Favorite Campaign and Why ( Bonus for favorite mission)

Prophecies. Everything else was trying to capture that magic.

And reading your title my initial reaction was Thunderhead Keep. After thinking about it that is still my answer. I’ve done that mission hundreds of times, especially in the early days when people would pay huge amounts to get through the “hard” missions. And just for fun I’d also show up and help PUGs. Was just a fun challenge when all you had for support was henchmen.

The first place I visited when I reinstalled a couple months back was the shiverpeaks. Best section of the game.

Prophecies for the magic, it was love at first sight and still is after 16 years.

About favourite mission: I can't make a choice among The Great Northern Wall, Thunderhead Keep and The Dragon's Lair.

I love the first because of the run from the Charr's charge: when I played this mission for the first time it really gave me the impression of running for my life and that memory still makes it one of my favourite.

About Thunderhead Keep: as Capitalist said, it was the love for a good challenge in the old days, when you didn't have pve skills or creatures to support you, aside from minions. Still love that mission.

I love The Dragon's Lair for the place and the story, for the variety of foes and Glint herself.

BONUS POINT: I think my favourite outpost is Yak's Bend. It brings all the memories of the first touch of snow of the game, of Shiverpeak Arena, of crossing the mountains for the Ascalon refugees. Shiverpeaks is the best part of the game

Prophecies is my choice for campaign. The subsequent games solved game problems and are obviously parts of why we still play today though and all offer a great deal of value to the GW experience:

Factions gets you max armor and level in 5 hours and is a comfortable length to rope in new players. Factions fixed the pacing of Prophecies. I know so many people who quit in 2005 because 25 missions with PUGs wore them down. Factions was a lot quicker and more comfortable. The Luzon/kurzick stuff and of course the alliance system are also core elements of gameplay even in 2021.

NF has better pacing, a better story, more complex objectives/enemies…but doesn’t have the magic. NF is objectively the reason we still play today(heroes) and is objectively the best written campaign in terms of story. Even the existence of inscr weapons makes the game a lot more player friendly even if we all love our OS weapons. If I was picking the “best” campaign, opinions aside, I think it’s hard to argue NF doesn’t win. If they made a GW movie out of one of the campaigns, you would want it to be NF. The characters are far deeper, the motives and themes more complex. But NF lacks the exploration, diversity, and majesty that makes Prophecies so special.

EoTN is also amazing — I’m not allowing myself to count it because it’s so short, and despite that it just might win, but I love dungeons! EoTN was so well designed to simply deliver us content. The story is well written(though it could have used more time), the PvE skills added complexity and power to PvE builds to differentiate them from PvP, and despite taking a few hours to beat EoTN has the most replay value/content of any GW release. So glad we got EoTN. I have done Slavers Exile so many times — 2008 tank and spank slavers PUGs are something I miss almost as much as Prophecies PUGs in 2005.

So now with all of that praise for the others, I have to defend my choice:

What Prophecies lacked in game comfort, in writing, in player friendliness it made up for in variety, mystery, and visuals. While the overarching story leaves a lot to be desired, from Pre to the Shiverpeaks Prophecies is packed with weird, wild, and fascinating scenery, side quests, and so on. You can run anywhere and accidentally end up against enemies you weren’t supposed to fight. There are numerous zones that exist essentially just to be discovered -- places tucked away with no real reason to visit other than pure exploration. Your rewards are elusive and abstract, you visit The Falls just to see The Falls. Your reward for discovering the Temple there is simply that you have now seen the temple there. There is such a magic to that, something lacking in new games that try to over-explain everything or more likely just do not include elements like this. The lack of an intense theme gives the enemies so much variety — you’re fighting charr, then dwarves, then skeletons, then white mantle, then forgotten, and so on…and it all feels seamless. The bonuses, while often annoying to solo these days, were so fascinating. The underlying tone of PvE being training for PvP makes for some really cool objectives like Aurora Glade, Thirsty River, etc.

If you were picking a single campaign to get lost in, Prophecies is the one. I have been lost in it for about 16 years now.

Favorite mission is probably Gate of Madness(HM) if I’m being honest with myself. I want to be a cool guy and pick Dunes or THK, but GoM is the one mission I will always put stuff aside to help with when people ask in alliance chat. It’s fun and it’s challenging. Many others are more nostalgic but GoM is the one I enjoy the most purely for challenge/fun.

Prophecies here too. Also thanks to GW I discovered Jeremy Soule and since then has become one of my favorite composers.

More than missions themselves, my favorite areas are the Magumma Jungle and Crystal Desert for all the history it contains, I'm fan of Egypt and its forgotten history, so any landscape with sand, dunes, buried things, symbols in constructs, lost buildings, etc, is beauty in my eyes.

One thing I like a lot of Prophecies is the progression/transformation between maps or zones. For example, I remember arriving at Ventari's Refuge for first time and we know is not Magumma yet, but you start to see traces of it.

since i see a lot of Proph picks i am here for my Cantha Boys N Gurls out there.

Shingjea Island or should be call it: Shing-YEAH-island. is just beautyful.

The skin variety ist just the best in the game. If i need to chose from only one games/expensions skins will stay in game and all other will be deleted i go for Factions skins: Zodiacs, plagues, Bladeds, iridescent, Amber, Outcast , Paperfans and Lanterns and MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANY more. the skins are (unarguably ) the best in Factions seen in a whole. i know magmas and SSS/SWS are proph beautys but in total Factions beats them all.

Urgoz and DEEP with the unique 12 Player parties are just the pinnacle.

So if i had to chose one Game, One Skin line , and one kampain to farm and chest run --> FACTIONS BABY thats where its at

because the Heart is where Cantha is 

BONUS: Best mission imho is Minister Chos Ministery Dadan can confirm even tho i dont love it as much as he does. but i think no one else in the game does so its okay

Quote from Anti

So now with all of that praise for the others, I have to defend my choice:

What Prophecies lacked in game comfort, in writing, in player friendliness it made up for in variety, mystery, and visuals. While the overarching story leaves a lot to be desired, from Pre to the Shiverpeaks Prophecies is packed with weird, wild, and fascinating scenery, side quests, and so on. You can run anywhere and accidentally end up against enemies you weren’t supposed to fight. The lack of an intense theme gives the enemies so much variety — you’re fighting charr, then dwarves, then skeletons, then white mantle, then forgotten, and so on…and it all feels seamless. The bonuses, while often annoying to solo these days, were so fascinating. The underlying tone of PvE being training for PvP makes for some really cool objectives like Aurora Glade, Thirsty River, etc.

If you were picking a single campaign to get lost in, Prophecies is the one. I have been lost in it for about 16 years now.

This.

Totally agree with your NF opinion, but Prophecies has "The Magic"

Quote from Mr. Clean(-Value)

BONUS: Best mission imho is Minister Chos Ministery Dadan can confirm even tho i dont love it as much as he does. but i think no one else in the game does so its okay

oh boi, those tea parties with the minister are one of the rarest pleasures left in game

Oh goodness this is a hard question I am going to have to go with Prophecies because I love pre. Spent my whole first year of the game in pre cause I was too scared to go to post. Favorite mission would be Thunderhead keep because I loved helping people as a monk main. Even wrote a silly fan fiction about my monk being in love with King Jalis. My favorite quest is in Factions though cause I am a sucker for "Lost Treasure" something about that darn quest hits me in the feels every time.

Such a hard question! I started gw in December 2005 but actually completed factions first. I too had a euphoric experience getting through THK for the first time, but those Magho hydras put a hard stop on crossing perdition rock for a while.

My favourite campaign aaaah - my head says NF but my heart says factions. That was my magical time in gw, farming greens worth nothing now (jacquis aegis was hot stuff), getting wrecked by everything in kaineng, loving FA, meeting new characters at Vizunah square, the breath of fresh air when reaching pongmei valley…

I have a fondness for prophecies for obvious reasons but time has been less kind I think.

I actually think my favourite mission is actually in NF though, Dzagonur Bastion. It was my last one for legendary guardian, is genuinely hard without being annoying, and I also think has a fun and different design. I always felt it had real stakes in the plot too. I have pretty fond memories of late NF too.