Im franticly awiating the release of Guild Wars 2, and really doing nothing but ransacking the forums and playing single player games for the last 6 months.

My question is, having never played GW1, is it worth picking up at this point? I know some things you can trasnfer with you, Hall of Monuments (no idea what that is obviosuly), and learn about some lore i suppose.

I know the concept of GW1 is not an MMORPG  its a  Co-op RPG so its a little different than what im used to.  It friendly for a new player? think playing GW1 will imporve my GW2 experience?

Originally posted by WellzyC

I know the concept of GW1 is not an MMORPG  its a  Co-op RPG so its a little different than what im used to.  It friendly for a new player? think playing GW1 will imporve my GW2 experience?

i played gw like a pve mmorpg - ive seen players have mixed reactions to gw1

i doubt gw1 will improve your gw2 experience beyond lore, but you may enjoy the game

do the trial

http://www.guildwars.com/freetrial/

GW 1 is nearly 7 years old now. It's getting old. So keep that in mind. I see a lot of people load up a game that's decades old and complain about stuff that didn't even exist in that time period yet lol.

I'd say if you are considering playing GW 1 just look if anything interests you. I'll supply my thoughts on some things to help if you want:

PvP

Gladiator Arena PvP - two teams of 4 are randomly generated and fight in the gladiator arena. Ideal if you are playing by yourself.

Hero Arenas - An interesting 1v1 PvP where two teams up to 4 are created by controlling a set of heroes. This was introduced with the Eye of the North expansion.

Team Arena - two teams, 4 players, team must be organized first before entering.

Hall of Legends Arena? - I think that's what it's called. It's organized teams of 8 in a series of pvp matches sometimes with more than just two teams fighting.

Guild vs. Guild - Teams of 8, organized guild teams, fight each other in a map made up of guild forts which each guild can buy different forts and customize them some.

Alliance Battles - These were introduced in the Factions expansion it's basically a pvp based on which faction you choose to ally with while adventuring in the PvE portion of this expansion. These were pretty fun when I played them. There are these huge turtles that you have to escort that work like artillary cannons or something.

PvE

Missions - PvE missions advance the guild wars story which are advanced by following your Main Quest. The first introductory missions start out as only 1-2 players but the group size increases as well as the difficulty as you get further down in the story up to 8 players. Maybe some that increase up to 12.

World exploring - This is where you can just go outside the city and walk around doing stuff. Similar to missions though, it isn't persistent, it's an instanced area.

City/Gathering Areas - These are the only persistent areas in the game that I know of. But are limited to a maximum number of players. When that max is hit, a new instance is created and you can switch between the instances using a menu in the top left corner of the screen. I guess you can call it the zone or instance menu. People have said "which city are you in?" when looking for each other when I played.

Extras - There are also fun extra mission stuff that have leaderboards and stuff to motivate players to try to get the high score. Kinda cool. Elite missions, challenge missions, and minigames.

Skill gathering - The grind in Guild Wars is barely existent, but there is a catch. There are hundreds of skills for each class. You only really need 8 to play and some are even freely given. This makes everyone want to hunt for ALL the skills for their class. To get skills you can either do PvE or PvP. PvP awards a currency you can use to buy the skills. In PvE you can collect most of them from questing, but the really hard to get ones come from capturing them from bosses. I had fun doing it either way.

Items - Items don't matter in Guild Wars but they are unique looking so you want to find the items that make you look unique or cool looking depending how you built your class with the skills you chose. However PvP players can't really get the coolest looking ones IIRC. You have to find them in PvE.

That probably sums up the good parts of GW1 for me.

Guild Wars 1 is still the best game ever made.  So yes, it's worth trying, just on that basis alone.

GW1 is a great game, you should try it for three reasons:

1) It's gameplay. It's not an MMO, it's very different from GW2 but it is still great. Besides, no game equals it in the amount of content you get for the amount of money you pay.

2) The lore. Although you can just read up on lore on the wiki's of GW1 and GW2, and by reading the three novels specifically written to bridge the 250 years between the two games.

3) The Hall of Monuments. You can unlock weapon and armor skins, minipets, animal companions and titles in GW2 by playing GW1.

I loving what I see and read so far with GW2 but honestly I thought I could get into GW1 again and rebought the game and every expansion but I couldnt force myself to play it even if my life was on the line. I heard great things about it from those who do play it though, so yes there are mix feelings with the game. There is a free trial to GW1 though I think, so you can try it out before you actually buy the game to get your HOM  titles and items transfered to GW2. But if you dont care much about them, and they probably wont be much use in GW2 then I suggest reading the currently 2 books about GW lore and they sure are good reads if your more interested in the lore than playing the game. I have both and read them a few times, cant wait till the 3rd, "Sea of Sorrows"  this coming year.

Unless you really want the to discover the lore first-hand, I do not recommend playing GW1.

Getting anything worthwhile out of the Hall of Monuments is a grind more extreme than anything even WoW has to offer. In WoW you might grind for weeks to get a ridiculously epic mount. With the HoM, that amount of grind might get you... an orange tabby cat. Unless you have fountains of money (like the people who've been playing for years), you probably won't get past the first three points. (The first three are free.) I managed to get to 4 only because I bought my account before launch and had all those birthday pets lined up. Didn't get a rare, though. My options? Wait another year or farm so I can buy one from another player. Insane.

The game is extremely unfriendly to new players. No assistance is given in-game when it comes to "deck building". Online guides are useless as they assume you've already unlocked everything and are trying to farm or speedrun.

Getting in a pick-up group without a "pro" build will get you judged faster than trying to raid with arena gear in WoW. You'll have to resort to getting someone to "train" you. In other words, the game is so confusing and poorly designed that you need another player standing by just to explain how to play. If all you care about is the lore, you can manage to solo through Prophecies without any help. I don't recommend grouping unless you like being judged. I got stuck on a boss in EotN (where the HoM is) that is so stupidly designed it is literally impossible for me to kill it without either using a very specific build (which I haven't unlocked the skills for) or find someone to do it for me.

And all this is just for the PvE. The PvP is even less accessible and even more likely to get you judged by elitists.

I'm looking forward to GW2 as much as anyone else on this board, but I have to say it. GW1 is a bad game.

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Originally posted by Quizzical
Guild Wars 1 is still the best game ever made. So yes, it's worth trying, just on that basis alone.

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Don't ever trust the word of a fanboy.

Playing GW1, even if you're not aiming to get something out of it is definitely worth a go. It's one of the more unique games on the market with a look and feel that has aged well in comparison to other games released at the time and it's really cheap now.

PvP is a bit hard to figure out at first, but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be
well prepared for the watered down version of build customization that GW2 has on offer.

Story-wise it's well written with cut-scenes and voice acting, so getting familiar with the setting will be a breeze if that interests you.

If nothing else, there's a trial, give that a go. If you're at all interested in it after that, by all means it's a good buy that you won't soon regret.

 {mod edit}

you need to try it...its a MUST ;) everyone has to try GW at least once in their life

It's extremely overwhelming when you first start playing, I'd recommend starting as a factions character, since both Rit and Sin are the two easiest classes to be good with. Assassin will fall into the roll of either tanking or dps, where as Ritualist can fill the roll of either dps or healer. Though the idea of convential tanking doesn't really take precedence, as threat is barely something the players can control. Threat in this game is more of an enemy AI priority, so in order to tank you either physically body block the enemies, or kill them fast enough before they break aggro from the tank.

What I have found about the three rolls is that party support is the only roll that can maintain its stressfulness no matter how good you are, mainly because no amount of experience will ever prevent players from playing poorly.

I'm sure you've heard how the developers of GW2 really like the way that they consolidated all the debuffs, and with good reason. In the original Guild Wars there are over 200 hexes on top of the 10 conditions that players have to learn in order to get a better handle on the game.

Not to mention there are tons of hidden mechanics that are never introduced to you into the game, for instance the way damage is distributed to different hit boxes on a player, and how armor works and the amount of mitigation you get from armor, total armor cap.

TL;DR   The game is extremely overwhelming, but you can work on it bit by bit since you're not obligated by a monthly fee :3

Originally posted by WellzyC

 Im franticly awiating the release of Guild Wars 2, and really doing nothing but ransacking the forums and playing single player games for the last 6 months.

My question is, having never played GW1, is it worth picking up at this point?

It's def worth it, but bear in mind;

LEAVE YOUR PRECONCEPTIONS OF WHAT IT SHOULD BE AT THE DOOR

GW is a very different game then the standard MMORPG. It is set up diffferently, plays differently, and has different core systems (how aggro works as a good example). You have to approach it as it's own animal with an open mind- I think most get frustrated with it due to it not being the WoW model.

If you do that though it is a cracking game and has a ton to offer. :)

Originally posted by Shroom_Mage

Getting in a pick-up group without a "pro" build will get you judged faster than trying to raid with arena gear in WoW.

That's just the young age group that mostly populates this game because of no subscription fees. Like runescape. Not to say that there aren't any adults around acting immature. I recommend bringing a friend to play in GW to avoid running into this. At least that way you'll always have your own group and kick out condescending players. Hardcore players can also act out of place and try to tell you that there are only these skills you should ever use. Probably gets more like this because of the older it gets the more knowledgeable players become and the more skills they have unlocked. When the game was new, everyone was using whatever skills they currently had and everyone was newbs! Was fun.

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Originally posted by PTED
Playing GW1, even if you're not aiming to get something out of it is definitely worth a go. It's one of the more unique games on the market with a look and feel that has aged well in comparison to other games released at the time and it's really cheap now.

 

PvP is a bit hard to figure out at first, but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be
well prepared for the watered down version of build customization that GW2 has on offer.

Story-wise it's well written with cut-scenes and voice acting, so getting familiar with the setting will be a breeze if that interests you.

If nothing else, there's a trial, give that a go. If you're at all interested in it after that, by all means it's a good buy that you won't soon regret.

{mod edit}

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{mod edit}

It's unique. A lot of things are unique, and extremely few of them are worth trying.

A watered down version of GW2? Please. Are you trying to tell him why should play it, or are you trying to sell it to him? The systems aren't at all alike. I more often hear that GW2 is a watered down version of GW1. Both suggestions are wrong.

The story is decent if you can manage to get through it, but that's really all the game has going for it if you're a new player, and that isn't nearly enough to warrant playing.

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Originally posted by Plasmicredx

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Originally posted by Shroom_Mage
Getting in a pick-up group without a "pro" build will get you judged faster than trying to raid with arena gear in WoW.

---

 

That's just the young age group that mostly populates this game because of no subscription fees. Like runescape. Not to say that there aren't any adults around acting immature. I recommend bringing a friend to play in GW to avoid running into this. At least that way you'll always have your own group and kick out condescending players. Hardcore players can also act out of place and try to tell you that there are only these skills you should ever use. Probably gets more like this because of the older it gets the more knowledgeable players become and the more skills they have unlocked. When the game was new, everyone was using whatever skills they currently had and everyone was newbs! Was fun.

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I think that sums up exactly why one shouldn't play it. The only people still playing are elitists. I'd bring a friend along, but there's no one I'd want to subject to the game.

Play the trial if you want, but heed my advice. Do not group with anyone you don't know from outside the game.

Originally posted by Shroom_Mage

Unless you really want the to discover the lore first-hand, I do not recommend playing GW1.

Getting anything worthwhile out of the Hall of Monuments is a grind more extreme than anything even WoW has to offer. In WoW you might grind for weeks to get a ridiculously epic mount. With the HoM, that amount of grind might get you... an orange tabby cat. Unless you have fountains of money (like the people who've been playing for years), you probably won't get past the first three points. (The first three are free.) I managed to get to 4 only because I bought my account before launch and had all those birthday pets lined up. Didn't get a rare, though. My options? Wait another year or farm so I can buy one from another player. Insane.

The game is extremely unfriendly to new players. No assistance is given in-game when it comes to "deck building". Online guides are useless as they assume you've already unlocked everything and are trying to farm or speedrun.

Getting in a pick-up group without a "pro" build will get you judged faster than trying to raid with arena gear in WoW. You'll have to resort to getting someone to "train" you. In other words, the game is so confusing and poorly designed that you need another player standing by just to explain how to play. If all you care about is the lore, you can manage to solo through Prophecies without any help. I don't recommend grouping unless you like being judged. I got stuck on a boss in EotN (where the HoM is) that is so stupidly designed it is literally impossible for me to kill it without either using a very specific build (which I haven't unlocked the skills for) or find someone to do it for me.

And all this is just for the PvE. The PvP is even less accessible and even more likely to get you judged by elitists.

I'm looking forward to GW2 as much as anyone else on this board, but I have to say it. GW1 is a bad game.

{mod edit}

I been following GW2 since before the hype. And I am also interested, but I have to stop here and agree with your post.

{mod edit}

Yeah, first year of prophecies was an amazing time to be playing GW since everyone grouped with other players and you could get away with the most retarded builds, nowadays not so much.

Originally posted by Shroom_Mage

 

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Originally posted by PTED
Playing GW1, even if you're not aiming to get something out of it is definitely worth a go. It's one of the more unique games on the market with a look and feel that has aged well in comparison to other games released at the time and it's really cheap now.

 

PvP is a bit hard to figure out at first, but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be
well prepared for the watered down version of build customization that GW2 has on offer.

Story-wise it's well written with cut-scenes and voice acting, so getting familiar with the setting will be a breeze if that interests you.

If nothing else, there's a trial, give that a go. If you're at all interested in it after that, by all means it's a good buy that you won't soon regret.

{mod edit}

 

Yeah, really clever, guy. Spin it right around. The difference is I quoted his entire post and you took one sentence of mine out of context. You must be one of those people who calls anyone who disagrees with you a "troll" or a "hater". Because only one side can have a valid opinion, right?

I gave good reason why the game is terrible. What's your reasoning? Let's see...

It's unique. A lot of things are unique, and extremely few of them are worth trying.

A watered down version of GW2? Please. Are you trying to tell him why should play it, or are you trying to sell it to him? The systems aren't at all alike. I more often hear that GW2 is a watered down version of GW1. Both suggestions are wrong.

The story is decent if you can manage to get through it, but that's really all the game has going for it if you're a new player, and that isn't nearly enough to warrant playing.

 

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Originally posted by Plasmicredx

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Originally posted by Shroom_Mage
Getting in a pick-up group without a "pro" build will get you judged faster than trying to raid with arena gear in WoW.

---

 

That's just the young age group that mostly populates this game because of no subscription fees. Like runescape. Not to say that there aren't any adults around acting immature. I recommend bringing a friend to play in GW to avoid running into this. At least that way you'll always have your own group and kick out condescending players. Hardcore players can also act out of place and try to tell you that there are only these skills you should ever use. Probably gets more like this because of the older it gets the more knowledgeable players become and the more skills they have unlocked. When the game was new, everyone was using whatever skills they currently had and everyone was newbs! Was fun.

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I think that sums up exactly why one shouldn't play it. The only people still playing are elitists. I'd bring a friend along, but there's no one I'd want to subject to the game.

Play the trial if you want, but heed my advice. Do not group with anyone you don't know from outside the game.

Is all I see you complaining about is that you the player have to make a choice as to what is best in certain situations, if you don't like having to create skill loadouts for different scenarios, then you probably won't like Guild Wars 2.

I played a paragon as my first character post release, and I never once got turned down, or "judged" by a group, except outside of DOA, because lets face it, bringing a class that gets shut down by every margonite pack is probably poor planning. Would you bring mage to a raid in WoW if all the mage could do in that particular raid is auto attack?

Then again bringing skills like that to a group will also get you ridiculed, no one likes useless players.

As for worrying about other players judging you in general, you can play through the entire game with just Heroes, every piece of content in the game can be done with heroes, though does require a significant amount of work on the players part. Though if you do plan on playing the game entirely with heroes, don't forget to gear your heroes as well.

If you're looking for a nice and involving PvE experience it's definately worth getting. The story is well written and full of voiced cut-scenes. Especially at the price you can get it nowadays. PvP however not so much, because you have to have experience with a lot of skills and how each profession plays to be able to play PvP well. By the time you learnt that GW2 will probably be out.

Filling the Hall of Monuments is not as hard as some here suggest. If you completed all three campaigns and make sure you did al the bonus objectives within all the missions it already gives you 6 titles, which give you 8 points, which means 8 amor skins / pets / mini-pets and weapon skins. Train a pet to lvl 20 with your ranger and you have 9 points. If you can find a helpful guild someone can give you a hand in acquiring an elite pet from the Underworld elite area and that leads to 10. By the time you have completed all the campaigns you will have enough money to at least buy one elite armor for your companions and yourself and one destroyer weapon. That gives you some more points. If you finish all missions again on hard mode you will get more titles and more points, etc... So if you spend some time in GW1 you can get to 20-25 points easily (which equals 20-25 items in GW2) before GW2 comes out. Getting it all the way to 50 is indeed an enormous grind, but that is only meant for the hardcore player who played this game for years. You don't get any rewards but titles (no items) after 30 anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.

You can find out more about the Hall of Monuments and the rewards on the GW1 wiki site: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_earning_Hall_of_Monuments_rewards

Originally posted by moosecatlol

It's extremely overwhelming when you first start playing, I'd recommend starting as a factions character, since both Rit and Sin are the two easiest classes to be good with. Assassin will fall into the roll of either tanking or dps, where as Ritualist can fill the roll of either dps or healer.

Actually, the general consensus is: start with Nightfall. Heroes > everything. And you can tell by the way the story developes, the quests are set up, the speed of progression etc that it is newer than Prophecies and Factions.

Basically: Play Nightfall and Eye of the North for the gameplay, play Prophecies for the story, play Factions once you have done the rest.

GW1 is a game that I have prob spent the most time in, I played it non-stop for 2 years atleast. It is one of the best gaming experinces I have had - though if I were to pick it up today without having played it ever before it might be a bit hard, since the community is somewhat different from back then - though it is a great PvE experience, getting into PvP is a whole other matter, and something I my self probably wouldn't want to bother with aymore since the meta game has changed so much, as well as how a lot of the skills has been changed for PvP (and only in pvp) which means a lot of things works quite a bit differently than what I was used to.

Anyway, when that is said, if you do decide to pick the game up, and want someone to play with, then do send me a PM and we might be able to sort something out - I still need to finish the Nightfall campaign now that I think about it xD.

Plus there's a ton of stuff to do in GW1 really, which I haven't spent nearly as much time doing as I actually wanted to do :)

Oh and in GW2 I know that there will be quite a few things that will refere back to the days of GW1, such as the ghosts of ascalon, and to truly understand how that actually happend you have to play the game.

I know that by the end of leaving Ascalon lands I really hated the Charr, but that is also something that made them awesome.

When I first entered the GW1 world I remember heading out for exploring with a friend, then we came to this place which was overrun by Charr, which was a challenge we decided to take head on xD

Though obviously we ended up dead, but certainly got a ton of those giant cat-people with us ;p Was quite a lot of fun actually :)