possible.

There are comprehensive answers there but I just want to add that I am still happily playing GW after almost 6 years and there has been an influx of new players lately, so I suppose they are not all doing endgame content yet.

some places are dead. But thats jungle outposts for you. The American dists seem pretty full to me, but i play in the English Dists to get a bit of peace and quiet.

In PvP:

If you are euro: Yes.

American: No

In PvE:

SC's:Mostly

Title hunters: If you are in a guild

Actually PvEing: No, unless you are in the few guilds that do.

If you want to play with intelligent lifeforms, take heroes. Find a member of [KISS] in any American district and join that guild.

American District= PUGs.

Guild Wars is fun. I've been playing for almost 6 years now too, but PvE gets boring every now and then if you play too much of the same content. For you, this isn't going to be a problem until you've finished all 3 campaigns and the expansion, because it's all new to you.

Once you learn the mechanics through PvE, try and get into some low-end PvP and see how that sits with you.

Look the larger cities have many hundreds of people in them always (100 per district) and all but the remotest outposts have the odd person or two floating about.

Remember you only "inter-act" with people in such places, unless you choose to join with someone to use an "explorable" area.

GW is still very much alive.

1: Yes the game is active. If you wanna play with other people a lot I would recommend an active and helpfull guild. This cause a lot of people are doing end game stuff. If you don't mind playing alone, there is a very good buddy system where you get henchman and hero's to replace real people.

2: You don't choose a server on wich you are stuck (unless you have to restart). In every outpost/town you can switch server (or district how they are called). American districts are the most populated, but somewhat more full of lag

3: There are 3 different games (prophecy's, nightfall, factions) in wich you can start playing. All 3 games are connected by eachother as soon as you open the porttown. This is done early in game. The 4th part Eye of the North is an expansion, meaning you can't start in it, but you can travel there.

4: The main focus of GuildWars are your builds (the skills you bring). every profession has over a 100 skills, so with a dual class system, the way you can combine skills is endless (you can also change your secondary class). So having this, means you can make really overpowered builds. But you can't get all the skills right from the start. Beside, the really good builds, take practise to make them effective.

5: Yip, lot's of guilds are recruiting.

6: PvE charachters can play both PvE and PvP. PvP-only characters can only play PvP. PvP- only characters have the following benefits:
- max lvl from the start
- max armor from the start
- max weapon from the start (though it is clean, so not perfect)
- access to all skills unlocked on your account(e.g. by getting them on a different char in PvE or by playing PvP and using reward points)
- access to all mods for weapons and armor you've unlocked on your account.

7: Will you get bored fast? hmm, this is a personal question what I can't answer, I spent bout 20 hours/week online, have been playing for 28 months now and I'm not getting bored. After playing all content in normal mode, you can do it again in hard mode. There are a lot of titles to obtain, wich all take a good amount of work to obtain. The game is big, so lots of different area's to play in, imo enough that when I played an area too much, there are enough area's where I haven't been for several weeks.

I had a whole long answer typed up for the OP, but then the site crashed when I clicked on "Submit Reply" - my bad.

Anyway, my response was basically the same as Star Jewel's. but I just wanted to add something about secondary professions:
In some cases your secondary profession can be used to try build types that are designed for other classes (usually with some variance). For example, a friend of mine wanted to try an SoS build but he had no Ritualist. So, he used his Ranger with a Ritualist secondary.

Yeah, it's active.

But after 3 chapters and 1 expansion, everyone's spread out all over the game.

The best way to think of the game is having 3 different continents to explore. Players can move freely between all the continents that they own and interact with any players they meet along the way.

Yes the game is still active and populated though you will find some cities are vacant from time to time, but that has been true since the start of the game really. A small outpost, like Ice Tooth Cave has never had more then 2 or 3 people in it at any one given time.

Plenty of fun things to do in the game, though that is a personal thing. I love PvE so I find that to be great. I don't like PvP much so I tend to avoid that. Having choices is one of the best thing in GuildWars.

Lots of guilds are recruiting. YOu can find them spaming in just about any major trading outpost. Though if your smart you might look for good people to play with first, then join their guild second.

Some areas are ghost towns and some areas are completely lacking in intelligent life forms; the two are not always mutually exclusive. But seriously: it is still an active game, not quite what it has been in the past, and with such a large game world, those of us still playing can be well spread out.

Our servers are called districts, and you can freely move between them while in any town/outpost. Most players these days gravitate towards the American districts, regardless of where they're actually from.

Each of the 3 campaigns can be bought and played as standalone games, but if you own more than one you can freely switch between campaigns once you reach a certain point in each campaign's storyline (not too far in).

Of the character classes available, you can only create a Dervish or Paragon in Nightfall, and an Assassin or Ritualist only in Factions. But the other 6 can be created from any of them. As to where is best to begin, this is a bit subjective but I personally would recommend Prophecies as it has the slowest/easiest learning curve. But again, since you can easily switch campaigns beyond a certain point, it's not really a gamebreaker unless you want to start with one of the four classes mentioned above.

As Marty already said, it's more a primary/secondary thing. Pick a primary class first and foremost, and then choose a secondary you think will complement that primary. Many perfectly viable builds don't even make use of a secondary class at all, that's how important the secondary class is, i.e. not very. And you can change it later in the game anyway.

Yes.

PvE attracts a far larger crowd than PvP and the trend continues in that direction with the perception by some that the PvP side of the game has been somewhat neglected as of late. But I still enjoy a casual round or two of Fort Aspenwood now and then.

As far as "how they work", fairly similarly in a general sense, except in PvP you're usually facing somewhat more intelligent life forms than in PvE. Builds and specific gameplay strategies and objectives are usually quite different, but mechanically it's still the same pick-8-skills-and-go-have-fun idea at its core.

I think so personally, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Whether that applies to you, only you can learn that for yourself.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Take this advice with a grain of salt.

Maelstrom:

Understand that much of the negative-nancy comments regarding the playability, fun and activity of GW is coming from people that have played countless hours over many years.

IMO.....for someone that enjoys games of this genre, if you bought all three episodes and started from scratch, you will truly enjoy your experience with GW. From a dead start, there will be an overwhelming amount of content that you could enjoy for years.

Despite what some other have claimed, NO, you will not get bored anytime soon.

As well, many folks aren't receptive to newbies. That banner is worn like a scarlet letter. Some of us however are far more receptive to new players. If you purchase the game I would be more than happy to show you the ropes and help you get started, as well as many others I'm sure.

Stating that parts of the Guild Wars world is dead end deserted is still a valid point I think and he might get bored because of that after all its a mmo, so people might expect to play with others.

At 3:30 am Eastern time I can go to any one of the major cities and find oodles of folks. Sure, there are various oddball outposts where you might be alone. But finding others to play is absolutely not a problem. Kaneing is a prime example of a city that maintains a heavy populous.

I know that those of us that have played since 05 could say it is relatively dead in compare. However I feel a newbie would have more of a problem dealing with the discriminatory attitude toward their ignorance of the game than they would finding people that still play.

Wow I thought I was posting something everyone knew was true and didn't expect you to try to prove me wrong, As a new player you will not have instant access to the Major cities where mostly everyone is. In Prophecies Pre besides Ascalon city isn't much populated, you'll get a few people in Ranik and a smaller group in Barradin and about as much at the abbey.

You would be lucky if you find anyone else in Wizard's folly, most I ever seen at one time was 5 I think.Now your out of Pre Ascalon has a good size of people around, but after that good luck finding 3 people until Yak's bend, you might find some people in Piken square but that's about it.Then you'll find nobody in the other cities/missions until beacons,After that it's Lion's arch and very few in Droks Jungle is dead and Dessert has a few people. that's it.So let's see if you he wants to play with people then, he will find people in Ascalon,Piken,Yak's,Beacon's,LA and Droks all of which are not mission places, so he will most likely have to do all the missions alone or he might get lucky and do maybe 2 of them with people.

The same story goes for Factions which is sometimes even worse, since the missions there are a bit harder so you might want someone to help you with them.
Nightfall is somewhat the same but it isn't that bad, you will probably find people in every town you go to, but then you have to be lucky for them to actually join you.


BTW those outpost aren't oddball when your going trough the game for the first time they are the outpost you will be using to get further.

I wasn't trying to "prove you wrong". I have a different opinion, thats all. I think you're way over stating your case. I was gone from the game for well over a year and was actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of active people I encountered. The ancillary outposts/non-mission outposts have always been short on bystanders.

To the OP: I would definitely start from prophecies first as it will provide a much more in depth tutorial feel. Trying to start from the other two chapters (Factions/Nightfall) would be like using a sponge to soak up a tidal wave.

Finding the right guild would ensure that he/she doesn't have to hack it alone. Some guilds are very receptive to new players. You can join and quit guilds at your discretion. We've all made the mistake of joining bad guilds before.

I agree with everything Marty said but to toss in my own opinions I'll answer the odd #ed ones.

1. It's not too hard to grab people. Someone grabs me all the time and I jump into a mission. There are many people who could care less, but also many people that jump into missions and help others. It's not a wasteland.

3. Everyone has their favorite. I love EotN and Nightfall. Some people like the others better. Try all three and see what you enjoy. You can definitely spend more time in one area than another, but if you go after daily quests and stuff you'll be spreading out amongst them all.

5. Guilds recruit all the time. It's hard to s"stay single" so to speak.

7. Yes. Tons of fun in my opinion. There is so much content. Lots to see and do. Lots of strategy too.