Guild Wars, questions...

[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.)

 

[Vexx007]

I have read somewhere during the week that their userbase exceeds 3 million users at the moment, and that they expect it to increase a lot when Factions are released.

I also think it will surpass WOW when Factions get released. Unlike GW: Prophecies (as it is now know as), Guild Wars Factions will be released in America, Europe, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau on the same date.

 

[lord_spaceman]

Does anyone here (who plays Guild Wars), know how well the games runs on a 56K modem? A couple of mates of mine are interested in the game, but don't have an ADSL connection, will a 56K connection suffice ? Thanks

 

[gkm]

You can have two PC's play GW on a single 56K connection. So, yes, it will suffice very much.

Edit: I would say at least a third of our guild is on 56K dailup. Probably more, since I do not know what connection many uses. A couple have migrated to ADSL recently, I guess probably because they simply cannot wait until 7pm to play. We have guildies playing on every kind of connection available in SA. We had a guildie the other day playing while sitting in the sun at a pub at the Cape Town Waterfront using his laptop and 3G.

 

[Vexx007]

We had a guildie the other day playing while sitting in the sun at a pub at the Cape Town Waterfront using his laptop and 3G.

VERY NICE!!!

As for 56k dial-up, I play on 56k and the game plays okay for the most part. Me and a buddy use to play both over the line at my house but then the lag really kicked in. I also have to mention that we played at his place a couple of times with very little lag, so I think I have bad copper installed. I changed my account back to the European servers last night because of HORRIBLE lag on the US servers.

 

[lord_spaceman]

Dunno about you guys, but I think this thread should be a sticky as it contains a lot of info about Guild Wars for newbies, who I'm pretty sure will be asking the same questions very soon. What'cha say ?

 

[Vexx007]

Thanks for sTiCkYiNg the thread.

Had a good run again last night. Played on 56k and suffered NO lag. Finally made it to the temple of ages.


EDIT: Lord Spaceman I love your blog!

 

[gkm]

Yes, thanks Antowan.

Lord Spaceman, I also enjoyed reading your blog very much. (The fact that I was mentioned helps I guess. )

 

[Vexx007]

Yes, thanks Antowan.

Lord Spaceman, I also enjoyed reading your blog very much. (The fact that I was mentioned helps I guess. )

DITTO!

 

[Vexx007]

I just started a Necro last night and DAMN they are strong! Much better then my Elementalist that I started with.

What are your favourite classes?

 

[gkm]

My favourite is my Mesmer. My wife's favourite is her Necro.

I like the subtle death provided by the Mesmer. She just stands there and looks like she is doing nothing and then the monsters starts dropping for no apparent reason.

In terms of pure steamroller power in PvE, nothing beats a Minion Master build Necro.

I think both take a bit more understanding of the game than the Warrior and Ele, so are good choices for one’s second character.

Also thought I should mention that there is a trailer out for Factions (Chapter 2) at 77MB:
http://www.gwonline.net/files/files.php?temp_view=files.php&game=&id=30

Edit: I should also add that both me and my wife also had Ele's as our first characters. Nothing like a nice meteor shower, or killing four monsters with one fireball, to make the heart glow.