Guild Wars

Guild Wars is a series of online role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. It provides two main modes of game play
A cooperative role-playing component and a competitive player vs. player (PvP) component and have released  Three stand-alone episodes and one expansion pack in the series from April 2005 to August 2007.


What's that? its just another shitty RPG game? far from it, Guild Wars is unique in many ways which makes it very different to play and more strategic because of the need to make 'builds' which I will get too soon.

Here are the Three main stories of the Guild Wars world, The first one being Guild Wars (Known as Prophecies ) followed by Factions and Nightfall, all the games had their own individual story lines but they do overlap slightly with characters and histories. 


Guild Wars is unique in many ways, the whole game is very different from most RPG games as you do not share a server with the rest of the world, what do I mean? when you go outside of a town to do a quest or something you leave the public server and go into one specifically for you with only those who were in your party in it, this means that the game is very solo'able and eliminates the need to wait for something to re-spawn after another player has killed the boss you need to kill for the quest
This also means PvP is very different as players cannot just attack each other as they are in different servers, PvP is dedicated and separate from the Role Playing side of the game however it can help with it.


When you first create a character you can choose weather it is a Role Playing character (one that plays the story of the game you have selected but can also go to PvP if you want to use that character) or a PvP character which starts at the level cap and is made specifically for PvP only. 
Now level cap....20, yes 20 but it works well, the game isn't about grinding to level up it about the story and the build you chose to use.


So Builds....
Builds are the term used for the 8 Skills you choose to take with you on quests or in PvP these 8 skills are locked and connect be changed until you are back in a village and out of the explorable area, Unlike most RPG's which you can have as many skills as you can carry etc this way of working creates a lot more strategic method of playing, having to acquire the skills you need and working on your own or someone else's build so it works for you. 
AreaNet changes skills every now and then this causes builds to change and the whole experience of the game especially in PvP can change dramatically if a certain build you relied on is 'nerfed' 


PvP
There are quite a few different PvP types in Guild Wars many of the requiring you to work in a small group to beat others for example: 
AB: Alliance Battles - Introduced in the game Guild Wars Factions this PvP relies on you being in a guild, guilds can be in one of two alliances to the factions (Kurzicks or Luxons) in AB the player is in a group of 4 with 2 other groups of 4 on their side and the opposing faction has the same the aim of AB is kind of like king of the hill but with many capture points, first too 500 points wins the more capture points you have the quicker the points go up. 
GB: Guild Battles - Similar to AB but working as a whole guild vs another whole guild in one of the guilds halls, the aim is to kill the guild leader and win.
HA: Heroes' Ascent - Is a continuous tournament between teams of 8 players who battle in a sequence of different arenas against other groups of 8 if the group wins enough they get to fight in the Hall of Heroes, if they win here their results are broadcast to all online players and very good loot is at the end.


Overall
I have to say I have played Guild Wars for around 3 years stopping and starting when busy etc, the game is great honestly its one of the best games I've ever played however as Its getting older and players like me have done most things we get bored and stop playing even with updates all of my guild including me have stopped playing, which is a shame as we had such fun and laughs.


I hope to get Guild Wars 2 whenever it actually comes out and will be looking to bring back some old gamers and find some new ones to get to know.


Have you played Guild Wars? 
Plan on buying Guild Wars 2? 


Thanks 
/Tresni


*Edit* Thanks to cindrellig for reminding me! No, Guild Wars and all its games are Free to Play with only the one time cost of buying the game! and so will Guild Wars 2, there are No monthly subscriptions to pay for Guild Wars