Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this.

So, I really really enjoy the lore behind guild wars, I always check upon the forums to read the speculation what is going on. I’ve also read 2 of the 3 books that have been released ( orderd Sea of sorrows wich will take 7 days to get here) But what I not know is the history of guild wars, now I would like to play the GW1 series to get into the history of GW2 but I have a phew questions.

- Lorewise is it worth to play the presequal?
- Can u single player all the lore content in GW1?
- How much time would it take to play trough all the GW1 series?
- Are u still able to get the achievments to get the exclusive tittles + weapons in GW2?
- People still playing that game?

sorry about the grammar, english is not my primary language!

Thanks in advance!

Ok, I will try to answer your questions (this is my opinion)

- Lorewise is it worth to play the presequal?

I would say yes. You can go read about it on the wiki and watch videos on youtube but it is not the same as going through it. You can pretty much solo the whole game (with heros) and that allows you to go through it at your own pace.

- Can u single player all the lore content in GW1?

Answered this question above.

- How much time would it take to play trough all the GW1 series?

This really depends. I think you could get through all the lore in the games in probably a few weeks. It really depends on how much time you have to do the game. I know I can sit down on a Saturday and go through most of the first GW game. So it really depends on your time available.

- People still playing that game?

Yes there are still people playing the game. ANET set the game on auto-pilot a few months back so it can run without much ANET interaction. This is good because it means the game will be there for a while. I still go back and play about once a month there as do a few other people I know. There are allows players in the different towns when I am there.

Hope I helped answer your questions.

There are people, but not many. You’ll find people in the major outposts but probably not in the earlier zones so you would be playing Solo.
The game is most definitely soloable, I completed almost all of the story missions in both Normal and Hard mode on my own.

It will take you a bit of time to get through all three campaigns and EoTN, although it will depend on what content you are wanting to experience. A lot of lore is delivered through quests so if you are planning on doing all the quests then of course it’s going to take a bit longer. If you JUST wanted to do the missions (you would miss out on a lot of content) then it wouldn’t take anywhere near as long. Although you still have to factor in getting to level 20.

I STRONGLY suggest you play the free trial and decide if the game is right for you before you decide to buy it.

My advice if you do get all the expansions is to start with nightfall and eotn first and focus on looking up hero builds for an overall setup because heroes with good setups can make alot of content considerabbly easier then just henchies or hoofing it. the wiki for gw1 is alot of help and there is a site for good hero builds along with locations for the skills you’d need and everything.

Keep in mind that without heroes, several missions will be a huge pain (if not impossible) to get done solo. If you want to actually experience all 3 campaigns from start to finish, you’ll need to create 3 separate characters for each (one for prophecies, one for factions, one for nightfall). Only the one from Nightfall will get heroes from the start.

Prophecies/Factions characters will need to take a detour and do the Nightfall content or the Eye of the North content to get the heroes. Several prophecies/factions missions will be very difficult to do with just henchmen. You’ll need heroes. Another option is to get some friends to play with you.

Also you’ll need to unlock skills so that your heroes run good builds that will actually help you. You can buy the skill unlock packs for this. Otherwise, you’ll need to unlock them by buying the skills from the skill trainer.

I recommend just playing the campaigns in the order in which they were released.

Start with Prophecies, then Factions, then Nightfall, then Eye of the North (which bridges the gap to GW2).

Most of GW1 can be played solo except for four elite areas, the Underworld, Domain of Anguish, The Deep and Urgoz Warren. Those four are kinda hard to do without real players, but they are not needed to enjoy most of the lore. With heroes, Fissure of Woe is now quite doable. I don’t know about Urgoz Warren though, I suspect that might still be tricky.

Lickage.7318:

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this.

So, I really really enjoy the lore behind guild wars, I always check upon the forums to read the speculation what is going on. I’ve also read 2 of the 3 books that have been released ( orderd Sea of sorrows wich will take 7 days to get here) But what I not know is the history of guild wars, now I would like to play the GW1 series to get into the history of GW2 but I have a phew questions.

- Lorewise is it worth to play the presequal?
- Can u single player all the lore content in GW1?
- How much time would it take to play trough all the GW1 series?
- Are u still able to get the achievments to get the exclusive tittles + weapons in GW2?
- People still playing that game?

sorry about the grammar, english is not my primary language!

Thanks in advance!

Yes, it is worth playing the game to experience first-hand what happened, or to fully appreciate the places you can visit in GW2 – the ruins of old Lion’s Arch, Ascalon and many more. If gives GW1 players a feeling ingame in GW2 that is definitely worth trying to get.

If you plan to solo the content with heroes you will have to do some basic “work” like getting gold, skills and equipment for heroes. Once you have managed to set those up you can solo pretty much everything except a few elite areas. So you will have to put some time and dedication into GW1 to get to that point, but i would still recommend to play the game in the order as it was released, starting with Prophecies. You can still just hop into the campaigns that give you heroes initially, just to get them, it would make things a lot easier in Prophecies. You can freely travel between camapigns and continents once you have unlocked the port cities.

I’d say if you want to really get into it it will require some weeks to several months from starting to getting a fully set-up team of heroes (plus your character of course) that can roll through the content. Try to find a guild that is still active, so that people help you there. It is a lot more fun to play with friends than to solo play.

You can still get the achievements for GW2, although filling your Hall of Monuments completely and/or getting to 50 points will take a considerable effort of time and/or ingame gold, more than to play through the campaigns for the lore.

The game is not overly populated any more, but people still play. The major cities will be the most populated places, along with some meeting points for speed-clears, although those won’t be of interest for you.

If you want to give it a try, start with Prophecies, Pre-Searing Ascalon City is still a good place to meet some people and a good way to learn the basics of the game.

If you want to solo GW1, go Elona then EotN. Collect the heroes. It is easier to solo it with controllable NPCs than the old-style hencemen.

But it will require patience. I finished Faction, Nightfall, and EotN 48-76 hours on release, solo – except for the missions that forces you to team up like in Faction, there were two such missions, which forced some of us to wait for players to catch-up. Our secret? Lots and lots of patience. Especially during Factions, there were no heroes back then.

And when I say patience, I mean, PATIENCE. Even if you have -60% penalty, you stay in the mission, study it and defeat it despite all odds. In Nightfall, there was a mission where I stayed on it 3-4 hours each attempt (IIRC, I made 6 attempts) until I finished it solo. It was tricky, but the key is that, each reload of the mission is unique. And each movement that you do makes it even more unique. For example, if you move too fast into the mission, you’ll probably end up loading groups of mobs at the same time. If you go slow, you get to load each group separately.

Then again, that was back then :p GW1 is very different today than it was. Some of my tricks in soloing no longer work last time I tried it, but still soloable, I just have to find a new way of doing things which Im no longer willing to do :p So I just joined PUGs.

You get the idea Most of GW1 is soloable, you just have to be patient and take it slowly. Not because you have -60% penalty does it mean you’ll never be able to finish the mission. But there are also missions you will never be able to solo because the mission requires at least 2 real players :p Again, except for the two missions in Faction haha, where you need a full PUG

I think a lot of the earlier content in Prophecies becomes a lot easier when you bring the heroes from Nightfall into the mix. And a lot of the missions that we remember as being hard, have been significantly toned down since release, such as Thunderhead Keep.

Factions is probably one of the harder campaigns, due to the tight clusters of enemies, and the double damage and double HP that bosses have. Especially that double damage often causes party wipes. And Factions also has a lot of mobs build around the trinity, so they pose a very balanced threat to your own party. Especially the Jade Brotherhood and Afflicted mobs early on can be a pain.

Nightfall is some what easier. It also has some trinity mobs, but the zones are less tightly packed with mobs, and bosses aren’t as nasty as in Factions. It only gets really hard towards the end of the campaign.

Eye of the North is perhaps one of the most balanced of all the campaigns. But it is definitely meant for experienced players. This means that almost all mobs are challenging to some degree. And the missions are of medium difficulty. None of them are a walk in the park, nor are they frustratingly difficult. There are a few zones with mobs that are kind of nasty, such as the raptors that you may already know from GW2. But overall, it isn’t all that bad. Stay away from Slavers Exile though, that dungeon is meant for groups of real players. Eye of the North also introduced a lot more unique skills for monsters, where as the previous expansions simply used the same skills as the players for monsters. In Eye of the North for example, wurms use a bile attack that does massive damage. There’s many more that have their own signature attacks that players can’t use. This was a bit of a deviation from the earlier game.

Lickage.7318:

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this.

So, I really really enjoy the lore behind guild wars, I always check upon the forums to read the speculation what is going on. I’ve also read 2 of the 3 books that have been released ( orderd Sea of sorrows wich will take 7 days to get here) But what I not know is the history of guild wars, now I would like to play the GW1 series to get into the history of GW2 but I have a phew questions.

- Lorewise is it worth to play the presequal?
- Can u single player all the lore content in GW1?
- How much time would it take to play trough all the GW1 series?
- Are u still able to get the achievments to get the exclusive tittles + weapons in GW2?
- People still playing that game?

sorry about the grammar, english is not my primary language!

Thanks in advance!

1.) It is definitely worth it to play through the series, especially prophecies. I feel like GW2 is very Human-Charr centric, which is understandable considering the bulk of the content in GW1. You will get a good feel for the events in GW2 and come to appreciate the game more.

2.) If you plan on doing this, you should definitely invest in all four games (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North). The Heroes are worth it if not necessary at this point in GW1. Heroes are a companion system that allows you to play with advanced AI computers as well as design their builds/armor/etc. They were introduced with Nightfall. Once you get into it the game is very good at storytelling. Factions is one of the best short stories in any online game I’ve played. I’ts definitely doable alone, but some of the missions are intense and frustrating.

3.) If you’re planning on completing all four campaigns I would give yourself 2 weeks for Prophecies, a week for Factions, 2 weeks for Nightfall, and about 10 hours for Eye of the North.

4.) All achievements are still available to fill the Hall of Monuments.

5.) Most remaining players are there for elite zone completions. You will have a hard time fitting into the meta being a new player.

I played GW1 for about 6 years with my friends. let me know if there is anything else and I’ll do my best to assist. Enjoy!

Thanks for all the feedback!

I recently got my hands on a copy of Guild Wars Trilogy!

Yeah, I would say you can solo, but if you want to play through the full story of GW1 it would be most enjoyable if you could make friends that are still active in the game and get them to follow you along. I would recommend spending time doing all the quests you can find in order to gain more information on the world that you are playing in, the religions, the lore, and everything else. I would also like to note that if you want to get the whole GW1 experience you should definitely buy the Eye of the North expansion which does not come with the trilogy expansion. Then, once you have completed all 4 games, have someone show you how to do the War in Kryta and the Winds of Change. These were two sets of quests/missions that helped to bridge from the time of GW1 to GW2. This will get you most of the way up to date with everyone else on here. There’s definitely the Fissure of Woe, Underworld (which I haven’t even finished), Urgoz’s Warren, and The Deep. These are elite areas, and most definitely require regular players. They do have some worth though as possible bits of lore, although they were meant to be a bit more on the side of giving elite players something to continue to grind through in the game. If you ever have any questions about the game there are a lot of us in the Lore forum that played the first game for years (4 and counting personally, although I don’t find much time recently), and we would be more than happy to fill you in on information that you missed, or let you know if it’ll be answered in future missions and such. I really hope you enjoy the first game. It was one of the most worthwhile gaming experiences I have had in my life.