How do I start with it?

I want to ask, is Guild Wars a Dugeon & Dragon kind of game?

I have read many reviews, nearly all of them mention that GW is based on Diablo 2; is it very difficult for a new player to learn how to play it?

I have never played any games in the same genre except many years back, a game called Icewind Dale which offered only Single Player model. Neither have I purchased GW yet, but I am about to. Would I be able to play on-line stratight away after spending a few hours reading the manual?

By the way, does the retail box come with a manual? Is the manual good, and does it contain sufficient information? I heard that there is a background story, do I have to read all of it before I proceed?

Last question is, in a RPG game, naturally, player chooses to develop a character. Now what sort of character will one eventually end-up with? Will a character become an evil or a good man?

Sorry about all the stupid questions. I am just a newbie to this genre. MY background is from FPS, strategy and simulation games as well as adventure games.

Sadly this game requires no insight into the world, the game can be rushed through ignoring the plot and is NOTHING like icewind dale or baldurs gate, those games are GOOD, GW is just a little mediocre....you can make a character , join straight in, complete the game and be bored within a month.

yes u would be able to play straight away.
box comes with manual.
i havent read the manual and ive had the game for more than 3 months so u dont really need it.
u dont need to read the story.
the character will be good, this game isnt like fable or the other evil/good games.

Jus play the game, go to ur start menu, and load the programme, find out all the controlls, trade item values, and decide for urself wether u like it or not, i believe thats wat we all did.

Best of luck with ur new mmorpg experience

Are you quite serious?

What is the state of online gameplay? How many players are out there? How do I find a server? Is ArenaNet hosting the servers?

GW is pretty easy to understand fromt the beginning.. there are help tools that come up in the beginning that explain what to do in what you are going through. the morality of the characters do not change.. they are who they are.. you give them life.. you choose which skills they use.. but nothing good or bad .. it's all in how you play.. I've played Icewindale and it Baulder's Gate.. both D&D based... GW is kinda like that but the interface is different.. and the controls are a bit different.. instead of bird's eye view you have a "camera right behind you view" or if you zoom all the way in .. you have a "through your character's eyes view" but the genre of Icewindale and GW are almost alike and the concepts are similar. you have a characer.. character kills something.. you can xp.. you level up and gain skills.. and follow quests.. to be honest i haven't even looked at the instruction manual when i first played but it's in COLOR and it's helpful. All in all you could pop it in.. install it and play away till your hearts content if you have anymore questions ... please feel free to come back here.. there are a lot of good helpful ppl here who care. Sorry if my explaination isn't quite.. developed but i'm pressed for time someone else will post and fill in the gaps i've made. Overall, just enjoy the ride

Its not that complicated, there are many servers and to start off with ur usually put into a server depending on the amount of ppl, and yes, servers are hosted by Anet. as for amount of players, if u count the number of ppl on theses forums, therell be around several thousand (random guess, prolly more) and id say 95% of Gw players dont no about this great site ^^

there are heaps of players, u dont need otherhuman players to finish almost all quests

but this is an mmo, there wouldnt be much point playing alone, otherwise u can jus buy some other game and play sp

yeh i just bought gw mainly coz there was no other good rpg out at the time, teaming up with human players is fun but can sometimes be VERY frustrating.

Thanks! Specially to Hoxman, your explaination is very to the point. Okay, so there should be a manual in colour, and I guess it should be quite thick as well.

What about after we have finished all quests? Is the game replayable to a high degree?

The trouble with RPG games is that you pay for a game which eventually replaying it becomes a boring experience. Is GW an exception?

This forum is very good, the replies are quick and responsive.

If you do the PvE quests and missions and don't rush through you can get 100 to 200 hours of play. Yes it's possible to run through the game and people that are not interested in PvE and those going through multiple times do so mainly to unlock skills, runes and mods for PvP.

There is plenty of room for everything and you can do everything. Play solo with henchman, play with groups or a combination of both and also play PvP to your hearts content.

The world is huge, it's PvE only in instanced maps and missions and PvP in arenas, there is no griefing or ganking, you can be as social or as private as you want.

The skill and casting system is interesting and each character can have a primary and secondary profession so you can build a somewhat unique character.

One thing I did find out is that sometimes missions and quests look near impossible until you find the "catch" then they become managable or even easy, so this will somewhat take away from the replayability.

I think the game is fair, gives you a feeling of accomplishment and rewards you for deeds done. It does not punish you severely when you die and you can do small segments each day and feel like your time wasn't wasted.

It is not a gear based game in that a certain "uber" item will make you near invincible, there is no fungi tunic or arcanite reaper in this game although there are still highly sought after items. Small adds to armor and weapons make or break the character along with wise use of your skills.

I enjoy it and it's well worth the 50 bucks I paid for the game.

If you are looking for an in-depth role play experience, you're most likely not going to find it here. The RPG side of Guild Wars is (in my opinion) fun but can get boring after a while. Especially if you play alone, which some people enjoy doing. However, one of the biggest purposes of the RPG side of Guild Wars is to unlock skills and items for your PvP (Player vs Player) character. That is the big draw to Guild Wars; the PvP and Guild vs guild action (hence the name). Whatever you unlock in PvE (Player vs Environment) is made available for your PvP character. You can also play PvP with your role play character as there are arenas in a number of cities. If this sounds appealing to you, then buy the game. I really enjoy it.

I'd just like to point out that this game isn't an RPG in the strictest sense of the word. There is a story (pretty good one in my opinion) but you can play pretty much the whole game with out paying any attention to it. Replayability comes in from chosing different professions for your characters. Each character will "play" differently. There isn't much real Role Playing going on. So if you're expecting a lot of people to be acting as their characters you may be disappointed. D&D rules include things like good and evil. In GW you are good trying to defeat the evil. Even the Necromancer is a good guy. In this manner it's more like Dungeon Siege or Diablo. Character development does not include personality traits. Your Skills and abilities are determined by your choice of professions (Primary and Secondary), as mentioned previously. Have a look at some of the Guides available from the main page of this site, they should give you a lot more insight into this game.

To some old timers raised on PnP games, text MUD's, early computer games and the like RPG also means the stats, skills, weapon types, magic systems, going from a weak character to a strong character, the build up of stats, and so forth. That's the draw for myself and I'm sure others. Yes the stories are interesting and when you play you sometimes get into your character and the world but not to the extent that you become that character in all acts and deeds.

I guess you can say there is an RPG system or the mechanics of D&D and that type of game and there is Role Playing, acting out your character above and beyond the mechanical aspect of playing the game.

This game certainly has an RPG system as opposed to a FPS, RTS or TBS system and definitely does not have much Role Playing as would a RP server in EQ or WoW.

Not saying there is much RP on a RP server in WoW but there was supposed to be in the "vision".

other than the horrible plotline that not a single person playing the game has figured out yet...you'll have no problem understanding this game. It's a medicore RPG at best. The gameplay is great though, unlike most RPGs it requires a level of skill other than select your coolest spells and smash the hell out of your keyboard until everything is dead.

Okay, then maybe reviews have misled some of us to believe it is a RPG. In all honesty, I do not care if it is or not! D&D, as many of you might know about it, originates from board games in the 80's. My uncle used to play alot when I was a kid. I didn't know much at the time and lost to him most of the time.

Just as you have rbought up EQ. EQ seems to have even fabulous graphics. But I just wouldn't go for EQ, because I will not pay for the monthly fee.

So, in a PvP session, are we playing a co-op or we fight against each other head-2-head?

in pvp its 2 teams of 4 players duking it out, there are also 8 v 8 battles

GW is its own game.. best advise is to just play it and find that out for yourself, after all thats what we all did at some point

I have played an adventure game, which has very strong character backgroud and an eqaully good story line, the name of the game is "Post-Mortem". The most attractive aspect of the game is that it has a very nice voice acting feature.

I recall, "Icewind Dale" doesn't have voice acting. Conversations amongst characters are all textual.

One sill question: is GW the same like Icewind Dale" when it comes to character talking to each other, of course I mean in PvE when only I myself is a human player whereas all the others are NPC (i.e. AI players).

In PvE, the group leader and some NPCs have their voices acted out during cutscenes in a mission. The rest of the conversations are mostly textual. However, human teamates (both in PvE and PvP) can interact with voices if they have Teamspeak of Ventrillo.

All is all, GW's genre is "CORPG" - Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. The RPG element certainly couldn't be compared to single player RPGs, but the main focus of this game is the cooperative aspect, whether it's PvE or PvP. I find myself enjoying the chats between teamates more than winning a battle. If you could find yourself some good buddies and a good guild, this game is emersive

I have some new experience during my research into this game. Watched one of the main trailers. Immediately came to my mind is "Lords of the Ring", I mean the motion picture.

But surely, I think the game is very interactive.