Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for a mmo to fill the time before HoT drop, how is GW1 right now? Is it still fun? Also HoM reward is another goal for me, which one do I buy? I’m thinking Platinum edition which contain EoTN, do I have to buy Nightfall/faction?

It’s a good game though very different from this one. The only connection is the lore, not the skills or how combat is. If you go into it, treat it like a totally separate game, but do pay attention to the lore to learn the underlying story behind Guild Wars 2.

If you can buy the whole game, all the campaigns, for cheap, you might as well do so. Many titles require the whole game or specific campaigns so if you don’t have them, you can’t get the titles.

I don’t actually consider it a good game (and usually keep that to myself) but for lore purposes, HoM points if you want those skins, and the stories the GW1 games tell are probably worth it.

GW1 isn’t a true MMO. The only places that can hold more than a single party are towns; every map (dungeon or surface, mission or explorable) is limited to 8 players (with a few exceptions with a limit of 4, 6, or 12 players), all of whom must be in the same group.

It also is an old game, by 2015’s standards: there’s no jumping or true z-axis, you have to stand still to use most skills, and it’s missing a lot of things GW2 and WoW players take for granted.

That said, I really enjoyed it and you can certainly take your time exploring nooks and crannies. I would think of it more as a single player, small group game that allows you to socialize with a lot of others at the same time.

Yes, if you don’t mind its datedness, it’s a decent game especially if you like to solo stuff using an AI team lol.

I’m currently replaying some content for HoM rewards. Protip: Never tell the native players that you like GW2 better – surefire way to be excluded from any group content.

If you asked me this six months ago, I’d have told you yes. But today? I’ve almost gotten to the end of the Flameseeker Prophecies, and I just can’t gather enough interest to log into the game.

It’s been around two months.

In fact, I tried to get a refund. But I passed the month timetable. And in case all that wasn’t clear?

No, don’t buy it.

It is definitely dated at this point, but still very enjoyable. You can basically treat it like your standard high-fantasy (minus the elves, but with charr, hey!) RPG, with ten classes to choose from (if you have the first three campaigns), where you can combine each class with each of the other 9 remaining classes, leaving you with 90 different class combinations (from Warrior Elementalist to Ranger Paragorn over to Ritualist Necro and all the way to Dervish Mesmer), and that’s not even scratching the surface with the different builds you can try out – You have 8 skill slots, with one usually being an Elite skill. In most cases, your attacks aren’t bound to a certain weapon – there are some Sword exclusives like 100blades, some hammer and spear, but most skills can be used with all weapons equiped. And the skills man… Elites are obtained by killing boss monsters, and then stealing their Elite Skill with a certain Seal-Skill. You can then use it, so even getting your build to work is part of the adventure. There are 290 Elite Skills, shared between 10 Classes, so around 29 Elites per class, and lots and lots more of normals skills.

So it’s more a very deep single player experience than an MMO, but it has one of the best mechanics for building a unique charakter, one hundred times deeper than GW2

If you are someone that likes Lore: yes it is. I would recommend it, especially the combo from nightfall + eye of the north the most, since nightfall was the best of the basegames at storytelling and eye of the north was the big leadup to gw-2

But go in trying to think about it like an old RPG, not much of an MMO, and remember it is quite an old game now, so GW-2 is mechanicly superior in everything,

It’s gonna be a single player experience, unless you have some frinds that will join you. If you go in, you should also do some research beforehand….I think that how easy you will flow through the content will be correlated with how much fun you will have. GW1 is a game where you just need good synergy within your group of 8, thus you will need to be the right proffesion and your heroes that you wll recruit along the way will need to have the right skills. So it would be nice to go through some wiki articles looking for builds that work very well for soloing even hard mode content (I think one of the best proffestions to take for yourself was a Ritualist….I played as ele and it was doable, but somethimes it wasn’t easy).

Also that would mean that you will need to start in some later campaigns (to get your team of heroes, there were none in Prophecies). People usually recommended to start with Nightfall. But don’t worry you will be able to travel between each continent fairly easy so even if you start in Factions (because you wanna play ritualist or assasin) you can jump to the Nightfall campaign after just couple of hours of playing.

It’s hard to recommend to play GW1….it is really different, but I still have fond memories of playing it and if you are interested in the story, then it might be worth it. However, as I said earlier, I think you really need to build a good group of heroes with the right skills so that you don’t struggle with the content, otherwise if becomes a drag especially since there is so much to do…it took me one year of playing the game fairly reguralry to go from couple of point in HoM to full 50 points and GWAMM and that was just before GW2 was released so the game was still realatively alive and I could trade a lot (not sure what the situation is now).

its a lot better than 2 it has a proper story, interesting dungeons, unlike this living story stuff and fractal crap. (proper classes too since the trinity system works whereas this new thing GW2 has is unbalanced – tanks are still tanks, but can heal as well).

GW1 is far superior for PVE
GW2 is far superior for pvp/wvw

If you want to play GW1 keep 3 things in mind :

• Right now, the game is more of a single player RPG with the option to play coop with a friend rather than a massively multiplayer game.
• Thus you’ll spend 90% of your time leading a party of AI and rely on the good old Trinity.
• I recommand starting with the nightfall campaign to collect your heroes as soon as possible. If you want to play an assassin or a ritualist, start with factions and try to get to nightfall as soon as possible for these heroes.

Why am I bothering you with heroes ? You have 3 options to fill your empty party slots :

• Other players (very hard to find in GW1 these days)
• Mercenaries (NPCs with a fixed build that is not always optimal and a scripted AI)
• Heroes (NPC you have to equip, however their behaviour can be controlled and their builds/skills customised)

Because the game is so old, the meta and all the dirty tricks to make your party of AIs work have been refined. Thus, it’s more efficient to recruit heroes ASAP and give them the optimised “heroes builds”. Once the key heroes are acquired and have their builds ready, the game becomes fast and easy.

Check here for team setups and optimised builds.

It was an amazing game.

Since GW2 launched we’ve seen a high decrease in the number of players online, but since you can build a party of NPCs it’s not a dealbreaker.

It has a great lore, great storyline, the skill system is amazing and the graphics are…well, 2005 lol

It plays VERY differently from GW2 but the tie-ins, in my opinion, are totally worth it.

Currently tried to convince my brother to buy the full game (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EoTN) since he only played GW2. Will help him finish everything, so I’m kind of anxious to replay it!

I have been playing again recently — got a new Canthan monk up to 20 and am leveling an Elonian ele. I don’t mind that there aren’t as many people around because I mostly always have played Guild Wars solo (with heroes/henchies), even when my original guildies were still around. Hint: heroes/henchies tend to do/go what/where I tell ‘em, when I tell ’em which = winning! Still, it’s surprising how many people are still playing. There’s usually a good crowd in Kamadan and in pre Ascalon City.

The only thing I sometimes wish Guild Wars had that GW2 has is the ability to just be trotting along and jump just for the heck of it. No JPs, thanks! Just a happy hop here and there. Beyond that, GW2 really has nothing over Guild Wars. In my vaunted opinion, of course.

How long would it take though to get like 30 Points in HoM, fastest way, for someone who never touched the game before

For an old game with no updates i think it is too expensive.There are so many f2p games that you can try while waiting for hot.

nacario.9417:

How long would it take though to get like 30 Points in HoM, fastest way, for someone who never touched the game before

It will take you months, maybe a year.

nacario.9417:

How long would it take though to get like 30 Points in HoM, fastest way, for someone who never touched the game before

Without help from a friend and without a gift of minis, money, and mats; probably about 300-500 hours. Getting around 15 isn’t too bad, 30 is a bit rougher.

—

Kamadan (Nightfall), Lion’s Arch (Prophecies), Embark Beach (all), and Eye of the North generally have people. In addition, there are “daily” Zaishen missions and bounties, and those outposts generally have a healthy population (but they’re generally running in hard mode).

Heroes are excellent, and are available in Nightfall and Eye of the North (plus a couple in “Beyond” content, a free expansion). Note their default builds are pretty poor, so you will have to get more skills for them to be effective. When you first get them, it’s still recommended to stick with Henchmen until you get them at least a basic build.

No matter where your character is created, you can, once you reach your port city and reach a certain level (for Nightfall), move over to start one of the other campaigns and pick up heroes, get more experience, get more skills, and the like. You can also start Eye of the North expansion content once you reach level 10 from any of the campaigns.

I strongly suggest having a friend to play through with you. Many missions require splitting up, whether to complete the mission or to complete the bonus; and that’s much easier when you have someone else with you each with your own “mini-party”.

I absolutely LOVED playing GW1, during it’s prime though.

The thought of starting from scratch with basically no one in starter zones and everyone solo’ing with heroes anyway…well, I’d just stick to GW2.

GW1 has a great nostalgic value to me however players these days have different point of view of how games should be. To worse in my opinion. If you’re not an oldschool gamer or very orthodox about gw2 gameplay you could be disappointed with GW1.

I love GW1, it was magic to me those days but now it’s kind of dated experience.

My husband and I have been replaying through various things on GW1 for the past six months. We both did EOTN and Prophecies together, and now we’re going through Nightfall for a title for him. I see people in-game all the time, but generally speaking you’ll be doing solo with henchmen/heroes. If you do get the game, I’d recommend getting the Trilogy pack along with EOTN (you’ll need EOTN to unlock HOM rewards, anyway). With the Trilogy, you’ll be able to go through Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and EOTN (and have access to all the heroes in Nightfall and EOTN); being able to play through all of the campaigns means you get more titles in GW1, which means you get more HOM points.

warbignime.4610:

I’m looking for a mmo to fill the time before HoT drop, how is GW1 right now? Is it still fun? Also HoM reward is another goal for me, which one do I buy? I’m thinking Platinum edition which contain EoTN, do I have to buy Nightfall/faction?

There are 6 essential things that will really help you in GW1:
1) http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Player_Support
2) http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94UKgd4nHvo#t=2m8s (see links below video)
4) http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_earning_Hall_of_Monuments_rewards
5) https://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=welcome
6) http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments

I would definitely recommend getting Eye of the North, at least, for the heroes if you intend on playing GW1. I think it’s a great game, personally.

For EotN you need at least one of main campaigns

If you enjoy playing a game for its story and can look past a lot of the dated limitations of a 2005 game, go ahead and buy it. If you like playing a game for its beauty and artistry, just to go exploring a world to see what’s there, I’d recommend buying it. But if you instead enjoy games for gameplay and mechanics, I’d say stay away for reasons others have already pointed out like limited movement control, no jump, reliance on AI companions.
For earning HoM achieves, be prepared for quite a bit of grind for certain titles. I don’t know what your tolerance for repetitive gameplay is but the upper-level HoM achieves require a significant time investment to accomplish.
I played GW1 moderately throughout each of its campaigns. I wouldn’t say I pushed hard to complete any particular HoM tracks but I did manage with my casual gameplay to notch 35 points in HoM by the time GW2 released. So if you go into it with the specific intent of grinding HoM points you can probably get close to 40 pts before hitting a big wall of timesinks.

There are also guides available for how to get the 30 points in the quickest possible way. I have not actually attempted them, I can’t convince myself to play it for any serious length of time.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s a good game though very different from this one. The only connection is the lore, not the skills or how combat is. If you go into it, treat it like a totally separate game, but do pay attention to the lore to learn the underlying story behind Guild Wars 2.

If you can buy the whole game, all the campaigns, for cheap, you might as well do so. Many titles require the whole game or specific campaigns so if you don’t have them, you can’t get the titles.

There really is no connection form GW to GW2 as GW 2 doesn’t have much lore to speak about.I would say that in 250 years the future would look this way as Charr would never get Ascalon.Ascalon would also be restored as it before the searing.Rin,Drascir and Ascalon city would be rebuilt.

I would get it as it is more fun to play and a lot more to do.

GW1 is far more fun than GW2 in my opinion.

Just….. don’t try to get past 30/30 in the HoM. The people who complain in this game about grind never attempted the higher HoM numbers. I got 50/50 and was so burnt out after I did that I can’t even think about getting a few points on my gw1 alt account so my gw2 alt account can have some goodies also.

KillEveryoneElse.3940:

GW1 is far superior for PVE
GW2 is far superior for pvp/wvw

No… just no. Guild Wars 1 is better for PvE and PvP. Guild Wars 2 just has fancy graphics and a new combat system that is extreme in simplicity. You can also jump now, yay?

warbignime.4610:

I’m looking for a mmo to fill the time before HoT drop, how is GW1 right now? Is it still fun? Also HoM reward is another goal for me, which one do I buy? I’m thinking Platinum edition which contain EoTN, do I have to buy Nightfall/faction?

You do not have to own Nightfall and Factions to play Prophecies and Eye of the North. However, a decent chunk of the Heroes (companion AI) are from Nightfall. From just Eye of the North, if memory serves, you will only get one of each profession as a Hero. With Prophecies you will also be able to get Olias (Necromancer) and Keiran Thackery (Paragon).

With just the Platinum edition you would be able to fill quite a bit of the Hall of Monuments. If you wanted to max nothing but PvE titles (really only possible now as they have placed caps on glory and honor earned daily which makes PvP titles almost impossible to get unless you play daily for years) with Platinum edition you could max out 15 PvE titles, again if memory serves.

You would be missing 15 heroes (not including the new bonus 2 added with Winds of Changes) which is 2 points. You would not be able to craft Faction armors or Vabbian armor which is another 2 points. You would not be able to get a Tormented weapon through game play ( you could however buy one off a player) which is 1 point. Now as I said early you could only max out 15 titles which leaves you 25 titles off of max which is 5 points. So all together you miss out on 10 points (potentially only 9 if you can grind a lot of money).

With only missing 10 points you still max out on psychical rewards. You would only miss a couple of titles (4 to be exact).

As to game play, some call it archaic but I rather enjoy Guild Wars 1 combat to this day. It takes knowledge and skill to build a team that can perform well. Which is completely the opposite of Guild Wars 2 where literally anything can be used. The story is extremely well written and is more than Guild Wars 2 could ever hope to be. The lore is fantastic. There is a reason Guild Wars 2 was so overhyped and it is due to the previous game being amazing.

Vanthian.9267:

As to game play, some call it archaic but I rather enjoy Guild Wars 1 combat to this day. It takes knowledge and skill to build a team that can perform well. Which is completely the opposite of Guild Wars 2 where literally anything can be used. The story is extremely well written and is more than Guild Wars 2 could ever hope to be. The lore is fantastic. There is a reason Guild Wars 2 was so overhyped and it is due to the previous game being amazing.

Pretty much this. I also agree with just about every other post in this thread.

As someone who played Guild Wars 1 since open beta (almost 10 years ago, wow!), I still love playing the game. In fact, I’ll probably be playing it this weekend to help some friends out with some vanquishes.

But, I’m really liking this game too.

Guild Wars 1 main character: Alastrine Isolde

Vanthian.9267:

KillEveryoneElse.3940:

GW1 is far superior for PVE
GW2 is far superior for pvp/wvw

No… just no. Guild Wars 1 is better for PvE and PvP. Guild Wars 2 just has fancy graphics and a new combat system that is extreme in simplicity. You can also jump now, yay?

warbignime.4610:

I’m looking for a mmo to fill the time before HoT drop, how is GW1 right now? Is it still fun? Also HoM reward is another goal for me, which one do I buy? I’m thinking Platinum edition which contain EoTN, do I have to buy Nightfall/faction?

(…)

^this, i still see gw1 has a by far better game than gw2, there were good rangers and mesmer at that time and almost no press X to win with class Y (was a far more complex game, gw2 makes afk people being good).

Gw1 history arc is excellent, figh the white mantle, abbadon, help prince ruric,meat gwen, undestand what happened to some characters before gw2 etc, the graphics are older obviously and u cant jump, can only see players at camps/cities but at the end still very recomendable game to play while waitting for hot.

Just becouse if this post im installing gw1 ….

It’s mostly all doable for any player once you get access to heroes and a handful of decent builds. One of the best games I ever played.

You might need a NPE though because you can control/choose all 8 skills of up to 7 party heroes, this is obviously beyond the capacity of human thought and is why we dance for cows now instead of feeding them.

I picked up GW1 about 3-4 months ago for the first time and to tell you the truth i play it more than GW2 currently the Campaign’s and Lore are addictive and it’s lots of fun building up your Hall of monuments.

If you are looking for something to keep you occupied till Heart of Thorns GW1 is a good way to spend your time.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Just….. don’t try to get past 30/30 in the HoM. The people who complain in this game about grind never attempted the higher HoM numbers. I got 50/50 and was so burnt out after I did that I can’t even think about getting a few points on my gw1 alt account so my gw2 alt account can have some goodies also.

The grind can be pretty intense, but as long as you work on just a little at a time, it’s not as bad.

Me, personally, if it was cheaper, i would have bought it already for the Lore… I really didn’t like how it didn’t feel like a MMO after playing the 24h trial, so never really bothered with it after.
Thing is, the whole game (plat+2 expansions) is way too expensive just for the sake of seeing the story unfold.

As to game play, some call it archaic but I rather enjoy Guild Wars 1 combat to this day. It takes knowledge and skill to build a team that can perform well. Which is completely the opposite of Guild Wars 2 where literally anything can be used. The story is extremely well written and is more than Guild Wars 2 could ever hope to be. The lore is fantastic. There is a reason Guild Wars 2 was so overhyped and it is due to the previous game being amazing."

This! But anyway I would recommend to play first weeks of GW1 with at least one friend.

PvP in GW1 actually far better tech wise than what we still have in GW2. GW1 has build switching tool! And more game modes and maps to play, where GW2 have only one poor deathmatch mode and running simulation mode.

Lore and PvE in GW1 is good. PvE in GW2 is generally bad, but have some really great moments, when you are limited to 3-5 people on events. Zergs are killing all fun in GW2. Lore… I think they should focus on dungeon content to make GW2 good.

Gameplay vise… well GW1 and GW2 just two different games.

Yes.

It’s a really good game.

For me, after the years of playing since beta, it’s basically a nostalgia trip. Nothing beats pre-sear Ascalon, ever.

Plus it has Hall of Heroes.

Sadly, most of the things that made it great, the pvp, the UW and FoW etc will probably never be the same. However, nothing will beat pre-sear, getting out of Kaineng in to the open, going to the Charr Homelands, seeing Glint, Droks Forge etc etc

Oh, by the way OP. If you are in the far north in Drakkar Lakes and you see a rabbit running ahead of you and it runs into a cave. DON’T FOLLOW IT!!!

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Oh, by the way OP. If you are in the far north in Drakkar Lakes and you see a rabbit running ahead of you and it runs into a cave. DON’T FOLLOW IT!!!

Don’t listen to this guy. Always follow the bunny. The bunny brings you to cake and joy! There’s no such thing as a bunny leading you to doom!

RoseofGilead.8907:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Oh, by the way OP. If you are in the far north in Drakkar Lakes and you see a rabbit running ahead of you and it runs into a cave. DON’T FOLLOW IT!!!

Don’t listen to this guy. Always follow the bunny. The bunny brings you to cake and joy! There’s no such thing as a bunny leading you to doom!

I did it once. (Oohhhh, a bunny. So cute. Look, it’s running into this cave. How interesting. Ohhhh. Pretty. And more cute bunnies. AAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!)

The second time I sent a guildie to explore it ahead of me. ^^

Is the game worth getting these days? Yes.
Should you consider getting the full game package on sale so you can link it to GW2? Yes.
Should you focus on heros first? Yes

The game is great fun, and to be honest with ya, I think if you look at it like a GW lore inspired Diablo 4 you might enjoy yourself more. I spent years in the game and loved it above all other MMO choices throughout the years. Solo farming is fun at times also, like the IDS.

Guild Wars 1 is fun and worth buying if you’re getting it to enjoy the game.

If you’re getting it to get HoM points, it’s not worth the trouble. It’s a nice bonus to have some extra skins and minipets, but not worth the effort of getting HoM points unless you’re going to be enjoying the game in the process.

GW1 is freaking awesome! But don’t get it cause you like GW2… They’re nothing alike, like most people have said. Watch some gameplay videos. The biggest problem is that there aren’t a lot of players and it’s kinda hard to get by with just the AI. It’s possible, but kinda hard.

if youre going for HoM rewards youll need to buy eye of the north expansion+any campaign.

all 3 campaigns are a stand alone game, EotN is a expansion WITH HoM.

As for is it worth playing it depends on you, as in depends on if you like that kind of a game or not (its all about being on a journey through the story/world with your 8 skills and the 8 skills form your other party members)

Another thing worth mentioning is that the playerbase isnt populating the whole world since a lot of them left to play gw2 (and a lot of them left gw2 to play gw1 back..)

While you are able to solo 90% of all campaigns and expansion its much better and more fun to do so with other players.

I highly suggest joining a active guild. If youre looking where the majority of the playerbase is (at any given time) check the zones with weekly events, elite zones and daily missions zones.

Because you will be in a party everytime you leave a town (even with NPCs) i highly reccomend buying Nightfall as it has the most heroes.

Generally you can add Henchmans NPC that have their own build or Heroes that you unlock. Heroes are like henchmans but you get to modify their gear as well as skills.

You could also buy Prophecies+EotN. While Proph is the largest campaign among all 3. It doesnt have any heroes but you can go to EotN at lvl 10 from Lions Arch and start unlocking heroes from there

Photonman.6241:

GW1 is freaking awesome! But don’t get it cause you like GW2… They’re nothing alike, like most people have said. Watch some gameplay videos. The biggest problem is that there aren’t a lot of players and it’s kinda hard to get by with just the AI. It’s possible, but kinda hard.

give them proper builds, command their skills once in a while or block the skill and use it manually

if you want hall of monuments points and achie points then yes its worth it.

if you just want to experience the story it has to offer. yes its worth it.