New Prospective Guild Wars Player, Few Questions

Comments

• Rothaela Member Posts: 15

  December 2007

  Hello and welcome!

  First let me say that my enthusiasm far outweighs my ability to give you any constructive numbers or xp per hour etc.

   

  1: I have all 4 expansions and I've enjoyed the stories from them all. I've "beat" the Prophecies and Factions campaigns so far.

  2: Whenever I'm playing there are always a bunch of other people on...so I think the answer is yes.

  3:There are things from the expansions that bleed over to the others. You can cross characters between lands. So, you can have an assassin from Factions cross over to Prophecies and Nightfall...level 20s can go to Eye of the North.

  4:I think the challenge of controlling 3 heroes makes the Nightfall campaign interesting; it's like playing 4 characters at once. I've liked the game enough to play it for over 2 years.

  You can add me to your friends if you'd care for 'live' company sometime; I usually play on Quiet Madness or Child of the Summer...I have 4 other characters too.

  I am the mother of 4; therefore I am insane.
• Lydon Member UncommonPosts: 2,938

  January 2008

  
  
  1.  The storylines are definitely of the best. They have a huge number of quests, as well as cutscenes for every main mission which help to immerse the player into the game.

  2.  Player numbers are currently more than ever There is definitely more than enough people with whom to play. If you ever can't find a group, there are always hireable NPCs (henchmen and heroes if you own Nightfall and/or Eye of the North)

  3.  It really doesn't matter which order you play the campaigns in, however, the original Prophecies campaign forms a good foundation for the following campaigns lore-wise.

  4.  Guild Wars is definitely skill-based, meaning that the majority of WoW players won't enjoy it simply because it's not a mindless grind to maximum level. If you don't have the skill, you aren't effective, simple as that. Sales recently exceeded 4 million, meaning that it not near as big as WoW, but far ahead of most other MMOs.

   
• Diross Member Posts: 179

  January 2008

  Time to chime in my two bits worth. 

  The storyline is what made me enjoy this game and enjoy it outright. You can work through the first product Guild Wars and it's only $29.99 USD for starters, no subscription fees is a very nice thing.

  I went back to GW after taking a couple of years off and it's very enjoyable as I'm more a casual gamer lately due to real life demands. I can log in and do what ever I need to do for 45 min to an hour and log off and take care of family matters and get back in the game action later in the week or following weeks...puts me in command of my gaming progress and enjoyment fun factor. There are always ppl online playing regardless of what GW edition you are playing.

  I recently had a few of my old SWG friends start playing GW because they are in the same circumstances as myself. We don't meet up every day like we did in SWG or WoW, but we do see each other in GW and have a blast.

  Sorry I got a bit off on answering your questions since I concur with the other replies made thus far.

  Eve-Online, EQ2, DnL, SWG (Dead), Guild Wars, Anarchy Online, EQ, DAoC, Planet Side, WoW, LOTR, Tabula Rasa.
• rap87 Member Posts: 13

  January 2008

  Thanks for the help guys.  I'll defiantly add you to my friends list Rothaela .   I had one other question about porting an Assassins from  Factions over to Prophecies, I bought the 14 day trial deal from ebgames for 2 bucks, liking the game so far.  Haven't had a chance to get into the story to much, other than the intro movie, I'm still in noob stage...lol...But someone was saying something about not being able to port over an Assassin PRE, it would only work in POST.  Something about the Searing, or something.  I wanted to start out as an Assassin/Monk, or Assassin/Warrior.  However, I want to play Prophecies first...I guess I'll end up being a Warrior/Monk, for now, if I can't port over a guy, but how does that work?

   

  Thanks.
• sassoonss Member UncommonPosts: 1,132

  January 2008

  The 1st campaign was Prophecies with 6 core  professions

   

  assassin and ritualist come in 2nd campaign FACTIONS

   

  You can take assassin back to prophecies but not to pre searing part of prophecies

   

  Pre searing was the introductory world of Tyria in prophecies before the CHARR invaded it

   

  Its a small part of the prophecies campaign.

   

  Only the core 6 professions Warrirors ,Ranger,Monk, necro,elemetist and memser can be in pre searing..Once you are in POST searing in prophecies that will take like 1 to 2 hours max .You can change the secondary professions

   

  It is advisable to play Prophecies  1st as it is PVE oriented  and a good story line

  I preferabbly would have take Nightfall/Prophecies cause in Nightfall you can have custom skilled heroes that you can take over to prophecies to solo if needed .

   

   
• rap87 Member Posts: 13

  January 2008

  Alright gotcha, now I'm not familiar with the way the story arc goes, but would it be feasible to play my warrior/monk to post searing and then make a new assassin/w/e and port him over to post?  Would I be able to continue the story line at the same point or?  Otherwise I guess I'll just start at prophecies and just finish it with my warrior/monk.  BTW is a warrior/monk a good combo? 

   

  P.S.  I did see you could change secondary professions, is a warrior/assassin any good?  Thanks.

   

   
• rev_lazaro Member Posts: 270

  January 2008

  Warrior/Monks are actually the stereotypical Tank classes of the game. I've seen some good W/A builds for direct damage but that's mostly been in a PvP environment.

   

   
• Lydon Member UncommonPosts: 2,938

  January 2008

  W/E are very good tanks.
• Unknown

  January 2008

  Originally posted by rap87
  
  
  I don't know why I didn't investigate this game sooner.  Most likely because I was tired of seeing all the same MMOs and didn't even bother looking into this one.  Must have figured without a subscription fee it couldn't be any good.  Anyway basically I am somewhat of a casual gamer these days and basically the idea of just building my character isn't really appealing to me anymore...its just a huge time sink.  What appeals to me about this game is the possibility of actually having a story to play through.  I also like the idea of the mulitple skill combos you can create to hopefully not have a cookie cutter class...however...I wonder if there are most effective builds that lead people to having a cookie cutter class...but that remains to be seen.  Anyway a few questions.
  1.  Does this game really have a story worth playing....(I know it won't be good as say a single player RPG like say "The Witcher" (sweet game btw checkit out).  But I would like to see something similiar to LOTR...Tired of going to go grind fest crap for no reason...and even with a story that can suck...but it helps.
  Before LOTRO was released it had the best story mechanism bar none.  All story realted stuff is in the MIssions which usually have cutscense.  For me personally the nightfall storyline is the best storyline in the MMO genre.  GW has real story lines.  Warning these storylines DO END.  YMMV.
   
  2.  Is the game still popular enough for a brand new player to enjoy?
   
  Yes but you may have trouble getting pick up groups unless you join some kind of guild.
   
  3.  Does the story go in order with the different expansions, and if so, if I bought all the expansions, just for the ability to play the added classes, can you use say the Assassin class from Factions in the original campain?
   
  You can play any campaign however you like, but the story of nightfall does tie into the first two campaigns.  You will see some characters reappear in nightfall from them.
  4.  Does this game really succeed in bringing the best aspects of both RPG and MMO?  How many people really play it, suprised its not as big as say WoW with those concepts.  Seems that this is the only real current game that actually brought something different to the table...if you believe the advertisements, which I don't typically do anymore...but I still try to have faith.
  This is a is controversial question.  First you have to understand GW has a different advancement paradigm than virtually any other RPG (computer or PnP).  Levels are only a way to may your skill work better.  The real advancement is skills.  You will be at max level before you are 50% through a campaign.  In nightfall's case you will be level 20 before a third of the missions are done.
  GW does not have the slot machine mentality of WoW nor does it have the level/skill grind mentality.  Some people do grind and farm repeatedly anyway, but they basically only get extra cool looking stuff.  The thing here is that while people SAY they hate a grind, many of them in fact won't play a game without a grind because "it has no real progression".
  GW is more about getting the skills you want and perfecting the skill builds that you like.  This also allows GW to be much more about player skill.  Timing can be critically important.
  With the addition of Heroes I kind of think of GW PVE as a hybrid between Baldur's gate and an MMORPG.  You some good storyline stuff and because of the instances you can get things added into a place for special quest spawns.  But at the same time it still has some of the genericness of an MMORPG.
   
  GW brings a number of different things to the table.  Heroes, a different advancements system, hugely flexible power customization, more skill.  Its greatest strength is the class design.  In my opinion.
   
  Its an interesting game.  You can play the whole thing likes its a very good single player RPG.  But you can also do it socially.  But in the end it just isn't the same as a persistent world MMORPG. 
   
  It offers a lot of novel things, but it also does not offer many standard things of a persistent world RPG.  However in some thing it is head and shoulders above most MMORPGs.  Some of these things could easily exist in say WoW or EQ but do not,  The healing mechanics for instance are far far far more inventive and innnovative than anything tried in EQ2.   It more than just static numbers.
   
  P.S.  I hope this is a successful game in trying something new, because we defiantly need it.  My only hopes other than this are say Darkfall (for being completely something new),  Conan (for possibly a new way to do combat), and The Elder Scrolls MMO (possibly a Darkfall type game that will come out cause they got the cash lol).
  Thanks for the help!
  

   
• Unknown

  January 2008

  Originally posted by rev_lazaro
  
  
  Warrior/Monks are actually the stereotypical Tank classes of the game. I've seen some good W/A builds for direct damage but that's mostly been in a PvP environment.
   
   
  

  Meh my assassin/dervish can tank anything with his critical defenses + dervish regen per enchant.   110 ac/6 ticks of regen and 75% block with no need to renew the ac and block since he crits 2/3rds of the time.  Plus he has a full attack chain and will put a bleed on every guy he crits.  She never runs out of energy and does a lot of damage.  WAMO may be the stereotype but it certainly is not the all around best by any means.

  I had that build tank the end guys of Nightfall when everyone was crying they were getting one shotted by the special attacks.

  A/MO is often actually better.  And in some cases my A/Ele build could do things no Wa/Mo could do since you can be almost completely invuln for 20 seconds and teleport away.  And for A/MO the extra ticks mean they can perform 55 hp monk tactics in some cases.

   

  From the beginning of Guild Wars Monks were far better tanks for certain thing than WAMO.

   

  In some cases of the top end missions of Nightfall (after storyline) people were tanking with elementalists.

   

  The thing is there are alot of kinds of tanking and each has its caveats.  Like does enchantment removal exist in the encounter.  If enchantment removal does not exist Warriors are often not as good as some things.

   

  The main strength of a warrior is that they have naturally high ac that can't be taken away or interrupted.  They are by no means the "best" at surviiving things.  Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.  But they are fairly reliable and more solid unles you run into things that ignore armor, then they aren't/
• Godliest Member Posts: 3,486

  January 2008

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  Originally posted by VIOL@TION
  W/E are very good tanks.

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  Or D/E, they got more health regeneration.