1) As the others said. They are stand alone. But by having the others, it greatly helps you in PvP. And the storylines are great so its good.
2) Max is indeed level 20. But it doesnt stop there. In the game there are harder areas to explore, and greater equipment to find. Getting to max is easy if you have good friends or a guild that can help you in a tough spot. In one weekend I hit level 15 by playing through the game with one party all day long.
3) It is indeed worth it. It is a game you might get sick of, but you go PvP on your one character. Then story on another. It is a game that might get old, but you will never uninstall. It is somehow grindy but so little you never notice it. There are lots of quests that get you high enough level to move on.
4) In game, you can create a story mode character, or a PvP character. Story mode characters follow the game, you start at level one. Your basic game. PvP gives you a level 20 character with your own selection of items and skills. But there are skills that are still locked, and you have to either buy them in story mode, or use your earned PvP points to earn them.
Basic PvP consists of a random team of 4v4 on a small map. I did not go far into this because im not the PvP type.
Some team in Europe won $10,000 by winning a World Wide PvP Tournament. Custon teams can be made as well.
5) The community has to be the best I have ever seen. All guilds I have been in were very welcome when I was a newbie.
Guilds have their own guild halls (Like a base or hiding area, etc) Thats pretty epic.
The classes are very much like WoW, they all cancel eachother out, so there is no 1 man stands tall problem.
You can have 2 classes. Primary and Secondary. The classes avaliable depends on which you buy. The ones that are ALWAYS there is the:
Warrior
Ranger
Mage
Mesmer
Necromancer
All I can say is buy it. Try to get the new PREMIUM Version that gives the Origional along with Eye of the North expansion. Get that, play, then get Nightfall as Factions wasnt as good IMO.





