The other night some one i know through gaming decided to make the jump and buy Guild Wars, he purchased the trilogy from the Steam service and then purchased the Eye of the North from The GW-Store.
The individual in question comes from a WoW background but is branching out with games like Global Agenda (the current hot pick) so i was quite shocked when i was asked to join him in Guild Wars.
What i noticed straight away was that he was talking in WoW terms and trying to compare everything in the game to something familiar. so in an effort to help the new players who are familiar with other MMO titles i will try to explain a few things.
End Game, Raiding.
In Many MMO’s the part of the game that takes place once you have taken your character to the highest level you begin to experience what is known as the ‘end game’ however in guild wars this throws people because max level is only a few days play away for a serious gamer.
once you reach the maximum level for a guild wars character you still need to finish the fantastically constructed story (missions, primary quest line) for each campaign, this gives you XP (that you still need to buy skill’s) and gold (always useful) as well as a deeper understanding of the games lore.
once you have finished this portion of the game the ‘end game’ really starts, this is where you can start playing through the massive dungeon area’s of the Far Shiverpeaks (Eye of the North area)
Another Part of the ‘end game’ is ‘skill hunting’ that's finding a skill you want and then hunting it down from the relevant boss. once you feel your at your best you can take that PvE character and experience the brutal PvP portion of the game.
This a swell as minor portions of the game such as title farming and vanquishing had given me many hours of ‘end game’ enjoyment without the stress of traditional ‘raiding’ that you find in other games.
Auction house
Most MMO’s have an Auction house, a place where you can sell your unwanted ‘gear’ to other players for a profit.
Guild Wars does not have one of these. The reason for this is that Guild Wars is free to play, there is no monthly subscription fee so its an expense to host that arena net avoided
What you do have is ‘Trade’ chat channel that works surprisingly well. its not ideal but for the most part you will have little difficulty selling good quality items
Item Rarity
Many players who come from WoW are baffled by the colour coding of item rarity. okay, Light Blue items are the first step of rarity, then Purple, Gold and finally the Green items are the most voluble and unique, this is not ‘stupid’ or ‘pointless’ this game did not follow the trends of other MMO’s and if the colour coding of items irritates your too much then you have issues of your own to work out. its a design choice nothing more. (i have had that conversation many times)
You can not jump
i know, but the game is not designed with jumping in mind so your not missing out. complaining about it wont help. the game was designed from the ground up to work a specific way, jumping was not designed into that, again a design choice.
Servers
There are no servers as such you can switch your current regional location by using the menu in located in the top left corner of the screen. so, you can play with any of your friends, there are no restrictions like in other games.
PvP Characters
you can choose to create a PvP only character, you will have limited skills to pick from (only those that you have unlocked on your account) but you will be given a level 20 character and allowed to take part in all of the PvP content. however that character can not be used for PvE play.
