Guild Wars N00b. Which game to buy?

[Droogie]

Hey, folks. An old friend of mine and I have decided to keep in touch by playing an MMO together. We've chosen Guild Wars for several reasons: there is no monthly fee, it seems friendly to casual players (we only plan on playing maybe once a week), you can have computer controlled "red-shirts" to flesh out your party, and the system specs guarantee it will run on his older computer.

Question: should we start with the first game in the series? (Guild Wars: Prophecies). Alas, I've already picked up my copy at target for 30 bucks, but he hasn't yet. Should we grab "Nightfall" instead? Does "Nightfall" contain all the previous content? Have I made a mistake? Do I need to make a frantic phonecall to my friend before he spends his money? School me.

 

[trancejeremy]

It's a bit confusing. Each product is a separate campaign and area. So Nightfall is completely different than Prophecies (although it includes the basic character classes from Prophecies).

To further confuse things, apparently there is going to be an actual expansion released that adds onto Prophecies (the original).

 

[Droogie]

yeah, I read about that in my most recent PC Gamer. An add-on around christmas, and Guild Wars 2 sometime late in 2008.

So I guess, if you don't want to be overwhelmed with skills and classes, Prophecies is the way to go?

 

[trancejeremy]

It doesn't really matter.

I didn't really like the game, so I'm not the best to answer it (but I did, since no one else did).

 

[SnowRaven]

yeah, I read about that in my most recent PC Gamer. An add-on around christmas, and Guild Wars 2 sometime late in 2008.

So I guess, if you don't want to be overwhelmed with skills and classes, Prophecies is the way to go?

GW: Prophecies is first, Factions second, Nightfall last, but any of the three is totally self-contained. There have been advancements in Nightfall such as Heroes over Henchmen (Henchmen are stock, Heroes can be customized, both are computer controlled allies.)

I don't have Factions, of the two I think Prophecies is the easier and more story-centered. I would say though that you might want to try it before having him buy in. I like the game, but a friend of mine didn't like it and ditched me. SO make sure it's something you're both going to do before spending more money on it.

I don't know if I still have any, but perhaps track down a 10 hour trial code, to give it a run before buying.

 

[Droogie]

My friend just sent an email that he bought a copy of "Prophecies". So, looks like we've taken the leap. Since it wasn't expensive, I figure we'll get our money's worth, even if we end up chucking it over our shoulders after 3 weeks.

Thanks for the help, guys

 

[Goodsport]

While all three Chapters are self-contained to an extent, they do have a definite timeline.

Storywise, Prophecies and Factions run at about the same time, while Nightfall takes place about three years later and ties up most of the loose ends left by the previous two.

So my suggestion would be to play them in the order they were released: Prophecies, then Factions, and finally Nightfall.


-G

 

[Thanee]

Prophecies is probably the best start, yeah.

As a second, I would get the most recent one (Nightfall), because you can get more powerful henchmen there, which is kinda neat.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Sir Brennen]

Also, if you buy more than one "chapter", they become linked and once you've advanced far enough in the game, you can travel between the different stories (bring your Prophecies characters over to Nightfall, and vice versa, for example.) Also, features in the different chapters become available in the others. For example, if you have Prophecies, then get Nightfall, some heroes (a concept added in Nightfall) become available to your Prophecies characters.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

To echo other posters, each chapter stands alone, but you can eventually get to a point where you cross over and can run all (or almost all) of the content in the other campaigns. In reference to the expansion that will be coming out, while it is technically an expansion of the Prophecies storyline, you can still use it with any of the other campaigns (though you will need at least one of them to use it, unlike with the standalones).

As for personal recommendations, I currently am playing Prophecies and Nightfall. In terms of mechanics, I really like the content in Nightfall- the Heroes are a cool addition (better than the Henchmen in so many ways), and the skills and monsters and graphics are cool, as well as the better animation.

On the other hand, I prefer the storyline in Prophecies. I'm only finally getting into the Nightfall storyline- it takes entirely too long, IMO, to get to a point where you feel like you're actually doing something other than just running around doing random missions; where there's an overall arc. I'm finally at that point, and it seems cool so far, it just took too long to reach that point. Whereas in Prophecies, you're in the "main" storyline pretty much from the start, and can take side missions and things subsequent to that.

I haven't picked up Factions yet, but I'd like to and am planning to. It seems to be a lot more scarce in my neck of the woods than either of the other two campaigns, so I don't know if that means anything or not.