New To Guild Wars - Guild Wars Forums

sl4vik · Jan 17, 2006, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Well, as the title says, I am about to start playing guild wars.
However, I have a couple newb questions. I am familiar with MMORPG's like WoW, DAoC, Diablo 2.

Whats the learning curve for GW?

Whats a good solid build for a first time player?

Is the game fun after 1 month?

Any tips or tricks you can tell me?

Thanks a lot guys!

chris_nin00 · Jan 17, 2006, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Learning Curve?
Easy, no intelligence required for warriors.

What's a good solid build for a first time player?
Monk. A healing/protection monk. You'll be happy later in the game when you want to farm stuff.

Is the game fun after 1 month?
How often do you play? For me I've played up to 800 hours on this game. So, yes I think it's fun.

Any tips or tricks you can tell me?
You mean exploits and cheats right? Just kidding

.
Tips:
Don't trust The Infamous Ranger, I've heard that he scams people

.

Good luck and enjoy the FREE game.

theclam · Jan 17, 2006, 11:09 PM // 23:09

You'll learn very fast if you've played MMORPGs before.

In the beginning, you'll have so few skills that there aren't many builds you can choose from. There are dozens of great builds for every class combination. You can change your attributes and skills at any time (as long as you're in a town) and you can change your secondary class (although you can't do this until about 2/3s of the way through the game).

Every class combination is good. Sure, some are easier to use or are more popular than others, but they all work well. If you can't decide on a secondary class, pick Monk. It works well with every class and a reusable res will always help your group.

The game is definitely fun after one month. I always got bored with WoW and D2. WoW bored me because my capabilities and strategies were identical at lvls 30 and 50. No change at all. D2 bored me because you stop getting new skills at 30. GW doesn't have those weaknesses, because you're getting new skills all the time. Even my Monk with 200 hours played only has access to about 40% of the skills in the game. I think that the missions and high end areas are more replayable than in other games. You can change your build as much as you want, so you can experience areas differently every time you go, if you want.

PvP is great. Lots of strategy and skill involved. You don't need to grind in PvE to be effective at PvP. There are lots of different gameplay modes. For something like Competition Arena, it literally takes 15 seconds from the time you look for a game to the time you're in a game. The barrier to entry is very low. If you want something a lot more complex, there's Tombs and Guild Battles, which are very deep and strategic. If you're interested in PvP, there's a free weekend event that you can participate in without owning the game (http://www.guildwars.com/events/pvpf.../default.html).

If you want to try out PvE, then there will be more free events in the run up to the expansion release (rumors say Second Quarter '06) that contain PvE content.

The downside is that there is not that much content. It's got a lot more than D2, but not nearly as much as WoW. I think the replayability is great, at least in the high end game, but you will have to replay stuff if you want to spend hundreds of hours in the game. The good news is that this problem will be mostly alleviated when the expansion comes out.

There is not much grinding and you don't really need to grind for anything. However, there is very little to grind for. It's very easy to get the best armor in the game. The best weapons are a bit harder to get, but there are very cheap substitutes that are 95% as good. The dev team went more for balance than diversity in terms of items. This is a bit annoying, but again, the expansion will help a lot.

The level cap is 20. It will remain at that. It's so low because the devs want everyone to be able to experience endgame content, without having to spend 200 hours leveling up first.

Many long-time MMORPG players get frusturated by the low emphasis on leveling on items. Personally, I find it refreshing, because the focus is more on the actual gameplay. GW doesn't suffer from a lot of the frusturations of MMORPGs - you can travel instantly to any town that you've already visited, for example. You don't have to worry about choosing a server to roll on or paying a monthly fee. Of course, the price we pay for no monthly fee is that everything is instanced. It's not a big deal for me, but it ruins the immersion for some people.

Sorry for rambling, but it's a great game.

DeanBB · Jan 17, 2006, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Whats the learning curve for GW?

>> This was my 1st online game and I found it easy to learn the basics of. It takes a bit longer to learn which skills work well together and some of the other nuances of a good build, but you don't have to figure all that out to get started and have fun.

Whats a good solid build for a first time player?

>> I'm not sure I'd recommend monk for a first toon. First off you have to have the mindset of wanting to be a healer as opposed to a damage dealing character. Second if you team with others and are just figuring out the game they may be a bit harsh on you if you are not the "perfect healer".

I'd say play them all a bit, it doesn't take much to take a character thru pre-sear (the tutorial area) so run them to post and decide if you want to keep them or start over. Warrior is a good place to start and monk for 2nd is a good PvE character, regardless of what you read here about wamo's.

If you are even thinking of playing PvP then only make 3 toons and cover all 6 professions with them, like ne/me, wa/mo, ra/el, and save the 4th spot for a PvP toon.

Is the game fun after 1 month?

>> It is the only game I've played since May, so yeah it gets my vote.

Any tips or tricks you can tell me?

>> Take your time, use the easy pre-sear time to figure out how to play before jumping into the Academy to get on with the rest of the game.

Don't rush out and buy every skill you encounter, use a web site like gurus or GuildWiki to figure out which skills are available as free quest rewards.

Pay attention and take advice when you team with others if they are explaining things like called targets. Figure this stuff out so you are a good team player.

The only permanent decisions are like appearance name and primary profession. You can rearrange your attributes and skills any time you are in a town and you can change your 2nd profession once you ascend. So don't stress too much about the prefect build, just experiment and figure out how different skills work and which once work nicely together. Have fun with it.

Find a good guild so you have other players to team up with, it makes the game much more enjoyable. I highly recommend WPG! :blush: (See profile at left)

Illusion · Jan 17, 2006, 11:31 PM // 23:31

im gonna only answer your 2nd question and yes monk is a good started but so is warrior partly because no matter what 2nd prof you pick the character will be good either way i have been a warrior for a long time and lovin it

theclam · Jan 17, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeanBB

If you are even thinking of playing PvP then only make 3 toons and cover all 6 professions with them, like ne/me, wa/mo, ra/el, and save the 4th spot for a PvP toon.

I definitely agree with this. When you find new skills or items in PvE, those items are "unlocked," which means you can use them when you make a PvP-only character. When you PvP, you gain faction, which you can spend to unlock skills and items. You don't benefit at all from unlocking things if you don't have a PvP-only character.

Quote:

Don't rush out and buy every skill you encounter, use a web site like gurus or GuildWiki to figure out which skills are available as free quest rewards.

Another good tip. This page right here has information on skills that you can obtain from quests:
http://www.guildwiki.org/index.php/Skill_Quests

It's always preferable to obtain skills from quests, if you can.

GuildWiki is a great resource for finding out almost anything about the game.

dimirpaw · Jan 18, 2006, 04:20 AM // 04:20

Just one quick tip, like most people your going to play your first char just to beat the game and you might just end up hating it and want to make a new one. However, before you do make sure you beat the game. Don't forget PVP isn't just for PVP'ers but for trying out diffrent classes too before you pick which is fun for you.

I suggest you go into PVP and try out some builds and see what you enjoy most.

LifeInfusion · Jan 18, 2006, 04:56 AM // 04:56

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