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[Media] Guild Wars: Wayback Wednesday Tours Tyria
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's Wayback Wednesday, Grakulen takes a tour around Guild Wars in preparation for this week's launch of Guild Wars 2. See how things are faring in Tyria and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.
It's another hump day (do people still use that term?) and I'm back to help you get through the week with another Wayback Wednesday recap. I'm also about to eat crow. A lot of it. With the impending head start launch of Guild Wars 2 (insert obligatory 3 days! comment here) on Saturday, I figured there was no better game to play last week than Guild Wars. Even though there are a lot of new features in GW2 that make it a very different game than the original GW it was as good a time as any to see where this hype train started at. All aboard.
Read more of Rob Lashley's Guild Wars: Wayback Wednesday Tours Tyria.
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It's getting cold in here!
Comments
I was much the same Robert, I was busy playing SWG at the time with a smattering of Planetside, A few days before release the Guild Wars cinematic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvozqM2AJ8 was playing on a guy in the offices PC and to me it was the 2nd best cinematic I had seen at that point in time (soulblade intro pips it).
This got me intrigued and as I was falling out of love with PS I decided to grab it. I remember logging in 1st day and begining to play the game and seeing henchman barleey anybody talking everyone just soloing and thinking WTF is this pile of garbage that doesnt promote socialising in the manner SWG does, why am I bothering to play online when I can just solo everything. I stuck with it until level 20 expecting things to get better but they only got worse. No shops like SWG, no open world PVP, no massiveley time consuming jedi grinds or things to really keep me occupied for 8 hrs a day everyday.
Roll on 7 years a family a love of fitness consuming most my time and an all round more casual me I decided to give GW2 a try and have loved it, I then thought I might try and get to the 1st ranger pet from HOM so thought I'll put up with the crap that was GW just to get to it and expected the next month to be an utter borefest of mechanics that I hated.
That was not the case and instead I have absolutley loved the last month found myself a great GW2 guild and got a bit farther in the HOM than I thought I would, I don't have much time this week unitl Saturday and there are still a couple of good story archs I am in the middle of so will likeley return to GW to complete these even once playing GW2.
It really was a game ahead of its time, perhaps it saw that MMO's where no longer to be these things that had to conume our lives but people just were not ready for it and a lot of mechanics were so removed from the norm that it just didnt appeal to me.
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I was captured by the concept art, and the thing about not having a subscription fee. Not sure what i did play back then. Probably some asian F2P. Didn't have a long term MMO since i stopped playing UO after teo years in 2000 or so.
I was not turned off by henchman, nobody uses them if they can avoid it anyways, this was true back then and still is. Heroes are obviously different, but Guild Wars didn't have them back then.
I still remember failing to do Sorrow's Furnace so often. Waiting for a group to get together, making it actually to the entrance and not getting wiped in Grenth's Footprint, and then those giant at those doors you had to blow up.
Or the last mission(s) in prophecies. On the Ring of Fire islands. Man, never beat them back then, only when i restarted playing Guild Wars, about 2 years ago or so, when i finally convinced a friend to play it, and we found a nice guild. Before i only knew some random people that never where on again at the same time as i was, made stuff quite hard and annoying, so i repeadetly stopped playing.
Still started playing Factions, never got out of Kaineng. It was a damn labyrinth. Still is, but now i can kill any single enemy and search every corner if i have to. Played the Nightfall beta, but didn't buy it then. Kinda missed the release of EotN, not sure why. Probably busy with other stuff.
Never had money back then, too. Partially because despite farming the bosses in Grenth's Footprint, who dropped the first green weapons who were highly sought then..i never got one. Neither did i get black or white. It was quite difficult to farm then, too. They lowered difficulty for what became normal mode when they introduced hard mode
Overall, it is the MMO (and probably game) i played the most, both the timespan as well as the actual time spent.
I don't know what exactly ArenaNet has planned for GW once GW 2 is released, but i'm sure many people will still play it, maybe even start. And you can still earn your points for the Hall Of Momuments after release.
Once you got to know the game somewhat, like, finished one campaign, getting even 30 points is achievable quite easily. 50 points or a GWAMM is harder, but by the time you got 30 points, it doesn't look that out of reach anymore.
Beat all campaigns, first normal, then hard mode, then beat the other missions (or first complete all missions normal mode, then do all hard, doesn't matter), and you got a huge chunk already. 7 titles for GWAMM and 8 points in the hall.
Doing the Zaishen requests each day is highly recommended, too. You gain lots of money and you visit nearly every corner of the game. Doing missions, bounties (often dungeons), vanquishing areas..and as far as i know, a lot of people still do it.
If you feel lucky, you can capture the elite skills while doing this, otherwise you at least know how to reach nearly every boss.
If you do Zaishen Elite each day, you easily earn a "PvP" title, too.
You'll have like 14 points after this. Fissure of Foe or Urgoz are easy if you have some people who know how to do it, too. Sorrow's Furnace is is like hard mode missions, it's not a real dungeon, even if the first time you do it may take a while (once you've completed it once, the bounty is really easy though).
The Deep, Domain of Anguish and Underworld are harder, especially the later two, but still doable if you have a competent team. You do not even need a specific "way" (team build),l you only need enough damage and healing overall.
The hardest thing you can do is probably Slaver's Exile in EoTN, fortunately you do not need it for anything. The crafter for Destroyer Weapons is technically inside the dungeon, but that's more a lobby, the fighting doesn't start before you enter one of the areas belonging to a boss.
While doing all this stuff you will earn points for the factions (Norn, Asura, Sunspear etc.), and easily max it, especially when you vanquish and trade the story books.
With the money you get all along you can buy some armor and weapons, minipets or hero armor. Note that you can get Oppressor Weapons by doing the "War in Kryta" stuff.
So just doing the basic content allows you to get 30 points in the hall, or at least nearly doing so.
There are a lot of guides out there on how to achieve it fastest, easiest, cheapest etc., so it's not all that monumental, too.
The annoying stuff only really starts when you want 50 points or the title of GWAMM, but with the experience you (as a player) have once you did all of the above, you'll know what to do to get to 50.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
This.
I'm with the OP btw, also tried it years ago and HATED it. Went back after bwe3 for HoM points and actually really enjoyed it and the trek to 30/50. But I started with Nightfalll this time. When it was time to do prophecies campaign I really disliked it all over again and mainly for reasons stated by zevni. Those linear, obligated (yet confusing) path maps in prophecies (amongst other things) contributed to that campaign being one of the most frustrating times I've experienced in gaming. Wish I had strted on Nightfall or Factions all those years ago! Ah well hindsight is always 20/20.