I'm wanting to try Guild Wars... No idea which one to try...

Zeref.Dyver

There's been far too many releases of Guild Wars, and, as far as I know, they are all seperate games. Is there a trial I can try also?

 

I have no idea which Guild Wars I should get if I were to hop into the game... It's very confusing, could someone clarify please?

Quizzical

One way to think of it is that Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall are three separate, but closely related games--and you can take a character created in one game to another, and do content and acquire skills in the other games.

Probably a better way to think of it is as Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall as separate pieces of a single game.  It's kind of like how Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms are both part of the game world in WoW, and there is separate content on them, but you can freely travel from one to the other.  The campaigns of Guild Wars were chronologically released at different times, but if you're picking up the game now, they've all been out long enough for that to be part of the game lore and nothing more.

You can get the Guild Wars Trilogy (all three campaigns at once) for around $50, which is what I'd recommend if you're picking up the game now.  There's no monthly fee, so it's just a one time payment and then you can play forever after that.

If you do take that route, I'd recommend playing through the campaigns in the order in which they were released if you like content for the sake of doing content.  That would mean Prophecies first, then Factions, then Nightfall.  If you're in a big rush to make your character stronger, you could do Nightfall first to get the heroes out of that.  If you're one of those players whose main goal is to make his character stronger by whatever means (that is, if purely grinding mobs is the fastest way to level, that's all you'd do), and don't care for the experience of actually doing interesting and varied content, then Guild Wars might not be the game for you.

There is also an expansion, Eye of the North, but you can't play that without already having a campaign.  In terms of content quality and variety, it's not nearly up to the high standards set by any of the campaigns.  To call Eye of the North half a campaign, and the worse half of a campaign, at that, is being generous.  Eye of the North does have a lot of grinding you can do to get access to PvE-only skills that basically function as cheat codes to let incompetent players clear content from the campaigns.  If you buy the Guild Wars Trilogy from Amazon this month, apparently they'll throw in Eye of the North at no additional charge.

I think there is a trial somewhere, but I'm not sure.  There wasn't when I bought the game a little over two years ago.

Zeref.Dyver

Ah, makes sense.

 

Thanks for the informative reply

CereaIKiller

Personally, here is what I think.

If you are going for PvE (Player vs. Environment) gameplay, plots, and having fun as you watch the story unfold, get Guild Wars Prophecies. It has, in my opinion, the best plot-line of all guild wars campaigns, and has fun PvE. A weak point is that in PvP (Player vs. Player) players with other campaigns usually end up dominant. Prophecies includes the 6 core proffessions, which are Warrior (self-explanatory), Ranger (archer), Monk (the healer, priest, cleric, whichever you prefer), Necromancer ("evil" stuff, messes with undead and dark magic), Mesmer (basically disable the enemy's capability to fight or heal), and the Elementalist (mage, sorceror, whichever term you prefer).

If you are going for PvP, get Guild Wars Factions. In my opinion, Factions has the worst plot and the PvE is boring. Luckily Factions can be finished faster. Factions introduces 2 new proffessions to the 6 core proffessions that all campaigns come with all campaigns. The Assassin (duel daggers, can deal damage, easily killed if out-damaged), and the Ritualist (spirit summoner, spirit related channeling to deal damage, healing).

Nightfall is like a combination of both PvE and PvP. It is the hardest of all campaigns, has an okay plot-line, and can be drawn out. As a result of the harsh PvE conditions, players are usually more powerful, with more effective skills and Heroes, or NPC characters that you can control to fight alongside you. Nightfall introduces 2 new classes, but doesn't include the classes of Factions. These classes are the Dervish (Scythe wielding, spell casting, healing, tanking Grim Reaper. This class has been hit hard by the nerf-stick, but is still powerful), and the Paragon (a spear throwing, highly armored proffession that focuses more on healing/buffing the party and less on the firepower, but can still leave quite a mark on their enemies).

If you want "maximum power/efficiency", then I'd reccomend you buy all three campaigns, or just buy the trilogy. Just remember that the first campaign you get gives you 4 character slots, and every campaign you add on to your account give you 2 more. I'm not sure, but I think that the trilogy only provides 4 character slots. If you want to take your campaign on an immediate test run, I'd reccomend you start off with a PvP only character, which can only stay in PvP zones, but starts out at level 20, the maximum level.

My opinions of the 3 campaigns are all personal, some may see things differently, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm hoping that you will therefore show the same respect that I show to your opinions to mine.