Worth it?

Hey guys,

Now, my basic, main question is: Is buying Guild Wars (trilogy, I think) worth it right now? Now, of course you're all going to say yes, this being a Guild Wars forum, but I got a few specific questions, so bear with me. Skip to the last paragraph if in a hurry.

First of all, most of my MMO experience has been WoW, which I've been playing on and off (mostly off actually :P) for a couple of years. I've played the first Guild wars when it was released and had quite a bit of fun, but eventually just kinda quit playing. Anyhow, I heard that the expansion packs really added a lot to the game, and with the AWESOME guild wars 2 on the horizon, I was thinking about buying the trilogy and starting all over again in GW. (forgot my original account, regrettably) It also looks fun to experience the story before diving in GW2, I guess. I'm a major nerd when it comes to stories. :P

Anyway, I mentioned WoW because of a big problem I noticed with that game: The experience for new players, after all these years, basically sucks. It really does. There's absolutely no sense of community to the first 84 levels, and all those amount to are a big theme park ride where you try and grind your way to something slightly more fun. Is Guild Wars like this? How does a completely new player experience the game nowadays? Is it possible to still group and do those fun, epic quests I remember, or is it mostly solo play for a new player? And if so, how fun and viable is solo play?

Not being familiar with WoW I can't directly compare, but you can level up to max level 20 in GW very quickly, especially in Nightfall or Factions. If you want to group up you have basically two viable options. Find a guild that is friendly towards new players (they do exist), or use PUGs to do the various missions. The latter is viable because there is a daily "bonus" mission that gives rewards useful to all players so you can usually find a group to do that mission. However if you are a halfway decent player you can solo almost or all missions in the game using henchmen, or better yet the customizable heroes you get in Nightfall. I would strongly recommend getting the Eye of the North expansion because (a) more heroes, (b) Hall of Monuments which gives rewards in GW2, (c) fun.
Heroes are good - you equip them with builds just like a player and have the ability to micro-manage them. A reasonable hero team can easily complete almost all the missions in Normal Mode.

WoW you get 1 skillset from 1-60, new skills from 61-70, new from 71-80 and new from 81-85.

GW, you can basically use all skills from level 1. So not having all expansions is the same as beeing level 85 with only the pre level 60 skills available. Simply put, you can't do a very good job.

Get all, INCLUDING Eye of the North.

Only a few weeks ago I was going through your exact same situation. From my experience, of only about three weeks of playing, I have nothing but extreme positives to offer you. I have ONLY met extremely nice people, who are constantly willing to help. Just don't be afraid to ask and the help will be there. Finding a guild was not hard at all for me. Just don't be afraid to get involved in the community, and it will be rewarding. I don't know what it is about Guild Wars, but the community here is unlike anything I've ever been a part of in an MMO. I truly do not think you will be unhappy with the environment.
You will level to 20 rather quickly. I myself am currently still playing through Prophecies, and reached 20 in a week or so, which in hindsight was a rather slow pace.
Overall I recommend you just go for it. More likely then not the 20 dollars or so will be well worth the enjoyment you will get, even if it doesn't turn out to be your favorite game (although it very well may )

Well since WoW is a huge gear treadmill, and GW is not, I think you will like it here.

There is no reason for anyone to exclude you from certain areas because you don't have the proper gear or high enough DPS. All gear is equal in power, the only thing that matters is how proficient you are at using your own skillbuild, and completing the story in each game doesn't require much in terms of exact builds or such, just that you are capable with whatever skills you bring (within reason of course).

In WoW, say your rotation consists of 5 spells. It doesn't really matter if you are freshly dinged or in the most awesome epics out there, you will still push those same 5 buttons, and the only difference will be the numbers popping up over your enemies heads.

In GW however, as you progress you will discover and learn how to play more efficient skillbuilds, and THIS will transform you from a noob into a vicious killingmachine, not the fact that you slayed a dragon last week.

Personally, I think this makes for a much more fun gameplay, but of course it is all subject to opinion. I also think this allows for a better community within GW than WoW.

And yes, as you said, I am a GW fanboy and I will tell you to buy the game. But I have also played WoW a lot, and in my honest opinion, spending that cash on the GW games was a much better purchase than the tons I spent on WoW during the years.

In the end it's a matter of personal opinion whether or not you will like GW, but I sure as hell recommend you to give it a try, because if you like it at start, you will soon love it.

I play very rarely nowdays because I've done everything I feel like doing and I have much else to do. But when I play I almost always play solo with my heroes and have a really good time.

I remember when I played with other people before and I definitely had a blast, and you'll probably have that as well, albeight it might be a little bit more dificult to find a group now than it was a couple of years back. However, playing solo with my heroes suits me fine for how I currently want to play gw1, and you'll certainly will have an enjojable time that way as well.

GW2 is still a month away if you pre-purchase and then only for a limited amount of time (beta events) until it's finally released. Plenty of time to enjoy gw1. Buy the complete collection (all 4) because you'll want all the heroes and skills + not to forget, access to the hall of monuments

No, it's not worth it these days. GW2 is comming out in a few months and GW1 will die after GW2 is released. (Some people will stay, but not enough to make MMO lively.)

The problem with PUGs who are doing the daily challenge, however, is that they're usually looking to do it in Hard Mode, which isn't available to brand new accounts (you have to complete Normal Mode first). However, a lot of new people are coming in to GW in preparation for GW2, so the "newbie PUG scene" is probably more alive now than it has been in a while. That said, getting into a newbie-friendly guild is probably the best way to go.

If you're in to story and lore, picking up the trilogy/complete collection (which would include Eye of the North) is an excellent idea.

Even if you don't always have people available to play with, the heroes make "solo" play totally viable (and sometimes even more enjoyable than struggling with other headstrong players).

Generally all correct, but a few addenda to this. People generally shouldn't exclude you from certain areas, since as Gileas mentions all gear once you reach max level is functionally the same (i.e., it's not at all difficult to acquire a maximum stat sword or hammer or whatever). However,
gear does vary cosmetically. For example, a high end Tormented Sword (an end-game elite area sword type) is about 185,000 gold without any of the combat-helping mods you'd normally want on it, whereas a fully-modded Butterfly Sword (a very common type of sword) is only 15,000 gold (looks like a lot still, but not that much), and you could probably get a decent sword for 5k. The only difference between these sword types is the appearance: a tormented sword does not do any more or better damage than a butterfly sword. Nevertheless, there is a bit of elitism in certain areas: if you show up in newbie armor, you might get odd looks. I only mention this in case you try to do a certain elite area as a new player, and get yelled at. I don't (fully) agree with the elitism, but it's something to be aware of.

I also want to mention starting location, since you'll probably want to figure that out too. There are three campaigns for Guild Wars (Eye of the North, the fourth released title, is not a stand-alone campaign):

• The first, Prophecies, offers only the core professions: elementalist, mesmer, monk, necromancer, ranger, and warrior. It has by far the shallowest learning curve, and includes lots of skill quests that teach you skills. Generally good for a beginner. It's a little quieter here, since lots of people have moved on to the other campaigns for now, but there's still enough people here to make it fun.
• The second, Factions, offers two additional professions (in addition to the 6 core professions): assassin and ritualist. It has by far the steepest learning curve, in that you only do two missions (and half a dozen quests) before you're slapped in the area meant for level 20 characters. Unless you're really dead-set on making an assassin or a ritualist, I'd avoid this campaign until you get some experience under your belt.
• The third, Nightfall, offers the other two professions (but not assassin or ritualist): Dervish and Paragon. In terms of pace, NF is somewhere between Prophecies and Factions. It's not as quick as Factions, in that you have time to learn, but it's definitely faster than Prophecies. You also get heroes, which many players will tell you you need to get from the outset. Bad advice. Heroes are customizable NPCs that help you fight, but they are only as good as the skills you give them. If you're a new player with no access to (and no knowledge of) monk skills, for example, your Dunkoro monk hero will be far worse than the henchmen heroes.

I'd also mention starting towns. These are the first major towns that you get to as a new character. For Prophecies, this Ascalon City*. For Factions, this is Shing Jea Monastery. For Nightfall, this is Kamadan, Jewel of Istan.
Ascalon City is pretty newbie-friendly. There are often people (me included) running around there just to help newbies. There's very little to do there otherwise, and not much in the way of attractive events there, so people don't have much reason not to help newbies if they're there.
Shing Jea is, for whatever reason, pretty much the highschool of Guildwars (in the worst way possible!): it's full of trolls, drama, and stuff that isn't friendly. It's the antithesis of newbie-friendly. Ask a question about the game there, and more often than not you'll get ignored or told to press Alt-F4 or delete system-32 or something. If you need to create a character in Factions, do it, but get out of Shing Jea Monastery as soon as you reasonably can.
Kamadan is currently the trade capital of the entire game. For this reason, it is not only confusing to a new player (you'll enter the town to the tune of "WTS q8 ES BDS w/ NaCL & C6H12O6" or something equally indecipherable like that) but you also likely won't get much in the way of advice. It's better than Shing Jea in terms of its overall attitude, but not much.

I hope some of this is helpful! I've been playing 6 years or so, and I still enjoy the game.

*

Here is the long and short of it. Don't buy the game, unless you are willing to play through it.

I'll be honest with you, guild wars is slowly dying off, especially in the wake of gw2. But if you join a helpful guild and get involved in the community, you will still have fun with a smaller player base.

If you are playing the game simply to prepare yourself for gw2, I would suggest to not buy it. You can look up the lore you miss easily, and no one knows if the HoM rewards are even going to be that good.

However, if you are willing to play through the game, take it at a slow pace, meet new people, get involved in the community, and just in general have a good time, it is so worth it. This game has held my attention for 4 years and every time I open the browser its a new adventure.

Actually we know EXACTLY how good the HoM rewards will be, we have seen them, and they are more or less cosmetic (just like more or less everything else in GW2)

Buy it, you won't(shouldn't) regret it, I know I haven't. I was playing TOR waiting for GW2 but tired with that fast so decided to try to get some HOM points and there's 6 years of content to plough through, just finished NF and starting with Factions and I'm having a great time.

Just a shame I didn't give it real crack years ago.

The grind like you describe really isn't terrible like WoW but it is similar. For two years now I have been focused on speed clearing, which is running through dungeons as fast as possible to get rewards fast, and the community has gotten better. It used to be real bad where you had to show the party member your cash for your "entrance fee" (consumable cost) but now it's much more relaxed. I am talking about dungeons from the eye of the north expansion pack. The fissure of woe is good too about groups but expect a hard time getting in good underworld or DoA groups unless you know someone or put a lot of time in it.

Most of pve nowadays is solo but daily quests bring people together again to do old missions or whatnots

Alright, thanks you guys! See you in game.

Yes, GW1 is essentially like WoW in that regard. Because of the age of the game, plus the addition of 7-hero parties, you can expect to play almost all of the game with just yourself and heroes/henchmen unless you happen to find a guild with people who are also playing through the game (and who are online at the same time as you, like to play with you, etc,etc.)