Guild Wars 2

I recently bought gw2 and I am really enjoying the game. Idk about other people but Im really enjoying the story of this game so far. I also bought the two books “destinys edge” and “ghost of ascalon”. This got me interested in wat happened in gw1 but are people still playing gw1 for me to enjoy social aspect of the game? Or will it be just me killing monsters by myself?

Milennin.4825:

GW1 has been pretty much a single-player experience for the past few years. Since GW2’s release not many people are playing it anymore, and the few that still do go in full Hero parties (heroes = NPCs).

Still, GW1 is a pretty decent single-player experience, but it’s nothing like GW2, and I’d strongly advice to not set your expectations too high if you try it out. It’s more of a strategy game than an action game or RPG. You either like it or hate it.

Agreed. It’s nothing like Guild Wars 2. The only thing they have in common really is the lore. Even the landscape has changed dramatically.

You can try it and may like it, but go in as if the two games were completely unrelated.

I haven’t played the original as well but from what I can assume on the forums, it seems like some people still play it but I’m guessing that it is only a small amount. You probably won’t be able to find groups of players to help you complete some dungeons but with the companion and hero system you can have NPC’s in your group to help you complete most of the content.

Barely.

I log in from time to time to see the old areas, and feel the lore and such.

I don’t think ArenaNet is doing such a good job with showing off the lore in Guild Wars 2. It’s most likely because of no fetch quests with text, or I’m not looking hard enough.

I still love the game though, and play it every day, but a big part for me in a game is the lore.

I think mostly for things in GW2 weapon skins points etc..

GW1 has been pretty much a single-player experience for the past few years. Since GW2’s release not many people are playing it anymore, and the few that still do go in full Hero parties (heroes = NPCs).

Still, GW1 is a pretty decent single-player experience, but it’s nothing like GW2, and I’d strongly advice to not set your expectations too high if you try it out. It’s more of a strategy game than an action game or RPG. You either like it or hate it.

I bought all guild wars 1 expansions and guild wars 1 about a week ago. I’m scared that Anet will close the servers, but decided to risk it. So far I have a level 20 in Cantha and will be exploring all Canthan quests.
Do I want the heritage skins in Guild Wars 2? Of course I do! But my motive for playing the game is mostly to go trough what happened before Guild Wars 2. And I’m very much enjoying my experience.

Yes i still play it occasionally, i’d probably play it more if the population was larger there, sadly many moved on to other games.. Guildwars 2 is very different (inferior in my opinion) to Guildwars, sadly its quite and old game, so many moved on.

I still play on occasion as well. I’ve been playing GW1 since its release and I must say it’s one of my favourite games. Although there are much fewer people playing it now, you can complete the entire game with Heroes & Henchmen parties, which is pretty awesome

I really loved the story/lore in GW1. I think it was told much better than the way it is presented to us in GW2. As far as MMOs go, GW1 ranks as my #1. I highly recommend any players curious about Guild Wars to try it out!

Thanks for the insight I think ill buy the gmae of the year edition on steam….maybe the night fall and faction too

The best answer i can give you is that there is a GW forum and you came to a GW2 forum to ask that alone show that GW is on its last legs.

My guild still plays occasionally. We started a guild event to play with each other once a week in fact, to show people the story and help them get HoM points. Though a lot of people initially expressed interest in playing, not everyone stayed with playing. Those who played and loved the game, though, still go in to help people

For myself, I’ve done everything there is in the game so many times, without going in to help people there’s not much reason to keep playing.

I don’t play it anymore but my guild is still pretty active in the original Guild Wars with events, etc. I would definitely recommend joining a guild because of activity level. I would go to Guild Wars Guru to check out the community.

I tried to, when I got depressed over how GW2 turned out. Some old existing GW players that had been loving the game for years wanted to see it evolve into something better, so we could continue playing. But as has been said, the two aren’t related. In that sense, GW never got a real sequel.

The mechanics, which were either ahead of their time or common for 2001 (when the game started development) are of course too hard for new players to get used to, going backwards. For those of us that played the original game for thousands of hours, starting a new character in pre-searing Ascalon can be pretty fun, but ultimately more depressing than rewarding. Especially during Eye of the North, the game also started to look and feel more and more like it was breaking its own world building with ridiculous events and items meant to try to keep players interested, plus game balance took a huge nose dive.

I wouldn’t really recommend it. GW1 in its prime was an amazing game, though. I hate MMOs, and GW1 was a fantastic alternative.

Also, I occasionally log back in to check birthday present and such, and a few things recently hit me like a freight train:

My Warrior’s head was MASSIVE. I think it had its own gravitational pull.

The running animation is horribly janky now I’m used to GW2’s smooth animations.

I CAN’T JUMP. WHY CAN’T I JUMP?!

And the controls are just different enough that it’s incredibly confusing going back and having to remember the whole “Select Target > Hit Space to Attack” thing.

But I really wish my GW2 descendant had my GW1 character’s money

I still play the original GW series, working on my last title for GWAMM, after that probably not as much.

K so…it is game with same name and lore but totally different mechanics

Its unfortunate that GuildWars had to die out. I loved that game even more than GW2, in fact I stopped playing GW2 because it was so different than GuildWars. The speed clears were so fun in GuildWars and it was all based on skill with a cap of only lvl 20. I really loved GuildWars and played it for years, and am very sad to see it go down to this other game they call “GuildWars” 2 because it is so much more like WoW and not the same game.

Plague.5329:

I tried to, when I got depressed over how GW2 turned out. Some old existing GW players that had been loving the game for years wanted to see it evolve into something better, so we could continue playing. But as has been said, the two aren’t related. In that sense, GW never got a real sequel.

The mechanics, which were either ahead of their time or common for 2001 (when the game started development) are of course too hard for new players to get used to, going backwards. For those of us that played the original game for thousands of hours, starting a new character in pre-searing Ascalon can be pretty fun, but ultimately more depressing than rewarding. Especially during Eye of the North, the game also started to look and feel more and more like it was breaking its own world building with ridiculous events and items meant to try to keep players interested, plus game balance took a huge nose dive.

I wouldn’t really recommend it. GW1 in its prime was an amazing game, though. I hate MMOs, and GW1 was a fantastic alternative.

Couldn’t agree with you more.

i still play guild wars1…. i played guild wars 2 for a few days but hated the feel of it.. it just didn’t do anything for me like guild wars 1 does… i was truly gutted and if i could have got a refund i would have done so without hesitation… i also fear that they will shut the servers down for guild wars 1.. the day they do will be one the saddest days in my gaming life, the death of a game worthy of being called the greatest pc game of all time :’( i will cry myself to sleep for many nights when they do eventually close the servers :/ …. i hope to god that they stay open and the next generation will see its charm and return to it! LONG LIVE GUILD WARS 1!!!

I play GW1 still from time to time. It is mostly a deadzone but people tend to come back in for calendar events.

ZoSo.4867:

I haven’t played the original as well but from what I can assume on the forums, it seems like some people still play it but I’m guessing that it is only a small amount. You probably won’t be able to find groups of players to help you complete some dungeons but with the companion and hero system you can have NPC’s in your group to help you complete most of the content.

Not entirely accurate. There are still active guilds. The one I was in recently did a lot of faction rep farming and dungeon runs.

GW1 was my first MMO, I adored it, and as such it was (and is) the standard by which I judge all other MMOs. I despised WoW because of it and because GW2 is so much like standard MMOs in many respects it is the reason why I don’t much like GW2. Ironic that GW1 should make GW2 look so bad.

GW1 is barely alive nowadays. I logged in, discovered that almost nobody plays anymore, and gave like 892 platinum to a guy in Kamadan, and like 3 storm bows to another guy. I then uninstalled and haven’t been back since.

Yes, it’s still alive. Multiple districts in Spamadan, and ZQuests are all active. Even DoA and ToA are still alive!

I logged in on occasion and consider getting my two HoM points for the “Guild Warrior” title and FDS. I realized I’d be grinding for a while to get the necessary materials to craft the Destroyer weapon said “forget it”.

I haven’t logged in in a while, maybe 5 months or so, mostly because of time constraints and if I’m going to be playing anything with the limited time I have it’s going to be GW2… however, when I do finally get all caught up with everything I want to achieve I’ll probably start to drop back in to GW1 again to try to get my 50 HOM points.. still at 40 and from there on up it’s a pretty difficult climb.

I have not really played much since GW2 came out. I wanted to get to 40 HOM points but only got up to 34 before release. I was not much for grinding titles and things, so even though I played GW1 since release, I never got to 50 HOM points. I would love to go back and try to get some more, but its not like my guild/alliance play GW1 anymore so who would be there to game with? That said I have logged on on occassion to play for nostalgia and its pretty dead outside Spamadan. Temple of Balthazar has people but certainly not the many districts it used to have filled up, and I don’t really see too many in the other cities either. Really, Spamadan is the only place I see any big population of people.

I will say this though. GW1 has GW2 beat any day of the week in terms of rich lore, atmosphere, story in my opinion. For that I’ll always be nostalgic of that. GW2 took out all the interesting side quests that actually had an interesting story either related or not related to the overall story, outside of missions and gave you a very casualized version of “go kill 10 centaurs” quests instead for everything outside personal story. Kinda sad to me from a PvE perspective and it makes me adore GW1 all the more. GW2 can take so many lessons from GW1.

Honestly, if you enjoy a game with rich lore, good story and atmosphere (better than GW2 in my opinion), give GW1 a try anyway. With heroes, most things can be done solo if you can’t find other people so don’t let it stop you from trying it out.

i’ll log in once in a while with my friends for kicks but that’s about it.

Yeah, we have a once a week play session for hard mode (altho on hiatus atm due to long Christmas working hours).

Took a while to get into as I’d forgotten most of my skills and dervishes were ruined (imo) after a balance patch 2 years prev, but eventually got back into it and having fun again

If you wish to know more about lore search for wooden potatoes in youtube, he’s got some of the best lore videos when it comes to gw

If you want someone to help you get started and run with occasionally let me know. I don’t get on it much anymore but mainly because my guild in gw2 keeps me so busy. Gw1 will forever be my favorite game and while it can be painfully nostalgic at times when I revisit it, I still enjoy playing it. i know this was a really old topic, but this offer goes for anyone looking to start playing gw1

Purely anecdotal, but there are far more of my guildies/friends in GW1 actively than in GW2. This includes a 600 person alliance that came to GW2 with me, which now has exactly 2 representatives in GW2 – myself and another leader. Approximately 300 of them are actively (more than once a week) playing GW1.

The population is nothing like what it was years ago, and personally not having jump/dodge as options drives me nuts, but in terms of execution, I still view it as a far more complete and accomplished product than GW2. (GW1 is magic: the gathering to GW2’s pong.)

I log on, once in a great while. When I miss my old mesmer, or when I’m missing my monk, or when I desire to an actual minion master. I usually only hang out in JQ or FA though.

Lol for lolz I am going to see if any of my chars has gotten some mini’s during the last year.

aspirine.6852:

Lol for lolz I am going to see if any of my chars has gotten some mini’s during the last year.

I checked mine last week and had several green rarity ones ;-) Never know

Jski.6180:

The best answer i can give you is that there is a GW forum and you came to a GW2 forum to ask that alone show that GW is on its last legs.

There is no official GW1 forum, so it made sense that they came here.

I think there are more similarities than are acknowledged, but it’s more about nods to the original system (skill names, explorer titles etc) than a direct lift. (Some of the holiday stuff is a lot like the original, halloween being the main one.)

They did bring over a few quality of life things (accessing your storage from almost anywhere is a big one), but they could’ve brought over a lot more.

If you NEED to jump in a game, that and the invisible edges (can’t jump off cliffs, can’t swim) will drive you nuts.

I still play.

I play it about once a week. It’s a great game, and I think it is a better game than GW2 in many ways.

No. It was barely alive before GW2, it’s dead now.

It had a good run but my God how things have changed for the better.

I consistently see more players in GW1 than I do in WoW. GW1 is still going strong.

EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: My old WoW realm of Andorhal is nearly dead. I can’t speak for the other WoW realms.

Let’s be honest here, lads. GW1 has the feel that GW2 will never have, I’m afraid…:/ The lore, soundtrack, the number of different builds, 2-class system etc. If GW2 incorporated some of the ideas that made ( and still make ) GW1 special, it would definitely be the best MMO ever.

Was on gw1 last night for a few and plenty guys doing wintersday in eye of north
did a few zaishen helped a few then finished up had a pleasant evening

It uses instance system for pve, even at its golden times i felt so lonely in pve.
It’s good that gw2 has open world.

I hop on every now and again (tyring to complete HoM). That said eye of the north seems to be pretty populated and when I was in factions last night the pvp was in full swing.

If you haven’t played the story missions of the game… it’s really a must. I loved playing the story of GW1 because the whole game was built around it. It made me buy GW2, but it’s not the same, because GW2 story is a lot more shallow.

once you’re able to bring 7 heroes, it turns to a single player experience….

azizul.8469:

once you’re able to bring 7 heroes, it turns to a single player experience….

There has always been the ability to make it a single player experience, hench have been there since the dawn of the game. Now, yes heroes had better ai and customizable skill bars, but many people played and beat the game with hench long before heroes were granted to us in nightfall….

I loved and still love Guildwars. I play Guildwars 2 now, and love both of them differently. To me, the Guildwars Franchise will always be the number one MMO and I will always support it!

Jsalz.6187:

I loved and still love Guildwars. I play Guildwars 2 now, and love both of them differently. To me, the Guildwars Franchise will always be the number one MMO and I will always support it!

Agree.
I still go back to gw1 with guildies for retro nights every now and again. We all feel like sillies when we forget to bring a res signet (Doh!) and run up to eachother and press f trying to revive, or try to jump or dodge because we’ve got so used to the new controls of GW2.

Because of GW2 I bought GW1 last year, I’m slowly going through the campaigns, at two thirds into Cantha now. Unsurprisingly it has the same kind of style, atmosphere and feeling that I love in GW2, so I guess I love both!