The game world of Tyria is presented as a number of instanced zones accessible through staging areas known as towns. These staging areas are fully navigable 3D maps where the player avatars may interact with each other or with NPCs that provide services such as merchanting or storage. From a town, players can enter instanced gaming areas either by crossing the border of the town or by initiating a storyline mission. Each instance is allocated freshly for the adventuring party that enters it. As the characters progress in the story or explore the game world, they gain access to additional towns. Players can transport their characters instantly between towns using the game-world's map.

Player characters in Guild Wars are controlled from an over-head third person perspective in a 3D game environment (but with only two degrees of freedom: characters cannot move vertically). (First person perspective is available, but usually too cumbersome to play.) For every new character, the player can choose to create a role-playing character that begins in low level areas, or a PvP-only character at maximum level and the best equipment. Both modes encourage teaming up with other players or AI controlled NPCs known as henchmen.

The six core professions.Player characters have a fixed primary profession, determined at creation time, which dictates their appearance, certain primary attributes, and the kinds of armor available to them. The warrior profession, for example, has access to the primary Strength attribute that increases their effectiveness with martial weapons, and is able to wear heavy armor providing the highest protection of all professions. Elementalists, on the other hand, wear weaker armor, but can use their primary Energy Storage attribute to have a much greater energy pool than other professions. Player characters can also choose a variable secondary profession that gives them access to all the skills and secondary attributes of that profession. A Warrior/Elementalist (abbreviated in-game as W/E), therefore, is a warrior who may use spells in combat, similar to the Spellsword archetype from RPGs.

All player characters have a maximum character level of 20 that is reached fairly early on in the co-operative story. Armor and weapons also have fixed maximum stats and a fixed variety of modifiers, and these items at the highest stats are easily attainable. Most of the gameplay is balanced around a party of eight level 20 players sporting items with maximum stats. The choice of armor and weapons determine the character's health points. Unlike most RPGs, Guild Wars has no healing potions; instead, the party's health is managed by a number of healing skills in every class. In addition, a character regenerates health if he or she sustains or deals no damage for a certain period. The primary profession and attributes determine the character's energy, which also regenerates (at a fixed profession-dependent rate).

Players may customize their character appearance from a fixed palette of face and hair models, skin color, height of the avatar, and by their choice of armor. All armor and weapons in the game can be dyed to further differentiate the characters. Finally, characters may display their guild affiliation and, optionally, a title they have earned for in-game achievements. The most prestigious titles often require significant investment of time and often in-game money.

ArenaNet originally intended[citation needed] that co-operative characters would continue to competitive content as the end-game for a player. The co-operative and competitive modes of the game were therefore closely linked, sharing nearly all gameplay mechanics. The few differences that exist are limited to a collection of PvE-only skills that are not balanced for competitive use. However two communities of gamers have formed around each game type: those who play Guild Wars strictly as a co-operative RPG and those who play it as a competitive PvP game;[citation needed] updates to the game after the release of Prophecies allowed this division to continue further.[citation needed]

Combat
A player selects eight skills (special abilities) from their two professions. Each skill has a governing attribute that determines its effectiveness; these attributes are assigned using a number of attribute points similar to the point-purchase system of D&D. Most skills have an energy cost that is forfeited at the beginning, and an activation delay during which the character is stationary and unresponsive. All offensive skills are either targeted at an enemy, or centered on the self; Guild Wars does not allow targeting a location or an area. Weapon attacks are performed automatically at a fixed rate and the player can freely choose when to start or stop such attacks. Players may also select allied targets for beneficial skills such as healing spells or enchantments.

Guild Wars has been likened to collectible card games such as Magic: the Gathering because of the way skills are used in gameplay.[18] A player must choose a limited number of skills from the pool of available skills prior to entering battles, similar to assembling decks of Magic the Gathering cards. The collection of chosen skills and attribute points is often referred to as a "build". Players may consider a specific strategy for the area they are entering, or use a general skill-set up which utilizes synergies between groups of skills. When a team is formed, the strengths and weaknesses of player professions is also taken into account, allowing players to specialize into particular tasks and allows more complex skill combinations.

Co-operative gameplay

A warrior fights a pair of Charr in Ascalon, in the Prophecies campaign.The co-operative parts 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. Rewards include experience points, skill points, skills, gold, faction, and items for the player character. Some of these rewards advance not only the particular character but also unlock features of the game account-wide.

In each campaign the player is involved in a linear story which they interact with by performing a series of primary quests and missions. Quests are given to a player by NPCs via text dialog. As quests are completed new areas, new quests and missions are opened for the player's character to access. Missions are used for major events in 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. Cut scenes are in the third-person, often featuring the party leader's character, and may reveal elements of the story to the player which their character would normally not be aware of, such as revealing the actions of the antagonist. Players are given the option of skipping the cut scenes if all party members agree upon it.

Competitive gameplay
Player versus Player (PvP) combat in Guild Wars is consensual and team-based. Such combat is restricted to special PvP areas, the majority of which are located on the core area known as The Battle Isles. Individual campaigns also have certain campaign-specific PvP arenas. Players may participate in PvP combat with either their role-playing characters or with characters created specifically for PvP. Characters are rewarded with experience points for victories in competitive battle and the player account also acquires faction points redeemable for in-game rewards[19]. In addition to this victory may also award points which contribute towards completion of character or account based titles.

The following are the competitive modes in Guild Wars:

Random Arena
Four-on-four matches with teams randomly composed from those waiting to enter combat. There are many different arenas with different victory conditions: deathmatch and kill-count.
Team Arena
Four-on-four matches with player-managed teams. These matches are played in the same areas as the Random Arena with a few exceptions.
Heroes' Ascent
A continuous tournament where players form teams of eight to battle in a sequence of arenas, culminating in the Hall of Heroes whose results are broadcast to all online players in addition to rewarding the victors with high-end loot. Arenas in the Heroes' Ascent tournament include deathmatch, altar-control, and capture-the-relic victory conditions. Victories in the Heroes' Ascent award players with fame points that can be used to determine the rank of the player.
Guild Battles

The Guild Lord is a well-guarded NPC that must be defeated to win a Guild BattleTwo guilds meet in guild halls and stage a tactical battle with the aim of killing the opposing Guild Lord, a well-protected NPC. Victory in guild battles affects the rank of the guild in the global Guild versus Guild (GvG) ladder.
Alliance Battles
Guild Wars Factions introduced an arena where twelve players aligned with one of the opposing Kurzick and Luxon factions team up to fight an opposing team to gain new territory for their faction. The twelve player team is comprised of three teams with four human players each. The three teams are selected randomly from the teams waiting on each side when the match begins. Alliance Battles grant alliance faction and affect the border between the two factions in the Factions-specific continent of Cantha. The location of the border affects the map in which the battles take place by adding a bias to favor the faction losing the war.
Competitive Missions
Factions also introduced a pair of competitive arenas, named Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry, where randomly assembled teams of players from the opposing nations enact particular events in the Kurzick/Luxon war. Victories in these missions have no global effect, but do grant the players with alliance faction.
Hero Battles
Players with Guild Wars Nightfall or Guild Wars: Eye of the North can access an arena where two players, each controlling three NPC heroes, compete to gain control of strategic points. As the player can control their heroes these battles incorporate an aspect of real-time strategy games. Hero Battles also have a ladder, similar to Guild Battles.
Guild and Hero Battles have a continuously running automated tournament system. Players or guilds elect to participate in the tournament by buying in-game tokens using their PvP faction points. The participants are divided randomly into groups of 32 that participate daily in up to five Swiss rounds held on a fixed schedule. Participants who are unable to field a full team automatically forfeit their round. The top eight candidates at the end of every month continue on to a single-elimination tournament, and the final victors earn a number of real and in-game rewards. Players who do not participate in the automated tournament are allowed to place bets on the results of these tournaments for a number of in-game rewards.

Many competitive matches may be observed by players by means of an observer mode. Important PvP matches such as matches in the Hall of Heroes or between highly rated guilds may be observed (after a delay of fifteen minutes) by others in order to see the tactics used by successful teams and attempt to learn or counter them. Guilds may additionally observe their own Guild Battles for a fixed period of time.

Guilds
As the name suggests, guilds are a core element of Guild Wars, manifesting not only as social units but also being closely linked with the game mechanics. Though a player is not required to join a guild, it adds value to the gaming time and increases camaraderie. Often, joining a guild is a good way to get help from more experienced players as the in-game guild interface allows communication between guild members.

The guild leader who creates the guild can furnish it with a cape and a guild hall; the latter may also be upgraded with merchant and storage NPCs. The leader can recruit new players to the guild, and can also promote a number of them to guild officers, who can then continue with recruitment and further promotion of officers. Guild officers can dismiss players from the guild, but only the leader retains the power to dismiss officers and disband the guild. Guilds have a membership limit of 100 members.

Up to ten guilds may ally together to form an alliance. Members of an alliance may communicate over a shared chat channel, and visit the guild halls of the other guilds of the alliance. Each alliance has a leader guild that initiates the alliance, the leader of which guild is also the alliance leader, who may admit or dismiss guilds from the alliance. Each guild is, in fact, initially an alliance of one. The ability to form alliances is restricted to guilds whose leaders own the Factions campaign, where the concept of alliances was introduced. Each alliance must be devoted to either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, two in-game factions locked in perpetual conflict. Players can accumulate faction or reputation with either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, which can either be "donated" to the alliance or redeemed for certain in-game rewards. The alliances with the highest amount of donated faction are given control of certain in-game outposts in the Canthan continent; controlling an outpost gives the alliance members access to restricted areas of the outposts, containing, among other things, merchants who sell at a discount. The best alliance-controllable outposts are the Kurzick and Luxon capital cities, each of which contains a restricted entrance to an elite co-operative mission.

In addition to membership in guilds, a player may be a guest of any number of other guilds. Guest privileges are limited to visiting the guild hall and participating in guild or alliance battles. An accepted invitation expires after eight hours.