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Guild Wars 1 - Play it, because it is filled with awesome
- Thread starter Victrix
- Start date
Yeah, this is one part of Guild Wars that confuses people a bit - Think of getting to max level as a very in-depth tutorial and resource gathering run before the intense stuff begins. Most MMOs already lock away most of their content in the endgame, so ArenaNet decided not to beat around the bush with GW.etiolate said:
Given the community, approaching it like a single player crpg probably works well.
I like NF better too as a starting point, but Proph isn't that bad. You won't be able to get any heroes until 1/3rd of the way in, and using henchmen means you have to play a little smarter. If you're interested in GW2, then prophecies is much more relevant in terms of lore, so I could see starting there. NF and Factions are basically written the fuck out in terms of GW2.
Factions is probably the worst spot for a new player. Pretty, and if you got a serious Asian fetish thing going I could see going there first. But it absolutely levels you up super quick with little explanation on how the game works.
Anyway, fun game. Been playing for six years or so. Member of popular forum guild, but keep in mind most such guilds have some really strict guidelines on language and behavior compared to the norm. Also trading has always sucked. Worst part of the game, etc.
I like NF better too as a starting point, but Proph isn't that bad. You won't be able to get any heroes until 1/3rd of the way in, and using henchmen means you have to play a little smarter. If you're interested in GW2, then prophecies is much more relevant in terms of lore, so I could see starting there. NF and Factions are basically written the fuck out in terms of GW2.
Factions is probably the worst spot for a new player. Pretty, and if you got a serious Asian fetish thing going I could see going there first. But it absolutely levels you up super quick with little explanation on how the game works.
Anyway, fun game. Been playing for six years or so. Member of popular forum guild, but keep in mind most such guilds have some really strict guidelines on language and behavior compared to the norm. Also trading has always sucked. Worst part of the game, etc.
witchedwiz
Member
i'm supposedly playing it starting yesterday..
now if i could stop going to my pool and drink cocktail with friends while swimming, i guess that would improve my game time...
but this is summer and i'm home at my villa... i've got time to be nerdy when i'm back to milan for work, in less than 1 week..
now if i could stop going to my pool and drink cocktail with friends while swimming, i guess that would improve my game time...
but this is summer and i'm home at my villa... i've got time to be nerdy when i'm back to milan for work, in less than 1 week..
Awesome thread Victrix! I've been interested in this game ever since I heard Ryan Scott talk about it on the CGW/GFW podcast. Glad to finally be trying it out now, didn't realize it had a free trial.
At first I didn't get what you meant about starting with Nightfall. Like, telling someone new to WoW to start with WotLK wouldn't really make any sense. But I guess you can start any expansion from level 1.
At first I didn't get what you meant about starting with Nightfall. Like, telling someone new to WoW to start with WotLK wouldn't really make any sense. But I guess you can start any expansion from level 1.
flyinpiranha
Member
Is the trial very telling of the expansion play? I'm not very impressed but I have a feeling it's because I should have gotten in when the gettin' was good (years ago).
I might just wait until GW2 though, it's fairly close and I have other games on my plate.
I might just wait until GW2 though, it's fairly close and I have other games on my plate.
sykoex said:
I'll clarify this and a few other points when I add some more stuff to the OP - when I said 'standalone' I meant it, each of Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall can be played/purchased entirely alone. Eye of the North cannot, as it is the only true expansion.
But the long and the short of it is:
1) If you are a *totally* new player, start a new character in Prophecies purely to see pre-searing Ascalon. Once you complete that, you should have a good grasp of the game (and you've seen a really cool exclusive area).
2) Start in Nightfall. It has the smoothest progression of all three campaigns, is a strong campaign overall, and gives you Heroes throughout the campaign.
You can move from one campaign to another once you have completed their newbie areas, but in Prophecies case, its 'newbie area' is comparatively enormous, and your progression through it is glacial.
After you've gone through Nightfall and/or Factions, you will know a lot more about the game, have a stock of cash and items to twink out your Proph character with, and have a better idea of how to play the game in general (eg, with help, you can run a Prophecies character to the port that allows you to access the other campaigns, go get heroes, then come back and plow the early missions with ease).
As far as storyline goes, all four are cool - Prophecies and Factions have some interesting ties to the end of Nightfall, and Eye of the North picks up several threads from Prophecies, as well as heading towards the beginning of the Guild Wars 2 storyline.
There's also a new (free, and ongoing) expansion called Guild Wars Beyond that is adding new quests and content that explores yet more of the Guild Wars 2 backstory.
Sourtreats
Member
I started playing Eye of the North after not playing anything but Prophecies at launch, but I feel so lost in the world.
I dunno, if they actually play through pre-searing I think they might as well play through prophecies. Starting a new character, going through pre, then starting another new character in nightfall seems like a hassle. Afaik you have to have access to LA in order to take a proph char to nightfall.Victrix said:
Helmholtz said:
Nah, pre-searing is tiny in comparison to the areas/missions before you reach Lion's Arch, and grinding through those areas and missions with a brand new Proph character with henchmen only and the awful way they distribute skills in Prophecies? No thanks. It's one of the major reasons all of my friends quit the game, it is an awful, awful introduction to the game as a whole.
Playing through pre-searing is simply an extended tutorial in a pretty area, and you can always just jump right into Nightfall if you don't want to bother with that (or if you're a returning player who was burned by that exact experience in the past).
By contrast, Nightfall (and Factions) jump you to 20 quickly, put max stat weapons and armor in your hands sooner, and most importantly, give you quick access to heroes and skills without having to jump through quest hoops.
That isn't to say Prophecies as a whole is bad - it's one of my favorite campaigns in total, it's just that as an introduction, it's too damn slow.
Optimus Lime
(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
Downloading the trial. I've wanted to play this for a while, but I was always unsure. Is there still much of a playerbase?
Guess I'll wait and see. I'd love to hook up with GAF if it has a presence in-game.
Guess I'll wait and see. I'd love to hook up with GAF if it has a presence in-game.
Playerbase is still quite active. The Hall of Monuments really revitalized the game, and there are still people working on it - as excitement for GW2 builds, it will push even more HoM seekers to reactivate/purchase the game as well.
But you need to know where to look for it - as a totally instanced game, if you just jump in and try to find parties for missions, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Given the advanced age of the game, most players are looking for groups for the top-end areas in the game, or the daily quests on hard mode (this also makes certain aspects of PvP staggeringly unfriendly to new players, but there are 'casual' PvP elements that you can always play and join at any time of the day).
Because so much of the game can be done with heroes (especially now that you can do a full party with heroes), there's little incentive to party up with random players for early non-hard mode missions, and even most hard mode missions can be completed with a full hero party once you know what you're doing.
TLDR: Join a damn guild or quit complaining about being ronery
edit - re: a GAF guild, I'm avoiding bringing it up because a) GAF guilds are flash in the pan affairs for most games and b) I simply do not have the time to organize one. If there is an active group of gaffers in game, feel free to advertise, or form one yourself, can't hurt a thing! But even if you don't, join a guild! Even if you're going to solo, just so you have people to chat with, join a guild!
But you need to know where to look for it - as a totally instanced game, if you just jump in and try to find parties for missions, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Given the advanced age of the game, most players are looking for groups for the top-end areas in the game, or the daily quests on hard mode (this also makes certain aspects of PvP staggeringly unfriendly to new players, but there are 'casual' PvP elements that you can always play and join at any time of the day).
Because so much of the game can be done with heroes (especially now that you can do a full party with heroes), there's little incentive to party up with random players for early non-hard mode missions, and even most hard mode missions can be completed with a full hero party once you know what you're doing.
TLDR: Join a damn guild or quit complaining about being ronery
edit - re: a GAF guild, I'm avoiding bringing it up because a) GAF guilds are flash in the pan affairs for most games and b) I simply do not have the time to organize one. If there is an active group of gaffers in game, feel free to advertise, or form one yourself, can't hurt a thing! But even if you don't, join a guild! Even if you're going to solo, just so you have people to chat with, join a guild!
What? No way. The fact that you slowly accumulated a bunch free skills was good. You only have to buy a handful of skills.Victrix said:
Giving the player a list of 30 skills and saying 'choose 8' is intimidating. Much better to slowly give them more to choose from, before finally allowing them to top off their skills with a handful of elite or purchased ones.
Chromax said:Started a new character and finally got to the fire island place in Prophecy. After I finish should I just move to Factions with that character followed by Nightfall and EOTS?
I feel I'm years away from 30/50 points...
I'm assuming you've already grabbed the early heroes from Factions/Nightfall?
But yeah, if you want to go purely chronologically do Factions->Nightfall->GWEN
There's only a very minor story link from Factions to Nightfall, and neither Factions nor Nightfall link heavily to GWEN, so you don't need to feel beholden to that order by any means. If you get bored in one place, go check out another.
Eye of the North also has more heroes and some really absurdly powerful PvE only skills.
Oh, and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. It owns.
edit: Don't sweat the Hall of Monuments thing. GW2 is a long ways out, and if you find you enjoy playing GW, you'll realize you can progress to 30 points by playing almost entirely naturally. I never belonged to any serious guild, only played very, very casually on and off since launch (we're talking <500 hours over 6 years), and I managed to hit 30 points just a few days ago - one binge session during the holidays last year, and about a week or two of play this year and I had it done. Best part? Still mountains of stuff I haven't seen or done in the game, so now I'm just playing because I enjoy it.
ArtistDude88
Member
I really need to complete the story campaigns of Factions and Nightfall sometime before GW2 :S
Energy and health has always been mostly been at the same levels.
The game has had its own power creep though via skills. It really cropped up a little before Nightfall (about when competitive pvp started taking a backseat), and then EotN blew the doors off with some super powered PvE only skills.
Normal mode (you start here) is dirt easy once you understand the game mechanics. Hard mode is a huge difference at first, but then you learn how to abuse certain quirks and classes (Necros, mesmers, rits, and war/sins) to make it easy too. The elite areas in HM can still be quite a challenge though.
The game has had its own power creep though via skills. It really cropped up a little before Nightfall (about when competitive pvp started taking a backseat), and then EotN blew the doors off with some super powered PvE only skills.
Normal mode (you start here) is dirt easy once you understand the game mechanics. Hard mode is a huge difference at first, but then you learn how to abuse certain quirks and classes (Necros, mesmers, rits, and war/sins) to make it easy too. The elite areas in HM can still be quite a challenge though.
CadaveriaIX
Member
Logged well over 8000+ hours in this baby so far, and still playing it.. more so helping out guildies as everything else has been done.
But if you can manage to stick with it, there is a lot of fun to be had, Hard Mode is one of the best things in this game, no other mmo/online game has given me the strategic experience you can get from Guild Wars Hard Mode, especially the Eye of the North Dungeons.
Also one of the few games where I actually filled the screen shot folder and had to make another one
Bottom line you don't really have anything to loose, games cheap, if your curious/interested give it a shot, at the very least you walk away with a few GW2 bonus items.
EDIT: went through my screenshot folder.
But if you can manage to stick with it, there is a lot of fun to be had, Hard Mode is one of the best things in this game, no other mmo/online game has given me the strategic experience you can get from Guild Wars Hard Mode, especially the Eye of the North Dungeons.
Also one of the few games where I actually filled the screen shot folder and had to make another one
Bottom line you don't really have anything to loose, games cheap, if your curious/interested give it a shot, at the very least you walk away with a few GW2 bonus items.
EDIT: went through my screenshot folder.
Grayman said:
There were armor sets that had the same effect as radiant, but were called something different. Factions and Nightfall added more variety and the ability to mix and match armor looks with stats.
The average player's health has increased due to the game changing. When backlines got less pressure, it was less of a risk to carry Superior Runes of a character's main attribute. When the jump in damage from say 13 in an attribute to 16 in an attribute was far greater, PVP builds commonly used Superior attribute runes with Superior Helath runes to balance things out. When they changed tanking rules and mob behavior along with the attribute curve, people started dropping superior attribute runes and taking only minor attribute runes. This lead the to higher health pools due to Health runes with no -health penalties being overcome. Then Vitae and Energy runes added a little to health and energy bars.
Dervishes though added a tidy sum to health bars due to enchantments and avatar forms. My common dervish tanking build is based off of avatar of Melandru and my HP ranges from 770 to 850.
ArtistDude88
Member
Great screens.
I use to spend hours exploring the world, before they even had titles to do it. They hid some amazing and beautiful landscapes and art off the beaten path!
I use to spend hours exploring the world, before they even had titles to do it. They hid some amazing and beautiful landscapes and art off the beaten path!
Treemonkeys
Member
I was always really intrigued by this game I even bought Prophecies and Factions at release and played them a decent amount of time but every time I always got to a certain point where the missions were too hard where I couldn't find a group that could beat them and I couldn't beat them with the henchmen either. I think I will give it another go, it would be nice to finish them before GW2 is released. Hopefully I can find a decent guild every time I joined a guild in the past it was plagued with inactivity.
$30 for the trilogy on Steam... hmmm...
http://donttemptmefrodo.ytmnd.com/
I tried to play it twice before back when Spike Spiegel was creating Guild Wars threads all over the place. Still remember this post from him in the GW official thread:
I am sorry Frodo.
http://donttemptmefrodo.ytmnd.com/
I tried to play it twice before back when Spike Spiegel was creating Guild Wars threads all over the place. Still remember this post from him in the GW official thread:
Haha poor bugger. I think I initially stopped playing because it was bog standard Prophecies but with the trilogy being el-cheapo (I should have bought it during the Steam sale) and my anticipation for GW2 hitting the ceiling well why not.Spike Spiegel said:
I am sorry Frodo.
Luckily GW2 allows you to jump, dodge, swim etc...ciaossu said:You can't jump
I tried it out, and that was the first thing I noticed. I don't feel very in control of my character if I can't jump, in any game, really.
Constrictive movement is definitely one of GW1's weaknesses.
Almost everyone in the thread recommended starting with Nightfall, so I'm not sure why you're even asking. It's well known that prophecies is the slowest of all the campaigns. I still have fond memories of it, but a lot of that is nostalgia, and having gone back to it recently it definitely does not hold up as well as nightfall and eotn do.hamchan said:
But to answer your question more directly, the absolute slowest/most generally disliked portion of prophecies is the part right after leaving pre-searing (the starting area), which is post-searing/old ascalon. Things do pick up to some degree once you get to Yak's Bend and beyond.
I took a little tour of EotN in order to grab some screen shots of some of my favorite areas, and just some areas in general.
Sifhalla (Norn outpost)
Vlox's Falls (Asuran outpost)
Above three are of Arbor Bay (my personal favorite explorable area)
Waterfall in Gadd's encampment (my favorite outpost)
Some statues on a cliff in Sparkfly Swamp (I'm standing on a floating bridge made of rocks)
Floating rock bridge in Sparkfly Swamp (I'm standing on that wooden bridge shown in the previous screen)
Drakkar Lake (a frozen lake inhabited by Djinns, Centaurs and elementals)
Eye of the North outpost
Entrance view of the Hall of Monuments
Sorry for the massive post. Eye of the North is literally full of amazing places like this.
Sifhalla (Norn outpost)
Vlox's Falls (Asuran outpost)
Above three are of Arbor Bay (my personal favorite explorable area)
Waterfall in Gadd's encampment (my favorite outpost)
Some statues on a cliff in Sparkfly Swamp (I'm standing on a floating bridge made of rocks)
Floating rock bridge in Sparkfly Swamp (I'm standing on that wooden bridge shown in the previous screen)
Drakkar Lake (a frozen lake inhabited by Djinns, Centaurs and elementals)
Eye of the North outpost
Entrance view of the Hall of Monuments
Sorry for the massive post
. Eye of the North is literally full of amazing places like this.This is about where I quit initially. Technically I had barely put a toe into the ocean and I was a bit busy with other stuff at the time, everything seemed to magnify to the point where I stopped playing. I was even being hassled by friends to pick it back up but for some reason I never bothered.Helmholtz said:
Hopefully things will be a bit different this time. I am a little more mature these days!
Prophecies is certainly a daunting game when you first play it, and it requires a lot of patience to get through. It's easily the biggest campaign of the three, both geographically and content-wise.speedpop said:
Edit: I mean, check out the map of Tyria (warning big image): http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/6/66/Tyria_map_thumb.jpg
Dude...bummer. Apparently a lot of people have been hacked, which prompted me to change my password to something super complicated. Luckily I haven't been hacked and have had an account since 05.Lulubop said:
Vigilant Walrus
Member
The game has always been fantastic, but I don't think the average GAF poster has what it takes to really understand the complicated skill system in this game. The game asks a lot of it's players, and while it seems easy enough to play on the surface - Do a few missions here, kill some mobs and press some attacks there, actually finding out what works - Combos across dmg types, weapon types, professions, skills, teamates. The possibilities are basically endless.
The game is not without problems. Armor is hard to come by, many of the skills look and sound too familiar, making them hard to tell apart, and the competitive nature of it makes some skills and weapon seem so close that you can barely tel the diffference. But that seemingly useless 0,1% damage difference does make a difference in the games very competitive PvP game.
The PvP game is not friendly to dive into. While GW has the most balanced PvP that I have played in an Online RPG to date - I think the game never got a great PvP community. it never took off as the end of all e-sport as it was designed to. Through development it took a more PvE route. A more Diablo-Run mentality, and today, easily 50% of the game is PvE people, which paved the way for EOTN, a PvE expansion with PvE skills.
GW is a game you need to force yourself to play before it shows itself. You need to want to collect all the skills, which will take you over 400-600 hours. Across the three campaigns and unlockables, even without diving into the PvE, I reckon that there are more PvE content in the campaigns themselves than in Morrowind and Oblivion combined.
The game is not without problems. Armor is hard to come by, many of the skills look and sound too familiar, making them hard to tell apart, and the competitive nature of it makes some skills and weapon seem so close that you can barely tel the diffference. But that seemingly useless 0,1% damage difference does make a difference in the games very competitive PvP game.
The PvP game is not friendly to dive into. While GW has the most balanced PvP that I have played in an Online RPG to date - I think the game never got a great PvP community. it never took off as the end of all e-sport as it was designed to. Through development it took a more PvE route. A more Diablo-Run mentality, and today, easily 50% of the game is PvE people, which paved the way for EOTN, a PvE expansion with PvE skills.
GW is a game you need to force yourself to play before it shows itself. You need to want to collect all the skills, which will take you over 400-600 hours. Across the three campaigns and unlockables, even without diving into the PvE, I reckon that there are more PvE content in the campaigns themselves than in Morrowind and Oblivion combined.