Which Guild Wars is the best to buy?

Question

Price is not a problem but i need to know which one is the best before i go out and buy it

Guild Wars (PC)

Guild Wars Factions (PC)

Guild Wars: Eye of the North (PC-DVD)

Guild Wars: Nightfall (PC)

Guild Wars:Eye of the North-Platinum Edition (PC)

Guild Wars:Factions-Platinum Edition (PC)

Or are they all the same for the most part in which case it wouldn't matter which one i bought.

Answer 1

There are 4 sections to Guild Wars: the original (now called Prophesies to try to avoid confusion), Factions, Nightfall, and Eye to the North. Eye to the North is a true expansion, requiring one of the other three to be able to play; however, Prophesies, Factions, and Nightfall are all standalone expansions. By this, I mean that you can buy any one of them and play it by itself, or you can buy more than one of them and let each of your characters go through multiple campaigns.

Prophesies was the original. It is based on the classic Medieval Europe style fantasy setting and features the 6 "core" classes: Warrior (your heavily armored physical brute), Ranger (medium armored archer who can have a pet), Monk (healing and protection mage), Necromancer (lifestealing and other similar nasty effect, as well as the ability to raise an undead army), Elementalist (your classic damage mage), and Mesmer (who steals mana and interrupts enemy actions). Each of these core classes have some skills with are available regardless of what standalone expansion(s) you have and some that are specific to each of them. Prophesies is pretty well balanced between a PvE campaign and the PvP protion of the game.

Factions came next. It is set on a different continent with a mystical Far East Asia flavor. On top of the core classes, Factions has two more: Assassin (ninjas with low armor, but high bursts of damage through a combo mechanic) and Ritualist (casters who are part Healing Monk, part Lighting Elementalist, and part summoner). Factions is considered largely a PvP game, as the PvE story was rather nonsensical, and PvP partially invaded the PvE section of the game.

Nightfall was the third portion, and it again takes place on a new continent (this time one with a Middle East Crusades feel). On top of the 6 core classes, there were again two new classes: Paragon (part Protection Monk and part Warrior with a new Scythe weapon), and Dervish (part Healing Monk and part Curse Necromancer that wields the new throwing spear weapon). Nightfall was largely considered a PvE expansion, partly because of Paragons being practically worthless in PvP and partly because of Heroes. In all of Guild Wars, you'd have the ability to fill in slots of your party with NPC "Henchmen" if you didn't want to or couldn't find other players. However, Henchmen had only half the skills they should. Heroes were basically Henchmen on steroids that you had to spend some time growing, but you could customize their skills and attributes (ultimately making them potentially about twice as strong as the henchmen are), and only you had access to the ones you created.

Eye to the North goes back to the continent from Prophesies, but takes you to new areas of it. Unlike the others that allow you to create characters in them, Eye to the North is designed to be started only by max-level characters. It is almost entirely a PvE expansion.

The two Platinum Editions are just the section listed in the title along with Prophesies in a single box.