Guild Wars Guide

It all begins here. In look and flavor it is a beautiful, medieval-style fantasy world. You have full gender and skintone options in creating your character, but choose from among preset faces and hairstyles. There is decent variety offered, though. You train your character in your chosen class, follow the storyline through a war and migration, finding new life for your people in a new land.

This new land has problems of its own and your adventure continues. Pace in this initial chapter is fairly slow. Plan to savor the game, spending much time here, unless you've already been through it and take shortcuts through the story. The level cap is 20, and that doesn't change in later chapters.

Classes offered in this chapter, known as core classes for the game, are: Mesmer, Elementalist, Monk, Necromancer, Warrior, Ranger. Mesmer is expert in indirect and subtle magics. Elementalist deals with elemental damage and has powerful area of effect and spike damage spells. Monk is your essential healer class, and has smiting and protection spell sets to choose from as well. Necromancer is able to manipulate the energy, health, and performance of foes and allies, as well as exploit corpses for minions or wells with offensive and defensive uses. Warrior is your core melee class. Rangers are your typical bow wielders, with the ability to have pets and set traps.

You begin with four character slots. Character slots are added with the purchase of other chapters. You can also purchase additional slots separately of any chapter.

There is a beautiful Asian theme added in this chapter. We're given a new land to explore, new skills, new storyline, hundreds of new creatures, the ability to create characters with an Asian appearance, new armor, new items, Rangers can tame new pets that match the theme, and there are two new classes: Assassin, and Ritualist. A ritualist is a magic user who has spirit help in battle. Assassin is a shadowy, ninja-style melee type.

Pace is much faster with this chapter, allowing you to level a newly made character very quickly to get to the 20th level content that makes up most of the new quests and storyline.

Nightfall has an African theme. In it, we're given another new storyline, more new skills, new character appearance options, a whole new continent, new armor, new items, new ranger pets, and two new classes: Dervish, and Paragon. Dervish is a scythe wielding melee type fighter, with lots of magic, and Paragon is a ranged, supportive, almost monkish type who wields a spear.

This chapter ranks above the other two, in my opinion, for the addition of Heroes, which are essentially permanently assigned henchman connected to your character. You can turn them on and off at will but once unlocked they are always yours, and you can customize their second classes, skill sets, armor, and weapons to suit yourself. You can even take them back to other chapters you own to use in those areas. No more losing out on a night's playing because no one in your guild is on and pick up groups suck.

In pacing I'd rank it between the two earlier chapters, a comfortable medium.

Eye of the North is the only true expansion pack, meaning it cannot stand alone, you have to own one of the others with it. It is set in the far Shiverpeaks, which will be familiar to those who played Prophecies. There are Norn, Charr, Dwarf, and Asura settlements. Four new sets of armor, 150 new profession-specific skills, new heroes to unlock, new items, new pets for rangers, new quests, and new story to play. It's all level 20 range content, with challenging missions and quests.

I thought they did a fantastic job with this of taking us back to our roots (Prophecies) and wrapping up loose threads, some created by player lore and questions over the years, to get us ready for GuildWars2. It will mean a lot more if you've played the first, but it's not dependent on it.