Read the Hero Armor page at GWW for full details.

Basically Nightfall and EotN have some challenge missions where an armor upgrade piece has a chance of dropping. Take that piece to a Hero Armor NPC and *poof* your hero has the upgraded armor skin. Otherwise put runes and insignias on their armor just as you would your own. One nice thing is that hero armor *cannot* be destroyed from salvaging to getting your mods back from heroes is guaranteed.

Yep, I was in the Phylon beta briefly, and logged in once post-launch. It was a poorly done crapfest. Hate to say that, most games have at least *one* positive aspect even if the overall product is junk but I couldn't find anything positive to say about the Phylon experience.

Older players may have left, or play very infrequently, but new players are coming in and the overall effect has been a continual increase of players.

Leaving the game just because GW2 is on the horizon in two years is foolish unless you've been playing fairly hardcore all along and burn through every bit of new content as soon as it comes out. While no new retail content is planned, Anet has said as long as there are GW1 players, the servers and support remain in place. They've hinted at small free content updates in the meantime as well. GW1 isn't going anywhere until no one is left playing.

And sure, plenty of other MMO's are coming out. Plenty of other have come out in the couple years GW has been around. The advantage of GW's no monthly fee is you never have to bother with the whole unsub/resub process. Wanna take a break? Just take it, you're not paying anyway, and come back when you're in the mood even if it's only for a weekend.

I've just played a new character through Prophecies with a friend who just started the game and we never had a problem getting groups. I finished Factions a few weeks ago and finished Nightfall a few days ago and again, zero problem ever getting a group. Everywhere I went there were people in the outposts.

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Originally posted by Smartwhois
Don't you mean BUY your gear and get ready to play?

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Out of the handful of the F2P + Item Shop grinders I've tried, I have yet to ever see an item shop actually sell gear.

XP buff potions, sure. Stamina buff potions, sure. Teleport scrolls, yep. Extra clothes, sometimes (note: clothes, not armor. no stats)

It really seems everyone griping about item shops thinks those shops are selling all the epic gear, and it's just not the case, at least in my experience. Frankly, since click-to-move PvP doesn't appeal to me, I have no reason to ever use the item shops either, since PvP would be the only real time I'd have an "advantage" by using those buff items.

It's in a bizarre location, I just found it this morning.

Look in the options under the Chat tab, it's up near the top before the line separating the actual chat options.

Official Guild Wars Wiki (GWW) (newer but gaining content rapidly) also the F10 key brings up a wiki search window in-game, as well as a /wiki [optional key words] command.

GuildWiki Unofficial Wiki (been around longer so might have more content)

Those two are pretty much the Information Bibles of the game, everything you'd need is there, and everyone will pretty much refer you there for info anyway.

Personally I would not apply the Uncanny Valley to LOTRO at all. LOTRO's graphics are stylized in their own way. In my mind, the main difference is that LOTRO is, to date, the only low fantasy MMO because LOTR was itself very low fantasy. Every other fantasy MMO is high fantasy and the differences between the two can be subtle yet simultaneously very noticeable.

Last I checked, and that was a long time ago, at least 4 million boxes sold. That doesn't translate into active players though. There is no /who or other census tool available. Each public instance (towns and outposts) are population-controlled so a new copy is created when the population reaches a certain limit.

Suffice it to say no matter which campaign I happen to play on any day, there are plenty of people playing, and the ability to switch between US and International districts on-the-fly dramatically increases your opportunities to meet and group with others.

Turbine did hint at raising the level cap a month or few ago in a dev chat, but said it would likely come the usual way, ie. retail expansion. So until they announce that, I wouldn't concern myself about it.

All in all, what does it matter? It's just a number over your head. I'd rather give more abilities, skills, armors, weapons, etc. to personalize our characters and differentiate them from everyone else. All a level cap increase does is invalidate previous content (which is a huge flaw in levels-based games anyway). So you increase the number over your head by 10. You're in "harder" zones but you're getting gear to equalize it, so in the end the combat is identical in difficulty and duration. Sure, you can go back to lower (now invalid to you) content and open a can of whoop-ass on mobs and bosses who gave you a hard time before, but that's only fun once.

50 is fine, it's just a number. Give me more actual content to play through.

I hear my guildmates complaining about Paragon nerfs fairly often. I have a Paragon but he's only recently 17 and hasn't even done Consulate Docks yet so I don't have much experience with the profession. I do enjoy playing him and I love the effects and the offense/defense balancing. I don't know how far I'll go with the profession though other than capping skills since his secondary is Ele and I'm guessing I'll get a Paragon hero at some point in the Nightfall story line.

My main is a Monk/Necromancer though I typically only load Monk skills (Heal/Prot). I'd love to come up with a fun Smite build though and let Hero/Hench monks handle the healing for a change.

I do have an SS Necro who used to be my main until I switched back to the monk, those are also fun.

I just got a Dervish to 20 and over to the mainland and that class is tons of fun if you enjoy melee.

I've never had an Ele, Mesmer or Ritualist yet; I'm very curious about the Ritualist but I think I'm going to hold off until I get my Monk through the entire game and maybe some others. I'll probably stick with him as my primary character so I'm using the others to cap skills for Heroes right now.

Same here. I have a notoriously short attention span so I tend to pop back and forth between all four areas. I've been spending my main character's time playing Factions (finally) for the first time and I'm really enjoying it. A good friend just started playing the game and he got the Platinum Pack (Prophecies and Eye of the North) so I rolled a ranger to duo with him through Prophecies.

Everywhere I go in every campaign, there are plenty of people playing. Don't fret it. If you start with Factions, that's fine, just play it and have fun, there are tons of players doing Factions. Plenty of people in my guild started with Factions or Nightfall and didn't do Prophecies until last, if at all (with EotN you don't really *have* to do Prophecies to experience some of Tyria since Prophecies is laid out differently than the other two campaigns).

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You ask the question of "Is there much to do after you hit level 20" like you never understood the point of the game in the first place was to PvP.

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If he's asking that, he doesn't understand the game at all. PvP? There's far more PvE content than PvP and the PvP seems to be dying off these days anyway.

But yes, there's plenty to do "after 20." Like, the rest of the game.

I just vendor everything I don't want. I have better things to do than waste my time standing in district 1 of LA or Kamadan spamming trade. Like I said, money drops off trees once you're 20 and there are zero *required* money sinks in the game so I have no use for wasting my time trying to find players to buy stuff.

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Originally posted by Vaden
There doesnt seem to be a built in or 3rd party anti-hacking software so thats really bad.

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However [topic derailment] does that mean I could run Archlord in Linux with Cedega or WINE? [makes plans to test this] Those third-party "security" apps are the reason it's impossible to run any of the Asian MMO's in Linux.

Eye of the North is the only expansion, and it contains a short story to play through and long, difficult, multi-level end-game dungeons.

Factions and Nightfall are both full campaigns just like Prophecies (the first game) ie. they are stand-alone games. You can link them to a single account but you don't need any of them to play.

If you're mostly into PvP you'd probably want Factions since it added more PvP modes to the game. It's PvE story (missions) is much shorter than Prophecies.

Your other choice would be to just click the GW Online Store at the login screen and buy the PvP packs, and not worry about buying any of the campaigns or the expansion if you don't want to play through the PvE at all.

Depends on the item. If it's a 'colored' item then you might use the expert kit to extract a rune, insignia, or weapon mod from it. Otherwise check the wiki for which items have a chance of salvaging to a rare material. If I recall, you just recently started Prophecies so the expert kits might still be on the expensive side for you to be using every single time.

Once you get further along, say Maguuma Jungle, Crystal Desert and further, gold pretty much drops off trees and you can make a few platinum just from selling the drops to the local merchant after every trip to an explorable zone.

If you haven't noticed yet, GW isn't quite like every other online RPG out there. Bottom line: it's an action RPG not your typical MMO where you only learn say 30 or so skills ever and you can put them all on your hotbars. The point of GW is much like Magic: the Gathering -- you collect hundreds of skills (cards) and you try to create a build (deck) of just a few cards you think would be best in the situation or zone you're in. Being able to create so many builds for certain circumstances is what keeps the game fresh for a lot of people.

"Best" is subjective. A lot of us started with Prophecies so we look back fondly and consider that the "best" for us. Other people didn't start until Factions and they like that best. New players might have seen the shiny Nightfall boxes and that was their first campaign so it's the "best" to them.

Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall are all separate campaigns; stand-alone games. Their storylines are not related to the stories of the other campaigns at all so if you get one (you mentioned Nightfall) you'll play through the entire Nightfall storyline.

If you get Eye of the North, that is the only expansion and you do need one of the campaigns to play it. It's end-game content only, no tutorials or noob stuff at all.

Prophecies: traditional Euro fantasy world, contains all the core classes, and takes you through the storyline as you level.

Factions: based on Asian (mostly Chinese) mythology, contains core classes plus Assassin and Ritualist. The storyline is shorter but tons of non-storyline content (same with Prophecies and Nightfall). Additional PvP modes. Noob island to level up and you play through some of the back-story before getting to the mainland to start the real storyline.

Nightfall: based on African mythology (mostly), core classes plus Dervish and Paragon. Storyline is roughly as long as Prophecies. Heroes! Like Factions, Nightfall does the noob island where you level and play through the back-story then the main storyline once you're on the mainland.

Eye of the North: set in Tyria (where Prophecies takes place), introduces us to the new races we'll be playing in GW2 and adds multi-level dungeons to the game. Much shorter storyline, but it's an expansion not a full campaign.

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Originally posted by dmxkrew
Oh - one more question, how important is it to get the upgraded armor set from collector's pre-searing? Do you get better armor immediately following the searing?

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You're probably already in post-searing Ascalon but yes, immediately after arriving in town you'll find two armor crafters. Check the stats on each, one usually crafts a better set! You'll need to get the materials but the armor is significantly better than your pre-searing armor. As you progress, you'll find armor crafters that will progressively make better and better armor until you're at max armor rating.