Editing Guild Wars (section)

=== 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.<ref name="NightfallManual">{{cite book | year=2006 | editor=ArenaNet | title=Guild Wars Nightfall Manuscripts| pages=126–134 | publisher=NCSoft}}</ref> 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 (gaming)|deathmatch]] and kill-count.
; '''Team Arena''' : The Team Arenas were PvP arenas where two groups of four organized players battle each other. Groups were formed in the eponymous outpost and Random Arenas teams with 10 consecutive wins automatically enter the Team Arenas. Both Balthazar faction and Gladiator points could be obtained from Team Arenas. Team Arenas was replaced with Codex Arena in 2009.
; '''Codex 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. Each class has a pool of limited amounts of skills to choose from and this pool changes every 6 hours.
; '''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 system|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''' : Two guilds meet in guild halls and stage a tactical battle with the aim of killing the opposing ''Guild Lord'', a well-protected [[Non-player character|NPC]]. Victory in guild battles affects the ''rank'' of the guild in the global Guild versus Guild (GvG) ladder. GvG is considered the most supported of competitive formats in Guild Wars. In 2005, ArenaNet hosted a Guild Wars World Championship, and in 2006, the Guild Wars Factions Championship was hosted as well. Since then, the Automated Tournament system has become the norm, but smaller 3rd-party tournaments have been hosted, including the Rawr Cup and the Guild Wars Guru cup. The GWWC, GWFC, RawrCup, and GWG Tournament all had real life prizes; the former tournaments had cash prizes, the RawrCup and Guru Tournament had laptops and MP3 players to give away.
; '''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 composed 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. Additionally, alliance faction can be contributed to a player's guild (if it is allied with the respective faction), allowing that guild to "control" a town in their faction's territory.
; '''Competitive Missions''' : ''Factions'' also introduced a pair of competitive arenas, named ''Fort Aspenwood'' and ''The Jade Quarry'', where randomly assembled teams of 8 players from the opposing factions enact particular events in the Kurzick/Luxon war. Victories in these missions have no global effect, but do grant the players with ''alliance faction''.
; '''Minigame''' : [[Minigame]]s are either competitive or cooperative "mini missions" or battles that have no bearing on the plot and do not advance the story line of the Guild Wars campaigns. Most are added to the game during festivals and events.
; '''Hero Battles''': Hero Battles was the name given to the mode of PvP known as Hero versus Hero (HvH). In this contest, players would enter the battle with 3 heroes (fully customizable [[Non-player character|NPC]] allies), and fight another player and his/her team of 3 heroes. A player must have had a named account to participate in Hero Battles. This type of PvP was removed in the October 22nd, 2009 update.

Guild Wars has a continuously running ''automated tournament system''.<ref name="at">{{cite web|url=http://eu.guildwars.com/pvp/article/at_faq/|title=Automated Tournaments FAQ|publisher=[[ArenaNet]]|access-date=2007-10-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030063339/http://eu.guildwars.com/pvp/article/at_faq/|archive-date=2007-10-30}}</ref> 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 six [[Swiss system tournament|Swiss round]]s held on a fixed schedule, and the top eight guilds continue on to a [[single-elimination tournament]]. Participants who are unable to field a full team automatically forfeit their round. Success in daily automated tournaments qualifies that particular guild for play in the monthly automated tournament, and the final victors of this tournament earn a number of real and in-game rewards. Players who do not participate in the automated tournament were allowed to place bets on the results of these tournaments for a number of in-game rewards prior to February 2010.

Many competitive matches may be observed by players by means of an ''observer mode''.<ref name="NightfallManual" /> 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.<ref name="obsmode">{{cite web|url=http://eu.guildwars.com/pvp/article/observer_mode/|title=Observer Mode|publisher=[[ArenaNet]]|access-date=2007-10-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071101055521/http://eu.guildwars.com/pvp/article/observer_mode/|archive-date=2007-11-01}}</ref>