Curse

Buster · Jan 14, 2008, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Can't go wrong with either Factions or Nightfall. Nightfall gives you heroes which are pretty cool and Factions just gives you access to aliiance battles and fort aspenwood, casual pvp areas. If you are a pve player then I would try getting Eye of the North expansion. The storyline is short but there are like 15-17 dungeon areas to do, plus you get more heroes in EOTN.

agrios · Jan 14, 2008, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Buy Nightfall...Gw2 is at least one year away..

thedeadwalk! · Jan 14, 2008, 09:26 PM // 21:26

You and 5 friends are more than enough of a player population.

warcrap · Jan 14, 2008, 09:34 PM // 21:34

beat the original campaign then expand your world if u want but u dont have to buy the other campaigns.
the game is pretty much empty due to the huge mistake anet made of making the game entirely instanced.
if ur looking for next-generation gaming with huge social benefits i suggest wait for guild wars 2.

quickmonty · Jan 14, 2008, 11:47 PM // 23:47

If you enjoyed Prophecies, you and your friends will probably enjoy the other campaigns. Yes, there are people leaving and not playing as much but there are also new people coming into the game (as witnessed by the number of "I'm new to the game" posts).

Lady S Shiva · Jan 14, 2008, 11:54 PM // 23:54

the game is dieing to oldschool'ers because they have nothing left to do, but u are new here.

chowmein69 · Jan 14, 2008, 11:55 PM // 23:55

buy GWEN and NF , heroes are good

shoyon456 · Jan 15, 2008, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Seeing as how you and your friends come from WoW, id recommend GW:EN to you. It provides alot of questing, is still relatively new with people playing the primary missions, and has a bunch of dungeons that might be fun for you guys.

Have fun!

Numa Pompilius · Jan 15, 2008, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Operative 14

I think a trip to Pre-Sear Ascalon, Shing Jea, or Kamadan shows how many people are also coming into the game.

I recently started vanquishing in Prophecies, and before I started I was sure everyone (regardless of level) there was a grizzled old veteran like myself, but I was amazed at the number of new players in areas such as Yaks Bend.

I don't know if a lot of people got Guild Wars this christmas, or if ANets free trial campaign has paid off, but there's a lot of fresh new players starting out right now.

Harmless · Jan 15, 2008, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I've been playing since the game came out and still enjoy it. I think you've already decided to get the other campaigns, I would echo the "do them in order" suggestion. And I would suggest you get eotn also.

Each campaign has its own merits. I personally like them all.

I would also echo the suggestion that you ignore the complainers, doom-sayers, and the ones that say you just haveeeeeeee to play the game a certain way. Play it your way and have fun with it.

Phaern Majes · Jan 15, 2008, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Basically the reason its "empty" for some of us that have played from the start, is we are going on our 3rd year of play. Even new content can only do so much for ya, but you will get your money's worth if you buy either campaign or both.

Navaros · Jan 15, 2008, 04:44 AM // 04:44

To answer the OP's questions:

The game is far more empty than it used to be at it's peak a couple of years ago. But there is still a fair amount of people in it. However, that is not a good thing since 99% or more of random PUG players are absymally horrible at playing the game and not worth ever partying with unless you enjoy torturing yourself. Therefore, the towns not being empty is a moot point since said horrible players in them is a bad thing, not a good thing. They might as well be empty considering there is usually zero players who are worth partying with in them.

Old schoolers don't play with PUG players, they play exclusively with Heroes, Henchmen, friends, alliance mates, or Guildies. And wouldn't go near a random PUG player with a 10 foot pole. For the most part, those in towns who party with other random players in towns do so because they are too abysmally bad to make a half-decent hero skillbar - any of which would steamroll normal mode of any GW game.

The good news is that NF and EOTN gives you access to these Heroes so that you can easlily boycott all the aforementioned horrendous PUG players.

Don't get Factions without getting NF or EOTN first though, or else you are SOL in this regard because you have no access to Heroes that way. Although even Factions' incredibly crappy henchmen are still better than most PUG players.

Pleikki · Jan 15, 2008, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Yeab i kinda like play with storyline proph-faction-nf it seems like it follows Bit same story So its awesome. i would say you get faction and then nf.

Operative 14 · Jan 15, 2008, 05:58 AM // 05:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I recently started vanquishing in Prophecies, and before I started I was sure everyone (regardless of level) there was a grizzled old veteran like myself, but I was amazed at the number of new players in areas such as Yaks Bend.

I don't know if a lot of people got Guild Wars this christmas, or if ANets free trial campaign has paid off, but there's a lot of fresh new players starting out right now.

I know, these past few weeks especially it seems like I'm encountering a lot of new players that need help. Mostly, that assessment is just based off of people asking basic questions that I'd expect anyone but the newest of players to know. It's kind of refreshing actually. It's nice to have pleasent new people asking how things work instead of a knowledgable but deathly silence that sort of pervaded everywhere.

Bryant Again · Jan 15, 2008, 06:12 AM // 06:12

I'm gonna go a different route and say go buy Nightfall. Save Factions - imo the best - for last!

Of course they're probably both cheap enough that you can go out and just buy them both. Win-win!

arsie · Jan 15, 2008, 06:42 AM // 06:42

Why not buy 1 copy of Factions and 1 copy of Nightfall and try it between all 5 of you?

You will have a few extra 14day/10hr trial keys, which means quite a few of you can get on at the same time.

Depending on your playing timezone, the lack of players in an outpost might be a problem. If you are playing in N.American evening/night time, you should be fine. You might find certain outposts empty during other timezones.

I actually feel that the game is more crowded now sometimes. The player base is just distributed over 3 campaign + 1 expansion worth of outposts, and over multiple timezones and servers.

When you get Nightfall, you will have Heroes, which means that even if 2 out of 5 of you are online, you can potentially run formidable teams that can tackle the hardest content in the game.

Lady Raenef · Jan 15, 2008, 07:24 AM // 07:24

I have no idea if GW2 will be worth it, and if not, well my achievements in the game have gone to waste. GW is one of those games that make you go "Weee, fun!" then the next month you're going "Life (or in some cases, another game) is better!" then you find something, and go "Weee, a new goal in Guild Wars to complete!" then you get that goal and it reverts to what I had previously mentioned.

I took a six month break from the game. Dated a girl who played GW for ten months. Broke up with her, and I've lost all interest. Basically saying, don't lose your buddies or the game will get boring, fast. This game has it's ups and downs, and there's a lot of downs. I saved up for several months for Obsidian armor. Before getting it, I had goals, goals, and more goals. Once I got the armor, the other goals sort of died out or I got them shortly after (i.e., ninja mask, primeval for my dervish, destroyer weapons).

So, moral is, unless your friends are really pushing the effort, don't bother. You'll buy the game and think "this is the happiest moment of my life, this rocks!" then once you're through with it, well, you're probably going to be through with it.

Scary Raebbit · Jan 15, 2008, 07:34 AM // 07:34

If you want to competitively PvP, get them all. NF then Factions then EotN. Nice skills in NF, complementary/some required skills in Factions, more complementary skills in EotN.

PvE, can pretty much go in any order, but I'd go NF/EotN or EotN/NF then Factions. NF and EotN for Heroes.

Chaos55 · Jan 15, 2008, 07:41 AM // 07:41

There's always going to be players around playing but the majority would be in Nightfall or EoTN nowadays. You'll still find Prophecies packed with people but rarely alot on Factions. Factions for the most part imo a Ghost Town. =\

There's still quite sometime before GW2 comes out. You probably won't get more than 15 Maxed Titles in such short time but you'll learn and better prepare yourself when GW2 comes out.

freekedoutfish · Jan 15, 2008, 09:38 AM // 09:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by warcrap

beat the original campaign then expand your world if u want but u dont have to buy the other campaigns.
the game is pretty much empty due to the huge mistake anet made of making the game entirely instanced.
if ur looking for next-generation gaming with huge social benefits i suggest wait for guild wars 2.

Well thats your opinion, but IMO one winning aspect of GWs is the instanced system. I dont quite understand how your putting all the faults of GWs down to it being instance based? That has absolutely no negative impacts at all on anything.

Would you rather you had to camp spots and wait for respawns of enemies?

Would you rather the lag was increased 10 fold and Anet somehow had to maintain a world based system on their limited budget and funding?

If you want world based, play WoW!

GWs works great due to instances because it helps you feel more part of the story because its your sole, independant environment just for you. World build systems like WoW kill that by making it like a production line where one person does a quests, kills the monsters and the next group comes along and waits for the respawn or people start fighting for the kills.

If you think about it... the ability of being able to see every in the same area at the same time (like in WoW), 24/7 doesnt actually any anything to the game play. It just means you can see people in the same area at the same time and its a nice little gimic which we dont need.