GW1

Pretty simple... Should I buy GW1? I was looking at their online version for the "trilogy" pack and was curious if anyone else has picked up GW1 in the hype of GW2 and what they think. Also, is there an unofficial Gaiscioch server/guild? Does it even HAVE servers?

I wouldn't recommend it. At the time it was a decent game but it's really dated and has a lot of game conventions that most folks won't tolerate nowadays. It's definitely taking a step back. Then again it's cheap and might be fun to poke around at just to see what they did before.

I wouldn't say so as well, but more for time constraints. While Guild Wars 1 prophecies (the vanilla version of the game,) is still fun, for the full experience you'd have to play through the expansion games as well, specifically nightfall, which in turn allows you to play the eye in the north expansion, which is the one that contains the Hall of memories for use in GW2, which all in all you may not complete before Guild Wars 2 comes out. That said, if you have a full month to kill (and I do mean full,) you can certainly play through it and not be disappointed, but while it provides the first and best description of the history of Tyria, its not really a requirement to understand much about GW2 other than basic lore, which you could get of the wiki if you're so inclined. To answer the latter questions, I've seen a few people on the Gaiscioch vent playing GW1, but I don't know if there's anything resembling a guild server.

» Edited on: 2012-07-25 22:21:22

GW1 was a very unique environment for a game, specifically when it came out. There are no servers, and there is no communal world. You can only interact with other people in the safe areas of cities/outposts. Once you leave to the wilds only your group members continue to exist. GW:EN (eye of the north expansion) can be reached and played by anyone from any of the campaigns at any level. It'll bump you up to max level when you travel there. However you have to be able to travel there. That point varies from campaign to campaign. Personally I love the game. It's one of the best I've ever played. Their graphics are beautiful, the combat is very strategic and requires skill. The story pacing of Prophecies is a bit slow, factions is too fast, but Nightfall felt right. And Eye of the North felt good as well. Should you buy it? Well that depends on your time and play style. I'm one of those who doesn't mind playing alone for an hour or so at a time, and i obsess about skill builds. So the game was a perfect match for me, as is evidenced by the fact that I've played it for 6 years now and have 30 hall of monument points only needing to actively try for the last 3 of those. But in generally GW1 is not for most traditional MMO players. It's not a theme park though there are lots of quests, and it's not a sandbox (at all). It's more akin to a single player RPG, with easy multiplayer options, and great PvP environment. If you're a lore fan then do the stories in order, if you're not so much, then start with nightfall as the pacing is much better, and the heros are far superior to the henchman system. But I would recommend the game if only because I loved it so much.

You can pickup the trial, it should give you a good idea.

I looked a bit into it, and found it's not possible to buy from NCSoft, or from Best Buy, so I gave up trying. Partly my motivation was to see about securing a name or two.

I wouldn't recommend it unless you intend to obtain 30/50 hall of monuments before GW2 launch.

I'm not certain what you mean: https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/Store.pl?action=toggleCategory&category=4 Granted, you can get it much cheaper from, say, Amazon.

» Edited on: 2012-07-27 10:49:39

For a while ncsoft wasn't able to accept purchases of it. Either Wed or Thurs last week they opened it up again. I saw a respectable number of low level characters. I have to admit, part of my motivation to pick it up was to scout out/reserve names for GW2. And cuz, for the first time since forever, I'm really excited about a game launch.

If you have a lot of time, I think it is a fun experience. I enjoyed GW 1 a lot and I'm sure GW 2 will be more pleasurable since I already understand some of the lore. That being said, GW2 is a MUCH better game than GW1.

^I think you'll find that a lot of GW1 fans will disagree with you. The two games are very different, and some prefer the original. @AimyMulch Just so you know, you can only reserve 2 word names via GW1, because that's all GW1 allows. So single word names are still up for grabs.

If you don't have work or school, you could get 30/50 (maybe) before GW2 launches. Otherwise you'd be lucky if you got 10/50. It took me a VERY long time to get 30/50. It was fun, but it completely unrealistic to get 30/50 in a month without a ton of free time, a good amount of help from current GW1 players, and good background knowledge of the game. I think it took me a years work of on/off playing to get 30/50 buying and starting an account from scratch. Now if you want to reserve a couply two word names, I'd say go for it, but just buy the original without the expansions.

If you're a lore lover, then it might be worth it. It's best if you go in with a bunch of people to play with you. There is a TON of content now, it's very old. There are a whole slew of things that really irk the typical mmo gamer. The short list: No jump/z axis Horrible crafting system The holy trinity is still in effect and the npc helpers can be really stupid. Storytelling is cheesy and the cutscenes are meh. Animations are meh. Hall of monuments takes a good amount of work to get to, much less fill. On the plus side: Decent graphics to this day. Storyline is pretty good. Will give you lots of history for GW2. The cannon is solid. Lots of work has gone into it since Eye of the North. Endgame content is seemingly neverending. Eye of the North is worth playing to imho. PVP is still fun. Hall of monuments. One time cost. No monthly so you can peck at it when you feel like it.