Guild Wars Reforged

[rusty_shackleford]

what this

[Fitz]

This might be exactly what I've been waiting for...

[Finarfin]

Basically a rebranding and making the entire game with the three expansions (minus Eye of the North and the bonus pack) 20 bucks, plus adding some quality of life stuff. No remake/remaster or any of that ****.

[WhiteShark]

Looks cool. I had a friend in high school who loved Guild Wars. I had always intended to play it but never got around to it. Apparently I already owned it on Steam, so I have this update now. Another for the list.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

From what I have heard the main improvement is some back end updates to how it renders on modern hardware. Maybe it fixes the UI scaling issues with 4K monitors.

[ArcaneLurker]

Basically a rebranding and making the entire game with the three expansions (minus Eye of the North and the bonus pack) 20 bucks, plus adding some quality of life stuff. No remake/remaster or any of that ****.

The only remotely interesting thing I heard about it is that they might do some updates (but I assume it's just the two guys that are looking after the property getting bored).

[Fitz]

This one here is really good value as the Reforged edition includes Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall - which are the three main campaigns. Pretty big ones too. You can play them solo too because of the way GW1 was designed.

I didn't get to play a lot of the Assassin or Ritualist in GW1 so this might be my chance to do so. I can't recall much of the story other that I enjoyed big parts of it when I was a kid. Granted, my tastes since then have improved for the better... or at least I hope that's the case, but I think 20 gold pieces for 3 humongous campaign that tie together is not gonna make me regret the purchase.

And also the music. Parts of the soundtracks for all 3 of the campaigns are very much so up there. The Prophecies soundtrack is something that has always found a place on my playlists through out the years. It just manages to get my excited and just drift my imagination into some unknown fantasy world known only to me.

Besides, I've been looking for an mmo to play for some time. I've been looking at LOTRO, but this looks like a much better fit. Not only because of the great game design choices when it comes to builds and classes but also for the nostalgia blast it carries.

I'm certain that most of HQ would enjoy this a lot and that it would easily get the HQ approved curator mark. I'll get back to this thread when I managed to pour some hours into this, but I doubt my impressions will be much different than what I've written so far.

[rusty_shackleford]

Gw1 has an incredibly reactive(ish) world with a ton of stuff to find, it's very unique in that way. I spent a ton of time in just the starting area.

[Rienen]

I'm a sucker for pet classes, so the idea of running around with Mercs/Heroes def sounds fun. Can't say how long the game will hold me, but I'll prob jump in for a few days, at least, for the nostalgia trip.

[J1M]

I never liked the scale of the environment art compared to the characters in GW. Looked like the characters should be twice as tall and they decided late in development to pad the game by increasing the relative size of the maps.

Played a mesmer for a while, was fun enough.

[rusty_shackleford]

main issue was always the focus on pvp which aged like milk, would be a much better game if it focused on pve
oh well

[Tweed]

A friend bought me a copy of the OG game, but my terrible ISDN line made it impossible to play at the time.

[rusty_shackleford]

lol

Selection_007.webp

Selection_008.webp

[Vergil]

lol

Pit kino....

[Ranselknulf]

So, if I've never played either, then which one is better.

Guild Wars 2 or Guild Wars Reforged?

[rusty_shackleford]

So, if I've never played either, then which one is better.

Guild Wars 2 or Guild Wars Reforged?

They're not even the same genre. Guild Wars is a good example of a game in its own subgenre tbh.
I enjoyed Guild Wars a lot more than GW2 for what it's worth.

[Ranselknulf]

So, the WoW Killer has finally arrived.

Guild Wars Reforged.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So, if I've never played either, then which one is better.

Guild Wars 2 or Guild Wars Reforged?

They are both very, very different games. Almost not identifiably the same series.

GW1 is more like a WRPG in that you run around maps by yourself with a party of up to 8 NPCs. It's kinda like a real time multiplayer Dragon Age where there is optional co-op and other players can sub in for the NPCs. The game's story is also rudimentary, usually presented in paragraphs of text in a small box or in a few mediocre cutscenes, and is not very engaging. It has music by Jeremy Soule which I found to be overall forgettable. In GW1 you only play as humans, though there are a couple of non human NPC party members you can acquire like a Charr, a Tengu (fat birdman), and a centaur. The gameplay can be very frustrating. I remember spending two hours getting stuck on a Nightfall mission where you have to very carefully manuever through a fort and fight the Drought (and wiped on the Drought twice and had to redo the entire mission all over again. What a humongous disrespect of my time). The final nail in the coffin for me was when I reached the Jojo duel in Nightfall. I wound up uninstalling there but I overall disliked the game.

GW2 is an action adventure modern MMO. You only control your own character and don't really get a NPC party. Some NPCs accompany you in the story missions but that's it. You get to play as different races including the well executed beastial Charr which automatically run on all fours, and the male Charr player voice actor is great. Soundtrack is overall a little better. There are bombastic open world setpiece sequences called Meta Events. The story is better presented with better voice acting, cutscenes where appropriate, does not happen in paragraphs of text, etc. I wrote more indepth thoughts on the codex a few years ago as I replayed the game and went through every expansion and a final review of it. I overall recommend it if you want a fun globe trotting adventure where you get to visit a lot of cool high fantasy zones. Story is kinda good at around season 4 and then declines but at that point you mind as well tough it out and see the end in End of Dragons. So far I haven't been enticed to play the continuation mini expacs but I might come back one day.

[Maledict]

Where is the screen collage from? It looks hyper epic.

---

GW1 is more like a WRPG in that you run around maps by yourself with a party of up to 8 NPCs. It's kinda like a real time multiplayer Dragon Age where there is optional co-op and other players can sub in for the NPCs. The game's story is also rudimentary, usually presented in paragraphs of text in a small box or in a few mediocre cutscenes, and is not very engaging. It has music by Jeremy Soule which I found to be overall forgettable.

The gameplay can be very frustrating. I remember spending two hours getting stuck on a Nightfall mission where you have to very carefully manuever through a fort and fight the Drought (and wiped on the Drought twice and had to redo the entire mission all over again. What a humongous disrespect of my time). The final nail in the coffin for me was when I reached the Jojo duel in Nightfall. I wound up uninstalling there but I overall disliked the game.

Is this why I have 0 memories of the actual game? I owned a copy as a tween or so. (I had a Nightfall box)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Where is the screen collage from? It looks hyper epic.

I made it when I had finished GW2 End of Dragons. It contains screenshots I took of post-Vanilla zones from HoT through seasons 3, 4, IBS, to EoD.

[Maledict]

Where is the screen collage from? It looks hyper epic.

I made it when I had finished GW2 End of Dragons. It contains screenshots I took of post-Vanilla zones from HoT through seasons 3, 4, IBS, to EoD.

That's genuinely beautiful. You've a talent.

[WhiteShark]

I've logged into Guild Wars 1 for the first time, which turned out to be more difficult than expected due to a login bug that afflicts those who owned the game on Steam prior to the Reforged update. Any opinions on which class I should try first? I read online that you can respec everything except your primary class, so I want to choose carefully.

[Fitz]

You strike me as a ritualist kind of guy.

[WhiteShark]

You strike me as a ritualist kind of guy.

I don't have that option for some reason. The wiki says it's from Factions, which is part of the Trilogy, which it says I have on Steam, but I only have six options: Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Elementalist. Am I limited to those if I choose the Prophecies campaign?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've logged into Guild Wars 1 for the first time, which turned out to be more difficult than expected due to a login bug that afflicts those who owned the game on Steam prior to the Reforged update. Any opinions on which class I should try first? I read online that you can respec everything except your primary class, so I want to choose carefully.

I played as an assassin/dervish running around with a scythe and critting stuff. That was okay.

Ritualist with the stationary summons sounds interesting, but the GW1 combats and missions were pretty fast paced. I am not sure how well or fun that would be.

[WhiteShark]

Ok, it seems you have to start with one of the expansion campaigns if you want to pick anything but the six base classes. I was going to start with Prophecies because it's the first, but I guess that's another element I have to consider. I see people saying you can take your character into the other campaigns after a certain point.

[Fitz]

You strike me as a ritualist kind of guy.

I don't have that option for some reason. The wiki says it's from Factions, which is part of the Trilogy, which it says I have on Steam, but I only have six options: Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Elementalist. Am I limited to those if I choose the Prophecies campaign?

Yeah, ritualist and assassin start in the factions campaign. It's very asian themed, and I remember that it was considered the better campaign between prophecies and factions with how it was structured. But I don't remember quite how, as Nightfall was pretty peak too. Probably some quality of life **** and more modern game design. Val can help me out on this if he wishes.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

GW1's campaign experience is not story heavy game like GW2 (especially after Vanilla and you reach Living World and the expansions). There are few cutscenes. Most of your playtime is spent running around the solo instanced world with your 7 NPC party members or in missions to go kill targets. Nightfall's campaign is vaguely, slightly more interesting because it has the naval assault of a Mediterranean port city at the start which kinda looks like a scene from one of those historical movies like Troy. But you shouldn't get your hopes up and should really just focus on what you want out of the gameplay, ie which environments you want to hang out in, or what skills you want to acquire, etc.

Factions has four zones. You start off of on Shing Jea, which looks like a generic Asian zone, but it's not very well executed or looks as good as other asian zones you see in fantasy games. It's rather boring. Once you finish Shing Jea and get onto the mainland, you arrive at the second zone of Kaineng, which is kinda cool. There is a plague and the whole place looks like it's decaying, so you are running through a dying China. Again, the technical execution of the art is not great, so don't get your hopes up. I guess the docks area looked okay-ish.

After Kaineng, I lost interest in the Factions campaign and transferred to Nightfall. One of the reasons why it is recommended to transfer to Nightfall is to obtain party members called heroes (as opposed to Henchmen), which are a little more powerful and customizeable.

There is an early mission on the starter island in Nightfall that I had trouble with and had to ask a couple other players for help with (I think one where you fight some privateers). Then the naval assault happened and I landed on the mainland and the campaign had me trekking North. You are running through a lot of bland, yellow deserts. It's not appealing to look at. At one point, there was a mission where I had to kill a demon called The Drought. This is where my frustrations with the combat became exacerbated, because you spend 20 to 30 minutes pulling individual trash packs in this complex to finally reach the last boss. And then The Drought wipes your group in 15 seconds and you don't know what happened, and now I had to do this 2 or 3 more times. I spent a couple hours stuck on that boss. Very frustrating. I eventually got past that to the city in the far north and reached the mission where you have to beat Joko in a solo duel. After 3 or 4 attempts, I was done with the game and uninstalled.

[mercerxiv]

lol

Yup, the contrast.
Just summarizes the state of modern games industry and culture.

[mercerxiv]

So, if I've never played either, then which one is better.

Guild Wars 2 or Guild Wars Reforged?

If you want a more streamlined and modernized experience you go with GW2. You get a lot of modern MMO trappings, woke plot, cookie cutter grind around the clock. Modern woke slop enjoyers (like wow fans) will feel right at home.
If you want a more old-school mmorpg (or even RPG with multiplayer elements really) experience with way less woke trash and just solid escapism - gw1 is better. It's got a compelling story arc for the most part, and pretty fun gameplay with the ability to mix 2 classes and get AI henchmen/companions to join your party. I had a good time with it back when I played.