Where do I start? - Guild Wars Forums

cat3legs · Sep 13, 2012, 07:52 AM // 07:52

May seem stupid, but .. where do I start?
What I mean is I haven't played games online in many years, time was simply swept away by life.
Now I have time, and saw the ad for Guild Wars 2.
I signed up but haven't actual purchased the game.
Saw the series had several games and wondered am I stupid to simply leap in at GW2 or should I start earlier.

I have never really played Role Playing games before, always stuck with COD etc. so this is all fairly new to me.

Anyone with any good advice? would appreciate it very much.
Thanks for reading...

rusticgamer · Sep 13, 2012, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Ok, first thing first, GW1 is an amazing game...or was an amazing game...

Now it depends what you want to do...GW2 doesn't require playing GW1 before. The whole games are like an orange and an apple. Really different.

It's worth trying GW1 just for the story imo...plus now the games (3 campaigns + expansion) are really cheap now. So it's worth to try it imo!

Saint Scarlet · Sep 13, 2012, 09:04 AM // 09:04

If i was in your position i would purchase both. GW and GW2 are not really the same game even though the title and lore are.
GW1 - is more of a co-operartive rpg than a true mmo, it has 3 main games and 1 expansion(Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall then Eye Of The North) you can buy them as a trilogy set very cheap now. It has been one of the most fun games i have ever played and i've sunk 15k+ hours into it over 7 years. It's a little quiet at the moment due to most people moving to GW2 but it's still an amazing game and i would get it.
GW2 - is more of the traditional mmo, it will be the only game with expansions coming at some time in the future. It has broken most of the bad things that are associated with mmo's and has made roads into making a new type of mmo. It truly is an amazing game as well.
I do hope this helps a bit, if budget is a factor i would get GW1 first and soak up some of the lore and atmosphere of the game then purchase GW2 down the line. This is just my opinion though.

akelarumi · Sep 13, 2012, 01:54 PM // 13:54

Like being said GW1 and GW2 are totally different games. They play in the same world (but the time frame differs bout 250 years and natural and unnatural causes changed the world dramaticly)) and share some lore. The difference however is that GW1 is an instanced game. That means that you can only meet people in outposts and towns and form groups, but when your out you'll always fight in your own instance (with the group you went in). So when you enter you have to be fully prepared and ready cause you wont meet others to help you out (wich it also makes it 'your' victory).
There are 2 tasks you can do in an instance, one is a quest given by a questgiver. The other is a mission (missions play in their own instance and are bigger then quests and tell the main story line). Later on you also encounter dungeons (quests that have higher rewards and also have their own dedicated instance) or you can decide to vanguish (hardmode only) where you get an extra reward if you kill every foe in an instance.

GW2 is for 90% an open world and there are generally 4 kinds of tasks.
1: dungeons. This is an high end instance where you fight the more difficult enemy's. Party have to formed before entering, but when someone leaves you can e.g. invite a guildmember in and he can join in and help you finish it.
2: personal story. This is a instance thats generally short and ment to do on your own, do up to 4 friends can join in and help you. It tells personal story based upon some choiches you make at character creation and when playing.
3: Renown hearts. These are tasks most comparable with quests, you can encounter when in the open world. Although you do them individually, the people who need to do the same thing can help you out or just assist you.
4: Dynamic events. Those are random tasks that happen in the open world in a unpredictable time frame. You can choose to participate or not. The task can range from defending a caravan while it travels from a to b to kill a champion or world boss wich is 50 times as big as you are.

The other main difference is the graphical quality. GW1 is 7 years older then GW2 and therefor graphical lesser quality (though the graphic artists did a great job on using the lesser graphics as an artistic statement and therefor making the game better looking then most games of that age.

another difference is that gw1 is bigger in amount of content. The main reason is that GW1 consists of 3 separate games or campaigns (meaning you can use them each as a single pruchase and play till the end of that part, but you can also bring your character that you started in one campaign and bring it over to the other campaign) and one expansion (you need to have bought one campaign and played a character through it for a bit before you can enter it). I is hohever likely that GW2 will have future expansions while there might be a little bit off content added to GW1 if they add anything at all. (in other words, there is some debate bout how to read different statements from the developper, I personally beleive there will be no new content, even though in an earlier state it was promised. others disagree. For the purpose of your question I think it is best to expect nothing and be happily surprised if they do). All will agree that any future content addition to GW1won't be as big as a full campaign.

The last difference between the two games is the population. GW1 is an old game played over and over by millions of players and many people have seen it all. Although there are a good amount of people still active, it will be hard to find people that needs what you have to do.

GW2 is brand new and therefor packed with people who just started playing.

Will you miss parts of the gw2 story if you don't play GW1?: Short answer is no. There are a lot of references to GW1, but none are essential to udnerstand the story. For example, in gw2 you can find the grave of a certain npc in gw1 that has

. For GW1 players that grave will have an important sentimental meaning. You can click the show spoiler button without any fear cause it won't mean anything for you besides it is another grave in graveyard. It adds things to the story, but isn't needed to understand the story.

Quaker · Sep 13, 2012, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Personally, if I was starting now (but knowing what I know) I would skip GW1 and go right to GW2.
But, of course, it depends upon a few things - like what sort of play style you like, etc. For example, if you particularly want to play with other people, GW2 would be the way to go. But if you don't mind playing by yourself, then GW1 can give you many, many hours of enjoyment for a relatively cheap price (plus still have the possibility of playing with others).

**cosyfiep** · Sep 13, 2012, 05:01 PM // 17:01

it would also depend on your computer.
Gw1 can run on some pretty dang old machines (old laptops with onboard graphics cards), while gw2 requires a pretty dang spec'd up machine (MINE cant handle it--crashed my graphics card and my machine)....

there is a program available to figure out if your computer can handle the requirements for gw2 (check out our sister site guru2 for more information about that).

either way, if you buy both/either you can play them until you are bored--and then even after that...since there is no fee (other than purchasing the initial software)...and gw1 is pretty dang cheap now for the 3 chapters (called the trilogy I believe) all in one software package.

projectmercy · Sep 13, 2012, 05:54 PM // 17:54

I would skip GW1.

As mentioned, it's mostly an RPG, except it takes 10x longer to do anything than you would in a normal RPG. If a normal RPG is 60-100 hours, running through GW1 is 500-1000 hours if you're new and you don't have help. And it's not an extra 400-900 hours of cool dialog and story. It's primarily filled with committing genocide on a few thousand of exactly the same monsters, where you only get 1/8th of the loot, and when you're done they just respawn again and you've accomplished nothing but travel. While you can pop between towns instantly, anywhere you want to actually go is put in a zone opposite of any town, and you'll be required to re-kill a few hundred monsters between you and there or come up with some system for running through a pile of monsters. You know in the other MMOs when you get hit by a monster way beneath you, dismounted, and have to slog through getting beat on some monster that's useless for you to kill, but you can't avoid? That's most of GW1, except you're shackled with another 7 NPCs which were purposefully given terrible AI to encourage people to group, back when people actually grouped.

If I could sum up GW1 in one word it would be Tedium. That isn't to say there's not a lot of cool ideas in it, it's just they're held down by overly-large helpings of the same things throughout the whole game. Every zone is layed out exactly the same. Every dungeon/elite area is dealt with the exact same way. It's like a band that put out one good song, and then just kept turning out variations of that same song for the rest of its life.

As for GW2, system reqs are on par with any modern PC game. I imagine some minor performance improvements to it, but for the most part it's not terrible. If you've played SWTOR or Tera, you should be fine.

Sep 13, 2012, 07:52 AM // 07:52	#1
cat3legs Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Sep 2012	Where do I start? May seem stupid, but .. where do I start? What I mean is I haven't played games online in many years, time was simply swept away by life. Now I have time, and saw the ad for Guild Wars 2. I signed up but haven't actual purchased the game. Saw the series had several games and wondered am I stupid to simply leap in at GW2 or should I start earlier. I have never really played Role Playing games before, always stuck with COD etc. so this is all fairly new to me. Anyone with any good advice? would appreciate it very much. Thanks for reading...

Sep 13, 2012, 01:54 PM // 13:54	#4
akelarumi Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Nov 2009 Profession: E/	Like being said GW1 and GW2 are totally different games. They play in the same world (but the time frame differs bout 250 years and natural and unnatural causes changed the world dramaticly)) and share some lore. The difference however is that GW1 is an instanced game. That means that you can only meet people in outposts and towns and form groups, but when your out you'll always fight in your own instance (with the group you went in). So when you enter you have to be fully prepared and ready cause you wont meet others to help you out (wich it also makes it 'your' victory). There are 2 tasks you can do in an instance, one is a quest given by a questgiver. The other is a mission (missions play in their own instance and are bigger then quests and tell the main story line). Later on you also encounter dungeons (quests that have higher rewards and also have their own dedicated instance) or you can decide to vanguish (hardmode only) where you get an extra reward if you kill every foe in an instance. GW2 is for 90% an open world and there are generally 4 kinds of tasks. 1: dungeons. This is an high end instance where you fight the more difficult enemy's. Party have to formed before entering, but when someone leaves you can e.g. invite a guildmember in and he can join in and help you finish it. 2: personal story. This is a instance thats generally short and ment to do on your own, do up to 4 friends can join in and help you. It tells personal story based upon some choiches you make at character creation and when playing. 3: Renown hearts. These are tasks most comparable with quests, you can encounter when in the open world. Although you do them individually, the people who need to do the same thing can help you out or just assist you. 4: Dynamic events. Those are random tasks that happen in the open world in a unpredictable time frame. You can choose to participate or not. The task can range from defending a caravan while it travels from a to b to kill a champion or world boss wich is 50 times as big as you are. The other main difference is the graphical quality. GW1 is 7 years older then GW2 and therefor graphical lesser quality (though the graphic artists did a great job on using the lesser graphics as an artistic statement and therefor making the game better looking then most games of that age. another difference is that gw1 is bigger in amount of content. The main reason is that GW1 consists of 3 separate games or campaigns (meaning you can use them each as a single pruchase and play till the end of that part, but you can also bring your character that you started in one campaign and bring it over to the other campaign) and one expansion (you need to have bought one campaign and played a character through it for a bit before you can enter it). I is hohever likely that GW2 will have future expansions while there might be a little bit off content added to GW1 if they add anything at all. (in other words, there is some debate bout how to read different statements from the developper, I personally beleive there will be no new content, even though in an earlier state it was promised. others disagree. For the purpose of your question I think it is best to expect nothing and be happily surprised if they do). All will agree that any future content addition to GW1won't be as big as a full campaign. The last difference between the two games is the population. GW1 is an old game played over and over by millions of players and many people have seen it all. Although there are a good amount of people still active, it will be hard to find people that needs what you have to do. GW2 is brand new and therefor packed with people who just started playing. Will you miss parts of the gw2 story if you don't play GW1?: Short answer is no. There are a lot of references to GW1, but none are essential to udnerstand the story. For example, in gw2 you can find the grave of a certain npc in gw1 that has a circle of glowing stones on it . For GW1 players that grave will have an important sentimental meaning. You can click the show spoiler button without any fear cause it won't mean anything for you besides it is another grave in graveyard. It adds things to the story, but isn't needed to understand the story.

Sep 13, 2012, 05:01 PM // 17:01	#6
cosyfiep are we there yet? Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: in a land far far away Guild: guild? I am supposed to have a guild? Profession: Rt/	it would also depend on your computer. Gw1 can run on some pretty dang old machines (old laptops with onboard graphics cards), while gw2 requires a pretty dang spec'd up machine (MINE cant handle it--crashed my graphics card and my machine).... there is a program available to figure out if your computer can handle the requirements for gw2 (check out our sister site guru2 for more information about that). either way, if you buy both/either you can play them until you are bored--and then even after that...since there is no fee (other than purchasing the initial software)...and gw1 is pretty dang cheap now for the 3 chapters (called the trilogy I believe) all in one software package. __________________ where is the 'all you can eat' cookie bar?

Sep 13, 2012, 08:57 AM // 08:57	#2
rusticgamer Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: With Courage and Muriel Guild: Guild Nirvana [GN] Profession: A/	Ok, first thing first, GW1 is an amazing game...or was an amazing game... Now it depends what you want to do...GW2 doesn't require playing GW1 before. The whole games are like an orange and an apple. Really different. It's worth trying GW1 just for the story imo...plus now the games (3 campaigns + expansion) are really cheap now. So it's worth to try it imo!

Sep 13, 2012, 09:04 AM // 09:04	#3
Saint Scarlet Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Everywhere Guild: Rise of Corruption[RoC] Profession: R/	If i was in your position i would purchase both. GW and GW2 are not really the same game even though the title and lore are. GW1 - is more of a co-operartive rpg than a true mmo, it has 3 main games and 1 expansion(Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall then Eye Of The North) you can buy them as a trilogy set very cheap now. It has been one of the most fun games i have ever played and i've sunk 15k+ hours into it over 7 years. It's a little quiet at the moment due to most people moving to GW2 but it's still an amazing game and i would get it. GW2 - is more of the traditional mmo, it will be the only game with expansions coming at some time in the future. It has broken most of the bad things that are associated with mmo's and has made roads into making a new type of mmo. It truly is an amazing game as well. I do hope this helps a bit, if budget is a factor i would get GW1 first and soak up some of the lore and atmosphere of the game then purchase GW2 down the line. This is just my opinion though.

Sep 13, 2012, 03:42 PM // 15:42	#5
Quaker Hell's Protector Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Canada Guild: Brothers Disgruntled	Personally, if I was starting now (but knowing what I know) I would skip GW1 and go right to GW2. But, of course, it depends upon a few things - like what sort of play style you like, etc. For example, if you particularly want to play with other people, GW2 would be the way to go. But if you don't mind playing by yourself, then GW1 can give you many, many hours of enjoyment for a relatively cheap price (plus still have the possibility of playing with others).

Sep 13, 2012, 05:54 PM // 17:54	#7
projectmercy Academy Page Join Date: Apr 2012	I would skip GW1. As mentioned, it's mostly an RPG, except it takes 10x longer to do anything than you would in a normal RPG. If a normal RPG is 60-100 hours, running through GW1 is 500-1000 hours if you're new and you don't have help. And it's not an extra 400-900 hours of cool dialog and story. It's primarily filled with committing genocide on a few thousand of exactly the same monsters, where you only get 1/8th of the loot, and when you're done they just respawn again and you've accomplished nothing but travel. While you can pop between towns instantly, anywhere you want to actually go is put in a zone opposite of any town, and you'll be required to re-kill a few hundred monsters between you and there or come up with some system for running through a pile of monsters. You know in the other MMOs when you get hit by a monster way beneath you, dismounted, and have to slog through getting beat on some monster that's useless for you to kill, but you can't avoid? That's most of GW1, except you're shackled with another 7 NPCs which were purposefully given terrible AI to encourage people to group, back when people actually grouped. If I could sum up GW1 in one word it would be Tedium. That isn't to say there's not a lot of cool ideas in it, it's just they're held down by overly-large helpings of the same things throughout the whole game. Every zone is layed out exactly the same. Every dungeon/elite area is dealt with the exact same way. It's like a band that put out one good song, and then just kept turning out variations of that same song for the rest of its life. As for GW2, system reqs are on par with any modern PC game. I imagine some minor performance improvements to it, but for the most part it's not terrible. If you've played SWTOR or Tera, you should be fine.