Guild Wars, questions...

[Vexx007]

So when do you guys think factions will be available locally?

PS. Everyone reading this thread, there is a HUGE preview event for FACTIONS, the sequel to GW, starting on the 24th March. If anyone want to try the sequel for free, for 3 weeks, the first 4 people who PM me will get an invite tonight.

ArenaNet has made it possible for everyone with an account to invite 4 people to beta test the sequel. Guild Wars: Factions will be released in Europe on the 28th April.

[gkm]

Thank you ever so much gkm! Loving Guild Wars so much at the moment!

Pleasure. Yes, this is probably the first game I have played more hours than Diablo 2.

So when do you guys think factions will be available locally?

I hope so and at the same time as elsewhere. But even if it is not, one can still easily buy the extra key online. I expect it will be pretty painless, whichever way one goes.

As I understand it, the preview event is just three days, not three weeks:
http://www.guildwars.com/events/faq-...eviewevent.php

I think they are pretty brave to run a beta event where they expect the people showing up to be in terms of millions. Should be interesting.

[lord_spaceman]

Will Guild Wars: Factions still be free in terms of a monthly fee or will one have to start paying a monthly fee like WoW ? I read somewhere (I think it was even in NAG) that although the original GW is free, all expansions after that will require a monthly fee ? Does anyone have any clarity on this ? Is this true ?

Another thing out of interest, can Guild Wars be finished / completed ? Is there like a last boss or something like that ? And what happens when all quests are completed ? Or are quests always been added on ?

Thanks

[gkm]

The current situation is there will never be a monthly fee. Chapter 2 (Factions) will cost (about) the same as Chapter 1. But you do not have to buy Chapter 2 if you do not want too. You can still play the first chapter for as long as you like.

Guild Wars can be "finished". On a character, you can do all the missions (and maybe all the quests), which means you have basically finished the chapter.

After that you can still do the super hard titan quests which you can only get if you have finished the final mission. Also, there are the Furnace of Sorrow quests which one can do as many times as one like, which they added late last year. There are also other high level areas one can only do after ascending called the Underworld and The Fissure of Woe. They have also added another high level area, which I am not sure what its name is, but which people call the new-Underworld, a couple of weeks ago, which is also a very hectic fight. I was there yesterday evening. It is great fun for me and I have gone a number of times.

After that, if you still look for something to do, you can aim to get Fissure of Woe armor. It has the same stats as Droknar's Armor (Droknar's is the best armor, but still pretty cheap). FoW armor costs about 200 times what Droks armor cost and is prettier. It however has no value other than being a status symbol. (Personally, I do not think I shall ever have any FoW armor, since I do not like farming.)

After that you can start another character of a different class. Each class plays very differently, so too some extent it is a completely new game each time.

[Vexx007]

Will Guild Wars: Factions still be free in terms of a monthly fee or will one have to start paying a monthly fee like WoW ? I read somewhere (I think it was even in NAG) that although the original GW is free, all expansions after that will require a monthly fee ? Does anyone have any clarity on this ? Is this true ?

Another thing out of interest, can Guild Wars be finished / completed ? Is there like a last boss or something like that ? And what happens when all quests are completed ? Or are quests always been added on ?

Thanks

Yep, it will still be free, you only need to buy GW: Factions, wich is considered a sequel, not an expansion, so it will cost just as much as GW did.

GW can indeed be finished. There is a last boss. After you defeat him you get access to the end-game missions (Titans Quests among other) wich are VERY hard. As far as I know there is no new quests being added with patches, I could be wrong. However, Sorrows Furnace was an free extra content patch that was released a while ago.

As I understand it, the preview event is just three days, not three weeks:
http://www.guildwars.com/events/faq-...eviewevent.php

I stand corrected. I should learn to read properly. Oh, and a valid GW account holder can invite 3 players not 4......

The free beta weekend starts on the 24th March.

[Vexx007]

After that, if you still look for something to do, you can aim to get Fissure of Woe armor. It has the same stats as Droknar's Armor (Droknar's is the best armor, but still pretty cheap). FoW armor costs about 200 times what Droks armor cost and is prettier. It however has no value other than being a status symbol. (Personally, I do not think I shall ever have any FoW armor, since I do not like farming.)

You forgot about the so called 15k armor. The armor where each piece costs 15 000 gold. It is basically the same as the Droknar's Armor, but apparantly it looks "sharper and brighter" and it "dyes better".

[lord_spaceman]

Awesome info guys, thanks. Now I am even more determined to play more Guild Wars (damn work). Another thing, what is farming ? I hear people talking about it. Does it give you money ? And also how does the game structuring work ? From what I have read and understand, it goes like this:

Pre-Searing (almost like the tutorial part of the game - this is where I am)
Post-Searing (heard of this, but don't know what it is)
Actual Game (Where you can go to the guild hall and meet your guild members)

Am I correct ?

Thanks for your help guys !

[gkm]

You forgot about the so called 15k armor. The armor where each piece costs 15 000 gold. It is basically the same as the Droknar's Armor, but apparantly it looks "sharper and brighter" and it "dyes better".

Yes, I was thinking about 15K, but then decided not to mention is, since my attempt was to answer about things to do, rather than things to get. Droks and to some extent 15K armor does not involve any doing to get. I have enough money to get 15K for all my characters, without me specifically aiming to get 15K armor. I did buy 15K armor for my Mesmer, but only because I did not like the looks of the 1.5K Droks enchanter armor for her.

FoW armor on the other hand involves serious doing to get or buying gold on ebay etc., which is why I mentioned that specifically.

Armor links:
http://www.gwonline.net/page.php?p=75
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Armor_types

[gkm]

Awesome info guys, thanks. Now I am even more determined to play more Guild Wars (damn work). Another thing, what is farming ? I hear people talking about it. Does it give you money ? And also how does the game structuring work ? From what I have read and understand, it goes like this:

Pre-Searing (almost like the tutorial part of the game - this is where I am)
Post-Searing (heard of this, but don't know what it is)
Actual Game (Where you can go to the guild hall and meet your guild members)

Am I correct ?

Thanks for your help guys !

Post Searing and Actual Game is the same thing. The change going post-searing via the first mission is pretty dramatic, I would say even a bit shocking at first. Fortunately one leaves the seared area after a while.

Farming is killing the same set of monsters repeatedly to pick up the gold and items they drop. And then selling the items for some more money. Fortunately, unlike many other MMORPG's, in GuildWars one does not have to do this at all. If fact GuildWars make this hard to do. The game tries to detect if you are doing it and after a while the same set of monsters simply drop nothing. (The game do warn you it is going switch off drops, so do not worry too much about it.) There are ways to avoid the anti-farming code, mainly by not farming repeatedly in one spot.

PS. You have a better chance of meeting a guild member in town somewhere than in the guild hall. We tend to only go to the guild hall to quickly meet somebody or to "park" one's character while being away from one's PC. Just sitting in the guild hall for no reason is not really fun.

[Vexx007]

PS. You have a better chance of meeting a guild member in town somewhere than in the guild hall. We tend to only go to the guild hall to quickly meet somebody or to "park" one's character while being away from one's PC. Just sitting in the guild hall for no reason is not really fun.

Lol! This sounds awfully familiar. Waste of 8000 Gold if you ask me. But it is still a "nice to have".

I didnt know about the game stopping you farming. Interesting that. Then again, Ive never had the patience to just run around and kill monsters.

[gkm]

I think the guild hall costed us something like 45000 gold last year. All the guild members at the time contributed. I see it is a lot less to get one now (19K today). As you say, it is convenient to have, but not much more than that.

[Decotey]

How large is the user base?

[gkm]

They passed 1 million "players" in September last year (from the game coming out in April last year). They have not released recent actual numbers that I know about, but apparently it is still increasing rapidly, with a huge surge after Christmas.

[lord_spaceman]

I think it will rival WoW very closely soon as there are no online fees which is a major advantage over WoW. Perhaps it may even surpase Wow oneday ?

With ADSL costs being so high in SA, and having to pay extra to play WoW, more SA users may move over GW.

[gkm]

GW is certainly easier to get and play here in SA at the moment compared to WoW, since there are no monthly international payments involved etc.

Which one is best I think depends a lot on one's personal tastes (story vs player skill vs uber gear etc.). I have not played WoW, so cannot personally compare them. There has been lots of debates on which one is best, like for example:
http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=386020
This thread was started yesterday on the one GW forum and is already clocking about 100 posts, with some strong opinions both ways. Being on the GW forum, there is obviously a bias towards GW, but is still gives one an idea on the strengths of each.

Also, please do not flame me everybody, but I thought this very funny:
http://www.worldofwarcraftsucks.com/

Perhaps it may even surpase Wow oneday ?

Some people think that since max levels and gear will continue to go up in WoW, it will get harder and harder for new players to join (mudflation). This is opposed to GW where levels and gear is less important, so a new player can be on par with somebody, that played from the beginning, within a week or so. So, some predict that what you are saying will eventually happen as WoW end up with fewer higher level players, like many MUD's in the past. This is not saying GW will steal the user base crown from WoW, but at the moment it seems to have a good chance in the non-Asian market. (The Asian market has very different dynamics I think, so I do not even want to try to guess about that.)