Originally Posted by Antheus

You need a permission. Depending on what it's for it may be free, licensed for a fee, or strictly forbidden.

These characters are ArenaNet's intellectual property. Laws covering that are well established. There is only one copyright law as well, there are no different degrees or strictness.

Copyright is usually enforced only if money is made off a certain IP. If you mod a game with GW characters, then distribute that for free, it can be considered fan art. IP owner may still demand you stop using it.

Original models, textures and sounds may never be redistributed without permission, not even for free. To use anything from GW as fan art, it needs to be redrawn or re-modelled to resemble the characters. This is because while characters are abstract entities, the bits and bytes representing them in GW is tangible asset.

Redistribution of game assets has led to a large number of lawsuits in the past, either as part of fan art, derivative works or commercial products. This is, at most basic level, considered same as piracy.

Fan made projects, such as emulators, that don't redistribute the client or original assets however have never been successfully challenged in court. Only emulators that have been shut down via legal means involved using stolen server side code, or in case of Bnetd, providing a patch to break copy-protection (piracy again).

In general, before using such assets for public fan-art, it's wise to ask for permission. They are usually granted.

Originally Posted by ensoriki

Lulz.....Guild wars in Smash Bros Brawl?

Whats A competitive game like .....Brawl
Doing with Guild wars =P