Guild Wars 2

I heard that it was a lot better than gw2 and that it still has a large player base, is this correct?

People say that its better because of the way skills work?

Also are there any graphic enhancement mods for the game?

In my opinion it is not better. Skills are just overflowing and are just to many and copies of eachother. The balance of the game was bad (Saying was as I played it 6 years ago) and well there was only a few viable builds even though you have millions of skills to choose between and be duo-class.

I logged in to GW1 a few days ago to get my birthday presents and well I can’t say that it is a large player base in the game as I saw one active player in LA and a few others in HoM.

GW1 is not a bad game, it is really fun and if you are burnt out playing GW2 I believe GW1 is a good game to play for awhile. Remember it is alot older that GW2 so do not expect GW2 graphics and movements, it is though a beutifull game for it’s age.

Is it worth buying? I’ll say yes, it is.
Is it better than GW2? I like Gw2 better, but that’s just me. Really, the reason why I can’t go back is in GW2, you can move while using most skills. You can’t do that in GW1.
Does it still have a large player base? Oh ya. Not as large as it was before GW2 came out, but it’s still big.
Better because of skills? I like the builds in GW1 better, seeing as there is a lot more that you can do, but over all, I like the skills in GW2 better, mostly for the reasons I stated before.
Any graphic enhancement mods? I don’t know about that one. I know there are some mods, I just don’t know if they are what you want. This wiki page has a list of different lists of different mods: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_modifying_in-game_graphics/Texmod/Player_made_modifications
I hope that helps.

Thanks for the info guys, what would you say is the most fun class to play?

Remember, you can have both a primary and secondary profession in GW1. You can change the secondary later on in the game, but not the primary. My favorite primaries are Ranger, Ele, and if you have Factions, Assassin. I highly recommend using these sites for almost anything: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page and http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/?cookieSetup=true. The second link has good builds. Also, please note that unlike 2, GW1 is not a solo game, but if you can’t find players to help you, there are npcs that will join your party.

necro’s as minion masters are really good, ele’s with earth magic are also really good.
one advice tho, don’t let your self to be pressured to use PvX builds, they are maybe good for some but it doesn’t say anything when you can build something as good or better.

Well . . . I bought Prophecies back in the day. Got about a quest or two after the Searing before I stopped. When Guild Wars 2 came out, I went back for a minute. After the expansion announcement, and the death of Living Story for the moment, I again . . . tried again.

Decided to try to get those achievements in the Hall of Monuments.

Bought Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. Cheap. And about three months later, I got to around or near the end of Prophecies. I did get as far as, and little bit past, ‘ascension’ in Factions with my spirit-spammer to be honest. Just couldn’t bring myself to keep playing either though . . . even with heroes helping.

Tried to get a refund on the above three, but was told too much time passed. The next day, I uninstalled them all. Didn’t look back.

Draw your own conclusions.

In order to get access to the ritualist, do I need to pay for the platinum edition and then the same amount again for factions?

UndeadCrisis.5103:

In order to get access to the ritualist, do I need to pay for the platinum edition and then the same amount again for factions?

Yes. Ritualist is only available to play if you have Factions. If you buy the platinum edition, you’ll get Prophecies and EOTN (and you need EOTN to unlock the GW2 HOM rewards). If you choose to buy Factions (and/or Nightfall), you’d just apply the serial/code for that to your already-made GW1 account, via the game launcher. However, you can buy Factions as a standalone if you wish, and add EOTN to that.

When I got my second GW1 account, I bought the trilogy (Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall). I then later bought EOTN.

No, all you need to do is buy the proper expansion with the ritualist once: Factions. If you want all three (Prophecies, Faction, and Nightfall), just buy the Guild Wars® Trilogy pack in the store.

Eye of the North is separate from the others.

Again, I don’t recommend it. The game is quite dated with a maze-like feel. No jumping. And you have to micromanage your pets and NPCs like mad. And skill unlocking is . . . well the proverbial tip of the iceberg. And you’ll be doing a lot of running around from certain points . . . back and forth.

It’s not like Guild Wars 2. Do a lot more research before you buy. Fair warning.

Thanks for the advice, it’s just that I can’t find an MMO to actually get into and stick with, and I hear people saying how good gw1 was

I loved that game when I used to play it, but I can’t play it now.

It’s a lobby game so there will be just you and any party members in each map instance. There will be only the assigned quests you can do. No harvesting. No seeing other people. Mobs are either in one spot or they walk a circuit. No jumping, swimming, falling. Many maps have corridors you must go down and few open spaces.

It’s very different from this game. Some people love it and play it, but you have to accept its limitations as well as its advantages.

It depends a lot on whether you enjoy a more strategic and preparation based combat system. The combat is very different, and positioning, pulling, and bringing the appropriate builds for the entire team are most important for surviving.

While you can solo nearly the whole game with heroes, it’s nice to have a friend with you since so many optionals and missions benefit from splitting up.

The graphics are dated, but still look really nice considering the age. There are mods that you can use to alter the UI (as well as the very useful Cartography assistants), but not as much on prettying up the actual environment.

If it had jumping I’d call it better overall than GW2. Even graphics wise things like Primeval look better in GW1 to me. And chaos axe <3

It’s true that Guild Wars is an AMAZING game, one that I played from the beginning until GW2 was released. It’s well worth purchasing, but ONLY if you’re willing to put a lot of time into it. It’s not nearly as casual-friendly as GW2 and takes a significant portion of time to unlock skills, perfect builds, assemble a team of Heroes/NPCs, etc. It’s definitely more strategy based (if you take the time to make your own builds rather than just copy and paste from a website) and has a noticeably different feel from GW2, which is less like a sequel and more like a different game set in the same universe, 200 years in the future. It does indeed still have a strong player base, and though they no longer add new content there is still a holiday event rotation and plenty of existing content to keep you busy. I’d buy the trilogy myself, but Nightfall is my favorite campaign. Playing the Dervish class is a blast. There are a couple of HD texture mods out there for GW, you can find them on the wiki. You’ll need TexMod to run them, but it’s super easy to navigate.

All in all, if you’d enjoy a more strategic MMO and have time to invest in it, Guild Wars is so worth your money I can’t emphasize it enough. Me, I’ve moved on to GW2 due to a busier lifestyle and less time to dedicate to gaming, but they’re both great.

There are many aspects of GW1 that need to make their way over to GW2. Guild Halls, GvG combat, the vast variety of skills, and of course my personal favorite, Heroes.

I’d honestly be happy with just Guild Halls and Heroes. I always feel so alone when roaming in GW2. Finding a group is next to impossible and most of the maps are pretty empty and dead these days in open world PVE.

It is a 10 years old game. And it’s very different than guild wars 2.

In some ways, It may be more similar to a RTS game like Warcraft than an MMO like world of Warcraft.

It’s perfectly doable solo (you have AI companions to help you out), and it still looks pretty enough. The lore is interesting and the game has a lot of content. You will get value out of this game.

The best value for you money? Hard to say. The game shows its age: no z axis, no jumping, no auction house. The Pvp scene is pretty dead, and the PvE scene might as well be if you want to do more than chat and trade.

Derenek.8931:

There are many aspects of GW1 that need to make their way over to GW2. Guild Halls, GvG combat, the vast variety of skills, and of course my personal favorite, Heroes.

I’d honestly be happy with just Guild Halls and Heroes. I always feel so alone when roaming in GW2. Finding a group is next to impossible and most of the maps are pretty empty and dead these days in open world PVE.

(I don’t know if you knew this, but Guild Halls are in fact confirmed for the expansion. I doubt you’ll ever see heroes, though, if only because, as a persistent world, the game would be flooded with a group of NPCs for every player and every aspect of the game would have to be rebalanced to account for five times as many fighters taking on every challenge. The only place it might work is dungeons, and even then they’d have to rebalance rewards.)

nekretaal.6485:

It is a 10 years old game. And it’s very different than guild wars 2.

In some ways, It may be more similar to a RTS game like Warcraft than an MMO like world of Warcraft.

It’s perfectly doable solo (you have AI companions to help you out), and it still looks pretty enough. The lore is interesting and the game has a lot of content. You will get value out of this game.

The best value for you money? Hard to say. The game shows its age: no z axis, no jumping, no auction house. The Pvp scene is pretty dead, and the PvE scene might as well be if you want to do more than chat and trade.

This is a very good analysis of the game at this stage of its life.

Does the game have a large population? Well ive been logging in daily for a month or 2 to do HoM stuff. You will see sporadic appearances of people as they go on their way, but for all intents and purposes, you wont get much multi player action anymore unless you look really hard for it.

If you can stomach a dated game it is very good. It is neither better or worse than GW2, it is just completely different.

I still very much enjoy Guild Wars 1. I wouldn’t compare it to Guild Wars 2. They really are different games.

Guild Wars 1:
Pros:
More skills
Way more content
More challenge to it
More strategic
Good AI and customizable heroes. (You get to make their builds). The AI heros in GW1 are overpowered…
Able to solo pretty much everything since you can control the AI.

Cons:
Not really a casual game for achievements (Not necessarily a con, but achievements actually mean something in this game)
No jumping
Graphics are outdated, although not terrible
No trading post, have to trade via chat, hard to tell how much items are worth
Can’t use skills while moving, no dodging
Skills take work to find and unlock

Overall I like GW1 better, but I still enjoy GW2. I think that the massive amount of skills makes GW1 more strategically challenging (which I like), and it lets you come up with fun and interesting builds. There is so much content to do that you will probably never run out of things to do for years. I do wish it had combat fluidity like GW2 has with dodging, jumping, and casting while moving. It is just different. Definitely worth the money in my opinion, however.

Game was way better but I’m sure the community is barely existent since they don’t do expansions for it. It’s too bad.

As far as population, there is still a reasonably healthy trading region in Kamadan US-1. Kamadan occasionally hits 3 US districts. There are, depending on the time of day, also people around Eye of the North, Embark Beach, and Lion’s Arch. Pre-Searing is also fairly active. The outpost(s) for the Zaishen mission, bounty, and vanquish can also be active, and you can join PUG’s for those.

Outposts, towns, and missions that are not a recent Zaishen are often deserted. Much of PvP is either bots or dead. Jade Quarry is about the only casual PvP format that you can still get a match in a reasonable time (and that’s mostly because of so many bots).

if you want your money’s worth it’s better to buy the trilogy pack and the platinum pack, it sounds weird but it’s cheaper then buying EotN.

Sarisa.4731:

As far as population, there is still a reasonably healthy trading region in Kamadan US-1. Kamadan occasionally hits 3 US districts. There are, depending on the time of day, also people around Eye of the North, Embark Beach, and Lion’s Arch. Pre-Searing is also fairly active. The outpost(s) for the Zaishen mission, bounty, and vanquish can also be active, and you can join PUG’s for those.

Outposts, towns, and missions that are not a recent Zaishen are often deserted. Much of PvP is either bots or dead. Jade Quarry is about the only casual PvP format that you can still get a match in a reasonable time (and that’s mostly because of so many bots).

No longer true for JQ. There was a mass banning a few months ago that eliminated almost all of the bots that were botting in JQ. The only time you can get a match since the mass ban is during the bonus week.

GW1 is better I would say., but the two games are so different it’s hard to compare. GW2 is certainly more relaxed than GW1, where you need to know what you’re getting into and prepare for it. If you find yourself using the same build and never changing it you’re doing something wrong.

The only downside really is that there’s a smaller player population since GW2 came out, but there’s still a fair amount in Kamadan, LA, EotN, and Ascalon City (especially pre-searing).

Honestly just last week I played through Winds of Change again and it was as good as ever. Now I just need to clear out one of my storage mules to play War in Kryta on again…

I agree with above posters who say it’s more a game of tactics and positioning. You can’t just run into a map or a mission and start autoattacking. Those mobs are evil, especially in hard mode where they can wipe the floor with you if you don’t know what you are doing. Many are in groups with complementary skills that work together. Even the trash mobs can be grouped up and hard to handle without taking care and positioning yourself and your heroes.

You will need the correct set of skills and a good set of heroes that are properly geared and with the right skills to do the harder content.

the community is on the death bed so don’t count on playing the different game modes…like awesome FA. Pve wise it isnt any better, even during zaishen events, pve with others was always the best

Is it worth buying? In my opinion for me probably not, but then again I only played it at my brothers but for some reason I couldn’t get into it.
Everyone is different though, you may get it and absolutely fall in love with it.

I took a leap of faith and bought GW2 and imo it’s a lot better than GW1 but that is just my opinion on the matter.
GW2 is one of the better mmo games out there that I have tried, the world is ever expanding, and the personal story line is one of a kind awesome.

But I saw where you said you can’t find an mmo to get into, for me I do like WoW but the 15 bucks a month is a little much. So I only play WoW every so often, I make sure to sub only when I am sure I am ready to play again.
I have also tried playing Star Wars The Old Republic I like it, but the controls and map are uber clunky and the sub again like WoW is too much. I have never subbed nor will I ever to be quite honest I don’t enjoy playing it because of the clunkiness alone.
I also play Diablo III, but it’s more of an rpg hack and slash game that can get boring over time.

Right now I must say I am big into MOBA styled games, I never thought I would be though which is odd. Ever heard of League of Legends, Dota 2, or Smite?

If you are looking for an MMO experience, guild wars 1 is not it. While people do still play, its in their own small circles of friends, you will almost never find random people to team up with. That part of the game is pretty much dead.

However if you enjoy single player or co-op strategy games gw1 is pretty great. I played it after gw2 launched and enjoyed each campaign. Was able to complete all the storylines, all regular missions and half the elite missions with just AI teammates.

Its very very different to gw2 in almost every way however. No jumping, no moving in combat, hundreds of skills, reliance on positioning over skill. Totally depends on your taste. You might want to check a few youtube vids to get a feel of it before you buy.

If you do decide to buy it Id advise starting with nightfall to get heros (the customisable AI teammates) and play a melee class, paragon warrior ect. This will allow you to make use of the enemy AI through bodyblocking to have a much easier time with the more difficult content. Ranged classes can do this too but tend to be more squish and its harder for them.

Id also say look at gw1 pvx builds after you have finished most of nightfall. I know people have said you can get by without them, and you can for normal mode content, but the huge range of skills (loads of which are useless) can be really confusing for someone totally new to the game. And you will need decent builds to get through the harder stuff.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

Is gw1 still worth buying? (thread title)

Sure. Steam, Amazon, as well as other retailers frequently sell copies for a deep discount. (Make sure you get ‘new’ not ‘refurbished’ or ‘used’ — some vendors sell discs with a used serial #, which prevents you from playing.)

UndeadCrisis.5103:

I heard that it was a lot better than gw2

Not in my strong opinion, but of course it depends on what’s important to the person offering their evaluation. For example, GW1 doesn’t allow jumping, isn’t a true MMO (only 8 person per explorable area, dungeon, or mission, with a few minor exceptions), and you mostly cannot move when you cast skills.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

and that it still has a large player base, is this correct?

Largely no.

Since it’s free-to-play, a lot of people return for various festivals to work on titles.

But outside of that, the population is down to probably 10% (or less) of what it was before GW2 launched. I base this on how many instances there are of the most popular towns, including the main trading center (down to barely 2 compared to 6-8 a year before GW2), the old Lion’s Arch (down to 1 from 2+), and so forth.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

People say that its better because of the way skills work?

In GW1, there are a lot more skills and you can choose a second profession as (in effect) a trait. This means there are a lot more potential builds in GW1 than GW2. However, I’m of the opinion that offers a false diversity: a lot of GW1 skills are useless or even detrimental to various builds, and so. There’s still good variety and you can save your build and instantly change specs (but not gear), but it’s not “better” in my opinion, not even close. Still, some people prefer it.

UndeadCrisis.5103:

Also are there any graphic enhancement mods for the game?

Not any official or even officially sanctioned ones.

I’ve recently gone back to it – at first it was to unlock HoM, but I’ve joined a guild and an alliance and there are still plenty of players around doing various things.

You won’t see many people hanging around apart from in Kamadan (and a few in LA)- most parties are formed in Guild Halls. Think of it as a bit like wondering around a level 40 map in GW2 when it’s not on the daily- you can do an entire map and not see another soul.

As for taking months to finish- I’ve just completed Nightfall in a week and I wasn’t even trying very hard, from scratch. New toon, new heroes, new account, everything.

It’s a refreshing change to have to think of builds to use, set ups, heroes, pulling, etc instead of ‘oh look a mega boss press 1 pres 1 press 1 dodge instant death skill press 1 press 1 collect loot’ that sums up most of GW2’s ‘end game content’.

Not tried the pvp areas but they are pretty quiet now as they had been invaded by bots – if GW2 could have brought over more of the build diversity that exists in gw1 then pvp could have been awesome. As it is GW2 pvp is either 5 man yawn or blob blob and pvd…which can be fun, but just doesn’t have the same feel of tactics that gvg had in gw1.

Buy it- it’s cheap now, and join a guild- there are usually some that will take you on, just lf guild in Kamadan (US district 1).

I still love going back into GW1 to look at the art… Just me.

TinaH.3806:

I still love going back into GW1 to look at the art… Just me.

You’re not the only one.

GW1 is a good game and well worth the deeply discounted prices that can be found these days.

I don’t think that it is fair to either GW1 or GW2 to compare the two games.

Apples and oranges. The games can’t even really be compared.

GW1 – CORPG …cant really solo much yet it still promoted anti-social behavior (through the usage of heroes and henchmen), lots of repeatable endgame content. Korean style RPG….. no jumping…. everything is instanced. insane amounts of build diversity/synergy. Teams have set roles for every player/hero. Quests and missions. No account bound loot, so you can farm for and then sell rare drops that you don’t want to other players for $$$

Gw2 – MMO …can solo lots of things but promotes social behavior, little endgame content. American style, almost a “true MMO” (still instanced) No quests or missions…. personal and living story, and renown hearts. Nobody has a real role on the team (unless you are speedclearing). Most rare loot that you don’t want ends up in the trash because its account bound.

In short: Yes.
A bit more detailed: Yes it is.

The game is really aged considering it’s been 10 years don’t go in expecting anything similar to gw2 the games are completely different apart from the lore. It’s not a game where you need other players unless you want to pvp because heroes and henchmen can fill the role of other players.

the only people who say gw1 is better are people who have a problem with their nostalgia. you can buy it, but you won’t like it as much as gw2

HelloKittyZOMG.1875:

for me I do like WoW ?

Yeah, was expecting that…
‘oh devs, why cant you change gw2 into an wow cloooone boohoo….’

Have seen it in every forum for years and years. Sadly, too many developers have listened… >.>
Though, in the end, when it’s a done deal, game changes to wow clone, the wow player is too fickled to play your kittenn games because it’s still not wow, duh?

k, nothing to see here, move along…

probably worth buying, in my opinion, it was a much better game than GW2 at the time being. But I think it hasn´t aged well. Especially if you are used to GW2, you will have a hard time getting into that old school mmorpg stuff, like skills more or less “immobilizing” you.

@King Noob: That may come as a surprise to you, but different people enjoy different things.

The only reason I am not playing GW1 today is because I have exhausted its whole content. And even then I had the intent to go through the game with new characters with a bunch of friend but they resigned

To the question “Is it worth buying ?” I would answer that it might be if you are not playing it alone. It was a fantastic multiplayer experience for all the cooperation needed in PvE or PvP and also the little competitions between friends/guildmates to work towards your titles faster.

The main thing I liked about the game is that your character stopped progressing quickly and the only progress you made from there on was improving your own skill at the game.

There is a huge difference between GW and GW2 as far as building is concerned : a character in GW in not just a DPS with some utility, characters are/can be highly specialized and team building is much deeper. That being said, after a while you tend to have identified your own preferences and generally work with ~10 builds you like and adapt to make your teams.
An example regarding “highly specialized characters” : I used a ranger build involving 0 ranger skills to defeat Mallyx (probably the hardest boss in GW) with my friend and although my build looked craptastic I was actually critical to our success.

There is also a huge huge difference in pace. GW is very chill, everything is slow : you don’t move really fast, you can’t jump, skills root you (except for aftercast), … That being said, the combat itself will probably feel extremely fast, not because of how fast the skills are used but because a lot of them happen at once and because skills have a much bigger impact in GW.

As far as balance is concerned, I’d say PvP is fine but it’s dead so too bad^^. In PvE most classes had a huge balance patch improving its performance dramatically but some stayed quite far behind. To me, paragons and rangers are especially weak compared to other classes and I am not entirely convinced with warrior performance either.

My own review of GW classes in PvE :

• Elementalist : I didn’t play it much but it has a ton of options. Monster armor in HM made them feel weak for a while, there was a change about that to nerf unconditional damage and I haven’t tested them since. I would say they are most likely great.

• Warrior : I always felt they were too slow because of the adrenaline mechanics, they were also nerfed by monsters’ armor for a while… I have never really had a good feeling as a warrior.

• Mesmer : very powerful class who benefitted a ton from its dedicated patch. I find it extremely fun and good to have in a party but not necessarily fun to play yourself. Try Panic, you won’t regret it (as they said “when we tested it, we knew we had a winner” x) )

• Ranger : a class I thoroughly enjoyed because of its versatility. Sadly it comes at the cost of having no really powerful build in PvE. If you want a class that can bring unsuspected tools to answer very specific situations, ranger might be your choice.

• Monk : one of the two class I enjoyed the most. Support in GW is relentless, extremely powerful : a good/bad monk can really turn the tide of a battle. With appropriate builds, NPC can do the job fine but playing as a monk is a true pleasure for me and PvE only skills (that NPC can’t have) are really amazing for monk. Just keep in mind that playing solo monk means that you rely on NPC to kill and that’s not always a good idea.

• Necromancer : unlike it’s GW2 successor, GW necro is king in PvE. Most will recommand a minion master build which I dislike (boring/stressful to play, situational). Playing as a curse necromancer was a ton of fun for me and I loved everything about my character (look and feel, versatility, effectiveness, …). That being said, I had to rely on PvE only skills and wouldn’t recommand hero necro (unless you like MM) : necrosis, finish him and pain inverter really shine on a necro bar.

• Assassin : if you want a melee DPS machine, assassin is what’s best for single targets (which matters a lot more than in GW2). Good look and feel, you’ll feel powerful playing assassin but you’ll also feel very fragile if your team doesn’t have a well rounded back line to support you. I wouldn’t recommand a hero assassin.

• Ritualist : ritualists are a really solid addition to a group, they not only add a decent amount of unconditional damage but also secondary targets for monsters to waste attack on (and kill themselves faster with pain inverter ). I would say ritualist is very effective (either defensively and offensively) but might become boring to play yourself after a while.

• Dervish : in the same vein as assassins, they are melee DPS kings but they are most AoE oriented. I found the class clunky in its first iteration but its revamp (the last balance patch of GW ? :‘( ) made it feel a lot better. It’s the last character I played for a while after “finishing” my ranger, necro and monk and had a great time. I wouldn’t recommand a hero dervish so if you’re interested by the class you should play it yourself.

• Paragon : this class is at the same time OP as hell and the worse class by far. It’s the class that was the more in the need of a patch but didn’t get one in the end. Basically it only has one viable build (and its variation) but this build is completely OP but at the same time extremely boring to play and can only be played by a human. Basically you can grant your team an insane damage reduction while doing nothing but spamming auto attacks and shouts. You’re weak to blinds and anti-adrenaline/anti-attack but when it works it can trivialize almost everything. I would not recommand it to anyone.

I hope this was helpful information, just remember it’s only my opinion

GW1 is only better to those people who started with it. It is old and has issues. If you’ve been playing GW2 for a while, you will probably have trouble with GW1.

Personally I wish I didn’t dislike GW1 so much, because I really want the HoM rewards, but I can’t bring myself to play it.