After buying Guildwars you may notice there is little to no good useful knowledge in the manual after you have gotten through the “create your character” chapter. This is a shame, but I’m here to try and help. My motivation is to get as many 2old2play gamers into guildwars as possible, and break any fear that this game will be “too hard” or “too complex” to have fun with. So lets get right down to business.
RPG: The Terms
There are a few key terms you may see, and I shall use occasionally.
The Concept – How your character works
You have a character, which is just a 3d polygon model (some hotter then others). You have a primary profession, and usually a secondary profession (you get this after you create your character and have been playing for a few hours). The primary profession is important for a few key reasons:
You will meet NPC’s throughout the world, and in the initial area of the world (lets call it “pre-searing” or n00b central) you will learn the basics of guildwars, fight easier quests to get you used to the game, have a party limit of 2 players, and have the ability to pickup a secondary profession. There is an NPC for each profession throughout pre-searing and you can go on quests for them which will allow them to grant you the right for the secondary profession (and the right to refuse it). This allows you to try a profession out with the initial three skills of that profession, and then decide to try another if you don’t care for it.
Understanding your character – attributes and specializing
Your character has a few key attributes and its up to you to choose how you want to mold your characters attributes to be a useful contributor to society (kill stuff with friends). Since each profession has a special attribute that is only accessible if you choose that profession as “primary” you may want to actually put some attribute points in there as you move through the experience levels. For warriors this is ‘tactics’, and ‘energy storage’ for elementalists, mesmers have ‘fast casting’, monks have ‘divinity’, rangers ‘expertise’, and necromancers have ‘soul reaping’. Each attribute is key to making your character more powerful in there primary profession and I highly recommend keeping this number high.
So how do you make your character unique? Well once you have two professions you will have a whole set of attributes to increase/decrease and find your sweet spot. You want to be a spell slinger that casts fast spells and has some great powerful spells? An Elementalist with attribute points in air magic (fast snappy spells) and earth magic (powerful and defensive spells) may be the route for you. Warriors may choose tactics and swordsmanship to be a fighter with fast attacks and good defensive skills. Secondary professions will come into play here too, because you will have a few more attributes to put points into as you increase levels. Don’t try to master all the attributes, pick a few and experiment. You can always move them around later. I aquire all the skills I can find, figure out which ones I like best and pick the attribute that goes with the skills.
Try to build a character that you will find fun, and as your first character something you do not find too daunting. If you are used to Diablo II or a more “hack and slash” type of character you may want to be a Warrior/Monk. Your primary attributes are battle based and your secondary attributes are healing based. So you can do your hack and slash, but heal yourself when you get over your head in danger. If your more of a Dungeons & Dragons type player perhaps an Elementalist/Mesmer will be more your style because you can select from a huge assortment of spells.
You have 4 characters you can create. So have fun, if you don’t like your character you can always create a new one and try a different profession.
Understanding materials and armor
What is a crafting material? In guild wars you cannot simply buy armor or better protection; you have to talk to an NPC that can make you new armor. But they make that armor for a fee, and you supply the materials to do it! Not a great deal, I know :-) That would be like you bringing sheet metal, chips, design schematics, and glass to a vendor to build you a PC. You have to have the components, and pay them! Guild wars works on this concept. You want ring plated leather armor? You better bring some iron, some hide, and some money!
As you adventure through the game you’ll find many weapons that are undesirable to you or are weaker then stuff you have. You can purchase a salvage kit from the merchant in order to try to tear apart the undesirable weapons and obtain materials you can use for other stuff. For example, you may find a sword that only does 7 points of damage when yours does 10 points of damage. Salvage it and you will probably get iron. That iron can be used to craft better armor for your character (if you’re profession’s armor is based on iron of course).
In pre-searing you cannot craft new armor, and materials are pretty useless for the most part. However collect them now, and save them in your inventory for when you move out of the newbie area of the game. Then you can see what your character needs for materials to build better armor, or sell them to others, give them to friends, or just sell them off to the NPC’s in town. It’s a good way to get an initial cash flow going. The pre-searing areas are pretty clean of complex crafting stuff (besides a weapon smith that can customize your weapon for additional damage).
As you venture further in post-searing you will find new towns, and in those towns merchants that sell ‘expert salvage kits’. These will give you a higher chance of getting rare crafting materials from items, or upgrade items. If you use an expert salvage kit (which costs 4x more) you may get 4 iron ingots instead of 1 from a sword, or a steel ingot which is a rare crafting material. Rare items are great because most ‘bad ass’ armor types you will eventually want to buy will require one or two rare crafting materials in order for you to build them.
What is an upgrade item? Or a Rune?
You may occasionally find items that are mediocre in abilities, but have special prefix or postfix names on them. For example, I could find a “longsword”, or I could a “fiery longsword of fortitude”. The prefix “fiery” means that the hilt of that sword enables it to light on fire and cause nasty burns to your enemies while the pommel of the sword gives you +20 to health (fortitude). You can also find just a “fiery long sword” or a “long sword of fortitude” on your travels as well. That just means they only have 1 out of 2 cool weapon upgrades. So how do you get them? With an expert salvage kit! If a sword has two upgrade items you can only get one of them by salvaging it, and you have no power over which one (pray maybe?).
Each type of weapon (besides wands) have two types of upgrade components. A sword has a hilt & pommel, a bow as a grip & string, an axe has a haft & grip, a staff has a wrapping & head, etc. So you may find many different upgrade items during your travels. Some sell for good money, others you can barely give away for free. For example, a staff head of energy +1 isn’t that great, but a bow grip of fortitude +20 will catch you 2,000gp easy. If you’re unsure, ask around or find someone selling them and ask them how much they want for it (that will give you a clue on to what you should sell yours for). If you’re friendly, you can always give them to guild mates, or random folks.
Use them! If your new to the game, and you find a weapon upgrade and you can use it, then do so. How? Lets say you have a bow that does 5-10 damage and you find a bow that does 3-7 but has an icy bowstring (i.e. icy short bow). You can expert salvage it and hope to get the string (you could end up with wood if your unlucky) and double click on the string and apply it (click) to your bow. Bam! Your bow now does ice damage. Hurra!
A rune is a little “sheet of paper” that you can expert salvage from certain types of magical armor that enemies drop (all armor dropped by enemies is ‘salvageable’ and not something you can wear). There is a rune for all attributes in the game, and runes to assist with health. There are three types of runes: minor, major, superior. Stick with minors until you get your feet wet. Minors give you +1 to the attribute point that rune describes, and Majors +2, and Superior +3, but the last two come with an added penalty of negative health points. You can also purchase runes for a pretty penny at the Rune Trader in many big cities.
Weapon and Item Requirements
Many items and weapons will have a requirement with them. A sword that says “requires 5 swordsmanship” means it will only be truly effective if you have the attribute number it describes (i.e. 5 in swordsmanship). Only use items & weapons that have attribute requirements you can meet or you will be using an item/weapon that has very little potential. More potent items and weapons typically have higher requirements while some potent ones will have low requirements (which is what makes them rare and special) and are harder to find. These are known as “gold items” or “purple items.”
Colored items
There are four colored items in the game: white, blue, purple, and gold. White items are standard common stuff such as a sword. If a weapon has cool magical abilities or upgrade it will typically be blue. If it as two magical abilities and other great stuff it is typically purple. If it’s slightly cooler then the purple item (or the same) but has very low attribute requirements then its usually gold. Gold items are rare, and many people will love to get they’re hands on them.
City Districts
Each town is broken into districts (servers) that you can jump through using the dropdown menu on the upper left corner. You can whisper (send private messages) to buddies on your friends list or guild without them being in the same district (let alone same town!). So if you want to meet up, ask which district and which town they are in and jump to it using the dropdown or the map travel (hit ‘M’ click on the town and select the district you want).
Once you meet up in town, click on the person (first find them) or type their name into the party members dialog box to the far right. A green button with a “+” will appear, click it. Now they can accept your invitation from there party members dialog box. Now you have an instant party group! Just add water! Find other friends and follow the same instructions then head out on adventures.
The quest & the mission
Guild wars is a questing system. You quest for experience, money, and skills. People with the little green exclamation points are telling you they have a quest for you. You can hit ‘L’ at any time to see your current set of quests. When adventuring with buddies tell them all to select the same quest so you guys can run them together (or tell them where to get the quest so they can quest it with you). Some professions will have quests that only people of that same profession will get; this is true with many of the initial adventures in post-searing. Buddies can help you out without always gaining the advantage of finishing the quest and gaining experience, but that’s why we call them buddies right?
A mission is a ‘storyline quest’ which takes place in towns that have shields as there icon on the main map (hit ‘M’) such as the Great Northern Wall. When you go into a town like this you will have an [enter mission] button. Gather a party of friends or random folks, and enter the mission. If you win, you get 1,000 experience. If you lose then you’re out of the mission and back in town. Each mission has a bonus mission you can run if you can find it (or use the web for fan sites that list them) so that you can gain an additional 1,000 experience. For all the early missions I suggest trying to find the bonus to get that extra 1k experience to boost your levels faster. The second advantage to missions is that, once complete, you get a cinematic of the storyline as it goes on, and are brought to a new area you may or may not have seen. Most missions will end in a new town or outpost that you could walk to if you have the time but you are instantly brought there as a reward for finishing the mission. Once you do a few you will get the idea.
Note: Quests with low experience values for rewards are typically easier. If you find a quest that gives you 500 experience it won’t be too too hard, but if you find one that rewards 1,500 to 4,500 experience you can expect a lot of traveling, fighting, and obstacles.
Lots of NPC’s in town, what do they do?
There are many different types of NPC’s in town that can make you more powerful.
I’m sure there are more NPC’s I’m forgetting about, but the above covers some of the important ones.
Ask for help!
If your confused ask folks in town, there are some nice people on GuildWars. Or post on 2old2play.com, or ask me. I’ll see what I can do.
I hope that helps get you started. Sorry now for any bad English or mis-used words. I had to get some work done today and couldn’t spend all day editing this little article. If anything, it should help get you on your way. And if you stop at your local gaming store you can pickup Prima’s Guide to Guild Wars. This book gives you a breakdown of all spells, attributes, and some explanations of different character combinations that you can play. It touches little on PvP (as I left out here for the newbies). I’ll try to post a more advanced article later in the month.
CodeMonkey
There are a few key terms you may see, and I shall use occasionally.
- NPC: The non-player-character also known as AI or in the case of party members “the henchmen” (or henchy). NPC merchants let you buy stuff.
- WTS: Want to Sell. This is used when someone [a human] has something they don’t need, and want to trade cash for it.
- WTT: Want to Trade. This is used when someone [a human] wants to trade one thing for something else of equivalent value.
- WTB: Want to Buy. This is used when someone [a human] is looking to buys something from another player…maybe you have it and are WTS!
- Pre-Searing: This is the part of the gaming world for “newbies.” This area is easier then the real game, and begins the plotline once you have talked to the NPC Master Tydus and have accepted his “training” to get into where the real action begins.
- Post-Searing: This is the real meat and potatoes of the guildwars world. Once you are here many more options, missions, and quests will be open to you.
- Skill: A skill is something you acquire as you move through the game and conquer quests or purchase. For RPG people these may be best known as ‘spells’ for those wizard archetypes. Skills make you cooler, and combinations of them make you dangerous.
- Attributes: A skill is most typically bound to a certain attribute of your character. A monk with a lot of attribute points in “healing prayers” will be extremely good at healing skills (healing breeze, heal party, heal other) where a monk with a lot of attribute points in “protection prayers” will not be so good at healing but can protect players from taking damage to begin with!
The Concept – How your character works
You have a character, which is just a 3d polygon model (some hotter then others). You have a primary profession, and usually a secondary profession (you get this after you create your character and have been playing for a few hours). The primary profession is important for a few key reasons:
- Your armor type will be based on the primary profession (you cannot select the secondary profession armor).
- Once you select a primary profession your locked into it for the remaining life of that character.
- Magical runes that enhance your characters attributes later in the game will only work on your primary professions attributes. So if you think you want to really push a specific attribute to its max, pick the profession with that attribute as your primary profession.
- Your energy status is based on your primary character. Fighter classes like Ranger, and Warrior will have less energy for using skills and it will regenerate slower. A spell casting class like elementalist and necromancers will have more energy (or ability to get it) and it will regenerate faster. If you plan on casting lots of spells make your primary a spell caster type. If you plan on being a meat shield pick a warrior as primary.
You will meet NPC’s throughout the world, and in the initial area of the world (lets call it “pre-searing” or n00b central) you will learn the basics of guildwars, fight easier quests to get you used to the game, have a party limit of 2 players, and have the ability to pickup a secondary profession. There is an NPC for each profession throughout pre-searing and you can go on quests for them which will allow them to grant you the right for the secondary profession (and the right to refuse it). This allows you to try a profession out with the initial three skills of that profession, and then decide to try another if you don’t care for it.
Understanding your character – attributes and specializing
Your character has a few key attributes and its up to you to choose how you want to mold your characters attributes to be a useful contributor to society (kill stuff with friends). Since each profession has a special attribute that is only accessible if you choose that profession as “primary” you may want to actually put some attribute points in there as you move through the experience levels. For warriors this is ‘tactics’, and ‘energy storage’ for elementalists, mesmers have ‘fast casting’, monks have ‘divinity’, rangers ‘expertise’, and necromancers have ‘soul reaping’. Each attribute is key to making your character more powerful in there primary profession and I highly recommend keeping this number high.
So how do you make your character unique? Well once you have two professions you will have a whole set of attributes to increase/decrease and find your sweet spot. You want to be a spell slinger that casts fast spells and has some great powerful spells? An Elementalist with attribute points in air magic (fast snappy spells) and earth magic (powerful and defensive spells) may be the route for you. Warriors may choose tactics and swordsmanship to be a fighter with fast attacks and good defensive skills. Secondary professions will come into play here too, because you will have a few more attributes to put points into as you increase levels. Don’t try to master all the attributes, pick a few and experiment. You can always move them around later. I aquire all the skills I can find, figure out which ones I like best and pick the attribute that goes with the skills.
Try to build a character that you will find fun, and as your first character something you do not find too daunting. If you are used to Diablo II or a more “hack and slash” type of character you may want to be a Warrior/Monk. Your primary attributes are battle based and your secondary attributes are healing based. So you can do your hack and slash, but heal yourself when you get over your head in danger. If your more of a Dungeons & Dragons type player perhaps an Elementalist/Mesmer will be more your style because you can select from a huge assortment of spells.
You have 4 characters you can create. So have fun, if you don’t like your character you can always create a new one and try a different profession.
Understanding materials and armor
What is a crafting material? In guild wars you cannot simply buy armor or better protection; you have to talk to an NPC that can make you new armor. But they make that armor for a fee, and you supply the materials to do it! Not a great deal, I know :-) That would be like you bringing sheet metal, chips, design schematics, and glass to a vendor to build you a PC. You have to have the components, and pay them! Guild wars works on this concept. You want ring plated leather armor? You better bring some iron, some hide, and some money!
As you adventure through the game you’ll find many weapons that are undesirable to you or are weaker then stuff you have. You can purchase a salvage kit from the merchant in order to try to tear apart the undesirable weapons and obtain materials you can use for other stuff. For example, you may find a sword that only does 7 points of damage when yours does 10 points of damage. Salvage it and you will probably get iron. That iron can be used to craft better armor for your character (if you’re profession’s armor is based on iron of course).
In pre-searing you cannot craft new armor, and materials are pretty useless for the most part. However collect them now, and save them in your inventory for when you move out of the newbie area of the game. Then you can see what your character needs for materials to build better armor, or sell them to others, give them to friends, or just sell them off to the NPC’s in town. It’s a good way to get an initial cash flow going. The pre-searing areas are pretty clean of complex crafting stuff (besides a weapon smith that can customize your weapon for additional damage).
As you venture further in post-searing you will find new towns, and in those towns merchants that sell ‘expert salvage kits’. These will give you a higher chance of getting rare crafting materials from items, or upgrade items. If you use an expert salvage kit (which costs 4x more) you may get 4 iron ingots instead of 1 from a sword, or a steel ingot which is a rare crafting material. Rare items are great because most ‘bad ass’ armor types you will eventually want to buy will require one or two rare crafting materials in order for you to build them.
What is an upgrade item? Or a Rune?
You may occasionally find items that are mediocre in abilities, but have special prefix or postfix names on them. For example, I could find a “longsword”, or I could a “fiery longsword of fortitude”. The prefix “fiery” means that the hilt of that sword enables it to light on fire and cause nasty burns to your enemies while the pommel of the sword gives you +20 to health (fortitude). You can also find just a “fiery long sword” or a “long sword of fortitude” on your travels as well. That just means they only have 1 out of 2 cool weapon upgrades. So how do you get them? With an expert salvage kit! If a sword has two upgrade items you can only get one of them by salvaging it, and you have no power over which one (pray maybe?).
Each type of weapon (besides wands) have two types of upgrade components. A sword has a hilt & pommel, a bow as a grip & string, an axe has a haft & grip, a staff has a wrapping & head, etc. So you may find many different upgrade items during your travels. Some sell for good money, others you can barely give away for free. For example, a staff head of energy +1 isn’t that great, but a bow grip of fortitude +20 will catch you 2,000gp easy. If you’re unsure, ask around or find someone selling them and ask them how much they want for it (that will give you a clue on to what you should sell yours for). If you’re friendly, you can always give them to guild mates, or random folks.
Use them! If your new to the game, and you find a weapon upgrade and you can use it, then do so. How? Lets say you have a bow that does 5-10 damage and you find a bow that does 3-7 but has an icy bowstring (i.e. icy short bow). You can expert salvage it and hope to get the string (you could end up with wood if your unlucky) and double click on the string and apply it (click) to your bow. Bam! Your bow now does ice damage. Hurra!
A rune is a little “sheet of paper” that you can expert salvage from certain types of magical armor that enemies drop (all armor dropped by enemies is ‘salvageable’ and not something you can wear). There is a rune for all attributes in the game, and runes to assist with health. There are three types of runes: minor, major, superior. Stick with minors until you get your feet wet. Minors give you +1 to the attribute point that rune describes, and Majors +2, and Superior +3, but the last two come with an added penalty of negative health points. You can also purchase runes for a pretty penny at the Rune Trader in many big cities.
Weapon and Item Requirements
Many items and weapons will have a requirement with them. A sword that says “requires 5 swordsmanship” means it will only be truly effective if you have the attribute number it describes (i.e. 5 in swordsmanship). Only use items & weapons that have attribute requirements you can meet or you will be using an item/weapon that has very little potential. More potent items and weapons typically have higher requirements while some potent ones will have low requirements (which is what makes them rare and special) and are harder to find. These are known as “gold items” or “purple items.”
Colored items
There are four colored items in the game: white, blue, purple, and gold. White items are standard common stuff such as a sword. If a weapon has cool magical abilities or upgrade it will typically be blue. If it as two magical abilities and other great stuff it is typically purple. If it’s slightly cooler then the purple item (or the same) but has very low attribute requirements then its usually gold. Gold items are rare, and many people will love to get they’re hands on them.
City Districts
Each town is broken into districts (servers) that you can jump through using the dropdown menu on the upper left corner. You can whisper (send private messages) to buddies on your friends list or guild without them being in the same district (let alone same town!). So if you want to meet up, ask which district and which town they are in and jump to it using the dropdown or the map travel (hit ‘M’ click on the town and select the district you want).
Once you meet up in town, click on the person (first find them) or type their name into the party members dialog box to the far right. A green button with a “+” will appear, click it. Now they can accept your invitation from there party members dialog box. Now you have an instant party group! Just add water! Find other friends and follow the same instructions then head out on adventures.
The quest & the mission
Guild wars is a questing system. You quest for experience, money, and skills. People with the little green exclamation points are telling you they have a quest for you. You can hit ‘L’ at any time to see your current set of quests. When adventuring with buddies tell them all to select the same quest so you guys can run them together (or tell them where to get the quest so they can quest it with you). Some professions will have quests that only people of that same profession will get; this is true with many of the initial adventures in post-searing. Buddies can help you out without always gaining the advantage of finishing the quest and gaining experience, but that’s why we call them buddies right?
A mission is a ‘storyline quest’ which takes place in towns that have shields as there icon on the main map (hit ‘M’) such as the Great Northern Wall. When you go into a town like this you will have an [enter mission] button. Gather a party of friends or random folks, and enter the mission. If you win, you get 1,000 experience. If you lose then you’re out of the mission and back in town. Each mission has a bonus mission you can run if you can find it (or use the web for fan sites that list them) so that you can gain an additional 1,000 experience. For all the early missions I suggest trying to find the bonus to get that extra 1k experience to boost your levels faster. The second advantage to missions is that, once complete, you get a cinematic of the storyline as it goes on, and are brought to a new area you may or may not have seen. Most missions will end in a new town or outpost that you could walk to if you have the time but you are instantly brought there as a reward for finishing the mission. Once you do a few you will get the idea.
Note: Quests with low experience values for rewards are typically easier. If you find a quest that gives you 500 experience it won’t be too too hard, but if you find one that rewards 1,500 to 4,500 experience you can expect a lot of traveling, fighting, and obstacles.
Lots of NPC’s in town, what do they do?
There are many different types of NPC’s in town that can make you more powerful.
- The skills trade: He or she has a “[skills]” tag after his name allows you to buy skills for ‘skill points’ (things you get when you advance in levels or complete missions). Skill points are ‘credit’ towards buying new skills (and paying cash for them too). Watch out, some skills can be given for free from completing quests. If your impatient or they are not available in a quest buy them now.
- material trader: This guy will buy and sell materials in quantity of 10. Its typically cheaper to buy/sell from normal humans.
- armor crafter: This guy will craft armor if you have the materials. There are two in the main city and the second guy has a better selection of armor to choose from.
- rare material trader: This guy buys and sells rare materials (in quantities of one). Good way to dump stuff you find that you can’t use if you don’t want to sell them to real humans or interact with people.
- weapon smith: In the beginning towns he customize your weapons to make them more powerful (but not really sellable to others because its customized to you). Later in the game this NPC will also sell you weapons and items like the armor crafter (you bring the materials and he’ll craft ‘em).
- rune trader: Buys and sells runes.
- storage: Pay 50gp or so and you can have an extra storage space for saving your personals. This storage area is shared with all your characters so you can store stuff here (including money) and login with your other character to take the items. This guy is only available in post-searing.
- collectors: Also found outside of town. They take collectable items and swap them for armor, or weapons or items. You’ll find all types of collectable items (that can be salvaged as well). Such things as horns, carapaces, eyes, manes, skulls, etc. I typically hold on to these until I find a collect that has interest in them.
I’m sure there are more NPC’s I’m forgetting about, but the above covers some of the important ones.
Ask for help!
If your confused ask folks in town, there are some nice people on GuildWars. Or post on 2old2play.com, or ask me. I’ll see what I can do.
I hope that helps get you started. Sorry now for any bad English or mis-used words. I had to get some work done today and couldn’t spend all day editing this little article. If anything, it should help get you on your way. And if you stop at your local gaming store you can pickup Prima’s Guide to Guild Wars. This book gives you a breakdown of all spells, attributes, and some explanations of different character combinations that you can play. It touches little on PvP (as I left out here for the newbies). I’ll try to post a more advanced article later in the month.
CodeMonkey
