Guild Wars is an online role-playing game franchise developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft.

[6] Guild Wars was noted for being the "first major MMO to adopt a business model not based on monthly subscription fees",[7] its instanced approach to gameplay,[8] and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications.

[9] In April 2009, NCSoft announced that 6 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold.

[10] The sequel and fourth major entry into the series, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007 and released on August 28, 2012.

It features updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and continues the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.

A player creates an avatar to play through the cooperative storyline of a campaign, taking on the role of a hero who must save Tyria from its antagonists.

Players are allowed to create characters at maximum level and with the best equipment specifically for PvP play, which is unusual for MMORPGs.

Each profession has an array of attributes and skills that help narrow a class's proficiency in order to perform a customized role that is determined by the player.

Guild Wars also introduces the ability to choose a secondary profession, expanding the selection of attributes and skills.

Enchantments that include giving players extra health points or Hexes that drain the enemy's life and add it to your own make up part of the skill selection in Guild Wars.

Attack skills are used in conjunction with weapons to augment the damage that they can deal and cause different side effects (such as knocking people to the ground with a hammer, causing bleeding wounds that deal additional damage over time with a sword, or striking multiple foes with an axe).

[17] While in a town or staging area, a character's skill and attribute selection can be freely modified to construct a "build".

Unique or rare weapon designs are often found from defeating powerful monsters, or by opening treasure chests.

Player versus Environment (PvE) missions of Guild Wars use several standard tropes of the MMORPG genre.

Players explore the game-world, kill monsters, perform quests and complete missions to earn rewards and advance the story.

In each campaign the player is involved in a linear story with which they interact by performing a series of primary quests and replayable missions.

Missions allow the player character to participate in the major events of the storyline, such as significant battles against the main antagonist.

Both quests and missions can feature in-game cut scenes which advance the story and provide context to the actions which follow.

[19] Players or guilds elect to participate in the tournament by buying in-game tokens using their PvP faction points.

Players can accumulate faction (reputation) with either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, which can either be "donated" to the alliance or redeemed for certain in-game rewards.

The events of the Factions campaign concern the return from death of a corrupted bodyguard named Shiro Tagachi.

Nightfall introduced heroes, advanced computer-controlled units that can be micro-managed by players, including the ability to customize their skill layout and equipment.

Eye of the North therefore does not feature new professions, but contains new content for existing characters: dungeons, a number of new skills, armor, and heroes.

Eye of the North is set in previously inaccessible territory from the first Guild Wars campaign, Prophecies.

It contains playable recreations of four incidents in the history of Tyria, Cantha, and Elona, and each mission expands the backstory for one of four major NPCs.

[citation needed] In an effort to resolve plot threads, ArenaNet has released a series of "mini-expansion" updates, collectively known as Guild Wars Beyond.

[28] Some of these scrapped Beyond-updates included: the Ebon Vanguards' withdrawal and establishment of Ebonhawke; the Lunatic Court and their attempts to free Mad King Thorn; expanding on the story of Palawa Joko and continuing that plot thread, which was left dangling in Nightfall; and the disappearance of Evennia, last seen in Old Ascalon during the Krytan civil war.

These updates, comprising Living World Season 2, featured a plot to awaken Mordremoth, leading to the game's first expansion pack.

In this campaign, the Pact heroes pursue Balthazar and the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik to Elona, the continent originally featured in Nightfall.

This campaign follows the Pact Heroes into the land of Cantha as they finish pursuing the remainder of the Elder Dragons.