Guild Wars 2

So I bought GW1 way back in the day and never got into it much as I was playing EQ1 or 2 at the time. For some reason GW2 has me totally hooked and I enjoy every minute of it, but I went back and reinstalled GW1 on my computer again.

I only have prophecies, but was wondering what the experienced GW1 players think. Should I bother to dish out money on the GW1 expansions or just get my kicks in and don’t worry about the expansions. (I don’t plan on playing it in depth, but wanted to experience more of GW1 to better enjoy GW2 even more….and maybe get some of those legacy/heritage achievements

I’d say it’s worth the meager price to just play through the PvE missions of all the campaigns. Because of heroes and henchman, you can go at your own pace and not really need to group with anyone to accomplish this, aside from a few missions that would probably fare better with a human-player party. The story is well executed, in my opinion, and enriching especially if you plan to play GW2 more (You should see and experience Prophecies to the end to really understand the lore depth to Orr, The Vizier, Rurikton, etc.) Factions and Nightfall are great to experience too, especially as i’d wager a hefty sum you’ll be seeing those continents make a return in GW2 eventually. EoTN has a lot of Norn lore as well as scenic areas important to the history of the Sylvari, so that’s worth the price too.

Be advised though, the community is largely dead or has migrated to GW2. Your experience won’t be even remotely similar to that of a 6+ year player of GW1 like myself. Many PvP modes and such are just completely dead because of population, but i don’t think it should deter you from at least getting a lot of narrative depth out of the PvE content.

You will also likely not get to experience the sheer PvP-oriented depth of the skill system, which is probably even more mind-boggling now. If you are going into the game to just get some good story and lore tidbits, i think you’ll be more than satisfied. Just don’t think you’re going into a thriving, traditional MMO community and you should enjoy yourself a lot. The game has a lot of depth even playing it solo with many build combinations and elite skill hunting that will keep you interested for hours.

I definitely recommend.

That’s ok, I mostly solo now a days anyway so I’m not worried about the social aspect. I knew about henchmen and such. I never played paragon or any of the other things and after I reinstalled it I remembered how few classes there were without expansions.

Like you said, I am mostly just going back to experience lore, but wanted feedback on if buying expansions or not was a tad excessive for my intents.

Of course, as I’m playing it right now I am fiending for GW2 =p

Furthest I got when I bought it a few years ago was after Ascalon went kablooy and then I kind of just stopped. I think I did that because I didn’t finish exploring the rest of the game and then it pushed me forward into the “present”. I know I could have just restarted or made a new character but slightly frustrated my OCD nature and I never came back.

If you just want to mess around, see the world and the lore, etc, it might be a good idea to get Nightfall as well, to get access to Heroes. That will make it quite a bit easier to do some of the content, with the reduced player base.

I’m in a similar situation to you. I played Factions on release but it didn’t really click to me. It didn’t feel very “online”. I was only young, so maybe I couldn’t appreciate games like I can now, so I’m tempted to give it another shot.

If you’re enjoying prophecies, splash out a bit. If nothing else, you’ll get HOM rewards while enjoying a new experience, however temporary.

GW1 is a lot better balanced than GW2, and a lot more solo-friendly. It’s worth buying the expansions, and rolling a Nightfall character to get heroes.

Kain Francois.4328:

GW1 is a lot better balanced than GW2, and a lot more solo-friendly. It’s worth buying the expansions, and rolling a Nightfall character to get heroes.

I have ALL my GW heroes on a prophecies character, you only need to get Nightfall and Factions as well since 1 hero comes from there.

still bumping around in gw1, for sure an older interface style, but interesting to see how some of the same ideas have translated and evolved into gw2.

You can probably find a bundle with all the campaigns for relatively cheap, so I’d suggest that. However, if you can’t, prophecies will do lore-wise. For now at least….

Don’t expect to roll through it in a few days though; Prophecies is a long game.

At the very least you should get Eye of the North so you can earn HoM rewards for your GW2 characters.

Prophecies was my favorite, hands down. The expacs were great because they added new zones & new classes. But nothing ever felt as good as Prophecies, running FoW and UW and Tombs. Once the expacs came out the population felt too spread out. Eye of the North rekindled that love of the original game, going back to that lore and feel. If you want to experience the expac classes, go for it. I highly recommend the Dervish. If not, get EotN for the HOM rewards in GW2 at the least.

To be frank, speaking as someone who loved the crap out of GW1 but is just trying to be objective, I think it feels very very dated now. After the first BWE for GW2 I went back and got three more HoM points, and it really stood out to me. The way you can’t attack at all without a target, can’t jump, can’t switch your skills at all outside of a town… it just feels mechanically poorer despite being an amazing game for its time. You can get the lore stuff very adequately from watching videos and reading the wiki.

That said, if you do want to go for HoM stuff, you can get the trilogy + EotN for a ludicrous value at this point.

So when I type /age or /played what ever it was, is that how long it has been since I first registered that CD key? If so I had played a grand total of 2+ hours in the last 83 months…..lol I never really gave it a shot back in the day did I.

edit
Ok did the command again and across ALL characters I had played 37 hours 53 minutes over the last 83 months…not AS bad as I thought heh.

You can take it both ways.

Play it as a single player game, and you’ll have as much fun as any other single player game.

Play it as an online RPG and you’ll have one of the best. It has far more content than any other MMO on the market currently, because no content was destroyed with expansions.

marnick.4305:

because no content was destroyed with expansions.

Oh, I see what you did thar.

cough LivingStory cough