How does GW work?

I am looking for a new game to play with a couple of my friends, and I stumbled upon Guild Wars. It looks like a pretty great game, and heard that GW2 is coming out sometime this year (I think). I just have a couple questions on the content and game play, that hopefully can be answered

- What is the game play like? (similar to other games like WoW, Diablo?)

- Is there a lot of end-game content? Difficulty?

- Is there world PvP or are all the zones instanced?

- Would I be able to level up with friends?

- Are there professions like mining/blacksmith/tailoring?

Thanks in advance!

It doesn't play like WoW or Diablo, it's a pretty unique style of combat imo, but compared to WoW and other games it isn't as "free".

There isn't exactly end-game content per se...End game count be thought of as maxing titles for some people, or high end pvp for others. There are elite areas, Underworld, Fissure of Woe and Domain of Anguish etc which a lot of people group for though.

Everything in GW is instanced. To PvP you go to the respective outpost of what you want to play. For example there are outposts for Random Arenas, Team Arenas, Heroes Ascent etc. There is also Guild vs Guild but you would need to find a guild to play it.

Yes, you can level up with friends through all of the story. But if you and a friend chose different expansions then you won't meet up for a while.

No, there are no professions. All armor is bought from vendors in exchange for materials / gold. All max level armor / weapon damage is also equal, it just comes down to aesthetics.

1. GW is a WoW like. Just watch some vids and you'll get the basic idea.

2. GW is split in 4 campaigns, and for each there is an "end-game". The capaigns are Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North. to answer your question: yes there is quite a lot of end-game content and the capaigns themselves are awesome.

3. Difficutly depends on the class you choose. Factions for examples has a lot of monsters that tend to inflict Blind or Blurred Vision like conditions which makes it very annoying for Melee class. Also after you finish a capaign you get to play it on Hard Mode. So if I finish Prophecies capaign I can play it on Hard Mode and get more XP, gold and so on from the missions they offer. Also you get titles too on HM.

4. There isn't world PvP. When you get out of a Town, the game generates a map only for you and your pt ina n explorable area. But the PvP in GW is pretty awesome. Also there is an option to create a PvP-only character, which is already level 20 (level 20 is the cap) and you can start PvPing right off the bat.

5. Really you get level 20 really fast, but yes you can play this game with friends.

6. No there aren't any proffesions like blacksmith.

If GW is WoW-like, then ALL MMORPGs are WoW-likes. GW has pretty much unique style of gameplay totaly different from WoW-likes.

To the OP's question

1. posted above
2. Yes, there's a lot of elite end-game, but you get maxed weapons and armors in the very early part, so you don't have to grind for weeks to get max lvl, armor and weapon to start enjoying it.
3. No
4. Yes, it's MMO.
5. Fortunately no! I hate the endless grinding of those.

1. Gameplay is similar to playing a deck of cards, it is all about your cards (skills). If your skills are superior to the enemies, you have a good chance at winning. If the opposite case, there is a good chance you will lose. Guild Wars focuses on skills as their main game mechanic. You can have a maximum of 8 skills equipped (ie. a max of 8 skills on your bar) at a given time. These skills are divided into 10 professions. You have a primary and secondary profession. Each profession has a main attribute line (ex. warriors possess "strength", elementalists posses "energy storage"). The jist of the game is to create a build (collection of skills) using both primary and (optional) secondary professions. It's very creative and is a lot of fun!

2. End game content consists of Hard Mode (HM) which is the regular game with bumped difficulty. End game content includes WoC (Winds of Change), which is fairly more difficult than the regular game (not seen as end-game by some). Most of all you have UW, FoW, and DoA as end game (Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Domain of Anguish). These first two provide areas where rare materials drop from monsters and is a common place for groups to form and clear the area for high end items and lots of good loot. The last one is a place to farm a different kind of item, gemstones, which are used in crafting a popular looking kind of weapon.

3. Everything is instanced in Guild Wars except outposts (where you can form parties to go in instanced zones).

4. Guild Wars was made to be able to played solo or with a team. It is possible to level up with friends. With the level cap only at 20, there are fairly easy ways to reach the max. A hardcore player can play for three hours and reach the max while a more casual gamer can expect to reach it in 4 days to a week.

5. There are no professions like that but the classes you can choose from each have certain attribute lines of which skill points can be put into these to make your skills from each attribute more effective. A warrior can put points in Swordsmanship, Axe Mastery, Hammer mastery or Strength. The more points in Strength = more strong and effective Strength type skills. Etc for the other professions

- What is the game play like? (similar to other games like WoW, Diablo?)
Guild Wars isn`t like WoW or Diablo 2. My opinion about that is: You can have/unlock the same gear /ammo and weapons/ as the top players after a coucple of days. Noone will own you with UBER items. The difference between you and your oponent is micro/backgroung and lag.

- Is there a lot of end-game content? Difficulty?
PvE endgame isn`t that hard and you can master some of the zones in a month. Watch some youtube vids, get a good speedclear guild and you are in the end game.

- Is there world PvP or are all the zones instanced?
World PvP - Nope.
Guild vs. guild is 8 vs. 8
Heroes Ascent is 8 vs 8
Instanced zones - Yes

- Would I be able to level up with friends?
Yes you will be able to lvl up alone or with your friends, but soon you will realise that this game isn`t about lvlin. You can reach lvl 20 in PvE for 5-10 days. In PvP you always have a lvl 20 character.

- Are there professions like mining/blacksmith/tailoring?
There are no professions.

Guild Wars 1 Gameplay: You have 8 skill slots and can only have 1 elite skill equipped at a time. All the zones are instanced (you'll see other players in towns/cities/outposts but you will only see other players you're party with when you're killing monsters). You will have a primary profession (Warrior, Monk, Ranger, Elementalist, etc...) but you can also choose and change a secondary to whatever you want. One attribute point line will be locked to you but you have access to any skills you buy off a skill trainer just like you would if it was your primary profession

It's pretty unique gameplay when compared with a traditional MMO.

End-Game: There isn't much of an endgame but there are some dungeons and they are reasonably difficult. There is Hard Mode and Vanquishing which can sometimes be a pain if you want to consider that 'end game content'. As someone else mentioned there's Winds of Change and War in Kryta (Winds of Change being much harder).

World PvP: There is none. It's all arena PvP of some kind.

Leveling with friends: If your friends got the game or have it already, yes you can party up and level together.

Other 'professions': No, there is nothing like crafting, mining, blacksmithing.

Thought the setting is a bit like Wow (fantasy genre/middle age theme) there are big differences with WoW.

a: Max lvl is lvl 20, though reaching it is a goal, it is considered the turorial part. So most content is made for max lvl characters with max armor (most armor is max lvl as well).

b: Guildwars is Free to play, so no monthly fees after you buy it. Due to the expected release of Guildwars 2 soon it is fairly cheap.

c: Guildwars is always played in an instanced world. party's are formed in outposts from where you enter a private game world. There are a lot of those outposts making sure you don't have to walk long to reach your goal.

d: Although you can pick from a big pool of skills, you can only bring 8 of them into an instance (when in an outpost you can change them though). In this lies the true challenge of the game. Finding and using the perfect combination of 8 skills.

e: Most content is designed for a group of 8 players. If your group is smaller no problem, you can replace players by hero's (bots build in the game). Those hero's are fully customised (you can give them weapons, armor upgrade, and skills) and you can let them control their fight alone, manipulate their actions or fully hand control them.

Yeah sure....1st it depends on what he meant with WoW like...There are Sci-Fi, fantasy and anime style MMORPGs...so yeah if u think about it it's like WoW in a sense.

2nd You have to choose your class, and you get/buy skills, not like those games where you have to farm points for the skills/classes in dungeons/training rooms/ pve in general. So yeah it's like WoW in a sense.

In terms of mechanics, it's more MtG-like.
In terms of gameplay, it's truly unique.
In terms of setting, it's more Tolkien-like, though... not that much.

- What is the game play like? (similar to other games like WoW, Diablo?)

Kinda. If you've played Dragon Age, it's quite similar to that, but you have to choose which 8 skills to take into an instance before you leave town. It's a lot more team dependent than most other games though.

- Is there a lot of end-game content? Difficulty?

Plenty of End Game. Hard Mode (whole game again, but harder), UW, FoW, DoA, Urgoz, The Deep, Sorrows Furnace. Oh, and an entire expansion of end game level content (Eye of the North) which also has dungeons.

- Is there world PvP or are all the zones instanced?

Pvp isn't in the PVE game world, it takes place is PVP zones. All zones are instanced.

- Would I be able to level up with friends?

Yeah, you just need to party up with them.

- Are there professions like mining/blacksmith/tailoring?

GW doesn't have a crafts/hobbies system at all.