Victory for GW

In this months edition of PC Gamer (Uk version) there is a review of nightfall. In it, it quotes Jeff Strain when he said that |GW would outsell WoW, seeing as GW is a complete one off product, not arequiring a subscription. That prophecy (no pun intended), failed to come through, but Pc gamer continued to go on to say that 'I wished he had been right....... GW is, and always has been, a better designed game [than WoW]' The next line states that Gw is a very different animal than WoW, so some solice may be garnered for WoW fans there.

The reviewer was Kieron Gillen,and Nightfall got 89%, the highest score a new game recieved in the issue, beating Splinter Cell Double Agent and ArchLord (nearly doubling it's score, and the only other new MMO reviewed).

Well I just wanted to share the news, and hopefully not fan the flames of WoW v GW too much, just interesting to know we're right :P.

Yes! Anet, NCsoft, you rock.

You can't say GW is a "better designed game" than WoW.... who makes the standards? If your standards are only "No monthly fee", then of course, any game without a monthly fee is going to be "better" than something else.... if your standards are auction houses and a massive uninstanced world, then WoW is going to appeal.

bottom line, play WoW or GW, stop comparing them... it's annoying and infantile.

Design is different from business model

WoW and Guildwars are entirely different.....for the millionth time. Anet themselves have said Guildwars is basically not an mmo, but a CCORPG. I don't remember exactly what it means but....If I want to grind a rogue to level whatever, stealth and gank people while they are killing a monster I will pay World Of Warcraft. If I want better pvp (in my opinion) and actually having to work on a build I will play Guildwars. Apples and Orangers. I play both consequentially.

I could log on to the free Auto Assault I got when I bought my second account, and pay another 15 dollars a month, and actually compare the two (WoW and AA. somewhat). People will be too influenced by the pricing and won't see past....OMG! 15 dollars a month.

very nice.

I believe the reference is probably talking about the gameplay itself, WoW just rehashed the same old MMO formula, and while they did a good job of it they didn't bring anything new to the table. Guild Wars on the other hand brought several new concepts to the table, besides simply not charging a monthly fee. The balanced high end gear stats and limited skill use in single missions/instances, for example, make the game more strategic than a game where you can cover all your bases and combat any sort of foe through various means.

But of course you're right, it's a rather vague statement, and a matter of opinion more than anything else.

Guildwars rocks.
I still remember how utterly floored I was, firing up Prophecies for the first time, and seeing the sun in the trees.

Also, since I'm originally a single-player RPG'er, the solo-ability of GW appeals to me. If I couldn't solo, I'd not play it. Even though I mostly play with guildies.

i always find it weird because Anet are just people fired from blizzard i think...people that made WoW... They got together to make Anet

these just people thought they could do better on their own.

fired?......what a laugh

That passage didn't give any indication to whether they were fired or left.

IIRC, Patrick Wyatt, Mike O'Brien, and Jeff Strain left Battle.net to form TriForge. They then became Arena.net and ANet was eventually bought up by NCSoft.

Here's an article where Jeff Strain talks briefly about leaving Battle.net: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/600/600836p1.html

GW won't achieve total victory until it has more players than WoW (something I'm hoping for one day ). Finally a reviewer of Guild Wars that gets it absolutely right. I really want to read the whole review, but I don't know where I'll be able to find a copy in America.

I played both games for more than 2,000 hours each. I think I'm entitled to an opinion of which one is designed better.

Money has nothing to do with it. I would pay-to-play Guild Wars, but wouldn't play WoW at this point even if it were free. I'm probably in the minority with that opinion, because everyone likes to follow the popularity contest in MMO's. I'm not joking.

I can't really argue with you about auction houses. It's something that Guild Wars doesn't have, and I hope never has. If people need an auction house to enjoy an MMO, than WoW is better for those people. I like the instant gratification of the Traders in Guild Wars, and the global market (it needs to be expanded though). In WoW if you really want an item right now you're at the mercy of the sellers buyout price, and you can only trade with people on your server.

I don't really see the issue as instanced or uninstanced. For me it's a question of "which one is more immersive?". Ok walking through a portal breaks immersion, but so does corpse camping, mob stealing, chest stealing break immersion. One of the main reasons I gave up on WoW was because 24/7 Chinese farmers weren't being banned after I repeatedly reported them, and gathering Arcanite Crystals for my axe was taking much longer than it should have. 99% of WoW's end-game takes place in an instance anyway. Onyxia, Molten Core, Zul'Gurub, etc... are all instanced zones.

Both games are online multiplayer fantasy RPG's with huge worlds, that both strive for immersion and team work, although they might use slightly different techniques to achieve the goal? Why shouldn't they be compared to each other?

Don't remember anything about Jeff Strain saying Gw's would outsell wow. From all the reviews I read before Prophecies came out, I just remember him beating around the bush about it and would never forcast sales of Gw's to WoW. His tone was as if Gw's did nearly as good as WoW that it would be a big success but don't remember him making a direct statement saying it would outsell WoW.

I really find it amazing how rabidly video gamers will pit Video Games and Companies against each other.

"Haha, the corporation I give my money to makes more than yours!" really stings in a "My dad can kick your dad's ass" sort of way.

Sanji for the same reason people do that with sports teams, or whatever else you can. Everything and I mean everything is a competition. Having babies, life, eating, drinking, dying. Everything.

It would be cool to beat out WoW and gain more people from that, so more people are around. But it doesn't really matter, I mean WoW isn't making GW worse or anything and it's not like most of the player base is leaving for it. But since both have features certain people like, one person will like one more than the other so nothing you can do.

Hey Kalki,

I think in many ways WoW and GW are comparable. After playing WoW I think GW is perhaps the closest thing comparable to it. There are a lot of similar features: The talent system is like similar to the attribute system, battlegrounds are similar to alliance battles, warriors use rage like warriors in gw use adrenaline and rouges use combos like sins use combos. That is just to name a few things off hand.

I think one of the main differences between wow and gw is obviously the persistent world vs gw instance world. But at the end your right, the endgame of wow and gw are basically the same except you get there faster in gw and you experience the game from a different classes perspective a lot quicker without having to grind your way back up. This also creates a problem that is ever present in gw, the lack of depth. In many respects gw is very very shallow in comparison to other mmos. The pvp system no doubt is deep and hands down the best I've ever seen. But the character development, community and your overall interaction with the environment and people are really lacking. There is no feel of accomplishment for a great portion of things done in gw, a majority of the aspects in game are for show and reap no true rewards. Like the title system for example, you get a title then what? Instead of opening up more things for you getting the title, thats about all you get.(I know one or two titles have minimal rewards..). In WoW you can points earn through factions/skills and pvp can be put towards lots of things that are rewarding for the player. There can never be any epic items in game or anything done outside of the balance in the gw universe. And that too starts to add to the no depth problem.

I think with the addition of reconnects and the lfg system it will start to form some structure and perhaps a community in game. Because I hate to say but there is a greater sense of community in the gw forums than in the actual game. It doesn't matter how many expansions they add, unless they start to work toward solving the lack of depth problem in the game. Every expansion will fall a short and the community will ask for more. Yeah I know the expansions are good, but only for a short while.

I personally wouldn't pay to for gw if Anet decided to make it p2p. The game is much much to shallow for a monthly fee. I still like the game but I feel there is so much more they can do besides add new professions and skills.

Wow......

They are both excellent games...

<3 Anet.

Keep in mind that Kieron Gillen gave Deus Ex: Invisible War a score in the 90s mind you...
The guy's a pleb.

Actually, it's quite impossible to compare unless we bring in a context. For example, if we compare both as RPG games then WoW > GW. If we compare them as action games (since they fall more or less into ARPG genre), then GW > WoW.

I don't quite agree that GW's game design is better, I think it's quite subjective. In addition, GW is a simpler game compared to what WoW is. However, GW's game design is definitely quite unique and forms a good foundation for providing more scalability for improvements. If we eliminate the factor of grinding and monthly-subscription, I feel that currently WoW beats GW hands down; and if we consider all the difference in business models, etc, I'd say WoW and GW are both good games that do well in different areas.

In fact, I hope GW can eventually do better in the RPG aspects (i.e. related to PvE gameplay) so that it becomes a more balanced game that does well in both PvP and PvE aspects. GW does fall into the MMORPG category; the only issue was that ANet perceived that GW was structurally different from most MMORPGs out there (being mainly instanced and non-persistent) and that the game was fundamentally designed with PvP in mind, it was more appropriate for them to have coined GW as CORPG (Competitive Online RPG). This I believe was more of expectation management for potential customers.

Deus Ex and Deus Ex IW are great games, IMHO.

how come in all the WoW forums there r never any "WoW vs [insert game here]" threads... its like theres an overwhelming need to prove something about gw here...

bottom line tho, WoW still has far more players worldwide than gw

More =/= better.

Did they play a patched version of Double Agent lol.. and Archlord.. uhh.. ok..

Congrats to NF's score though, I think it's well deserved.

If this turns into yet another WoW vs GW thread, it will be closed.

Just a reminder.

If you'd ever experienced an update in WoW, you'd probably see why. Numerous times they've introduced terrible bugs in key abilities (which for some reason never manifest on the test servers) which then don't get fixed for months. They've had a painful number of botched patches. The client has total authority over player movement, so speed/teleport hacks are everywhere, some people farm by teleporting into the ground below thorium veins and mining them, some people solo bosses by kiting them with teleport hacks. GG?

The two aren't really comparable regardless. I'd go as far to say that WoW and GW are polar opposites. Go to the WoW forums and most of them think GW is awful. GW's campaign plays sequentially, almost like a single-player game, and the PvP is more fine-tuned (as PvP was never WoW's focus, as much as they like to claim otherwise).

Have you BEEN to the WoW forums? There aren't many unless you go to off-topic, because the mods will close them if they pop up anywhere else. You don't see many quite in that format because with WoW, the decision isn't whether or not to go play something else as whether or not to cancel your subscription.

And in that sense, there are CONSTANTLY players that are complaining the game sucks and will bail the moment the next big MMORPG they think is guaranteed to not suck comes out. Then Vanguard/DDO/whatever comes out and bursts their bubble by, in fact, sucking, and then they pick a new game to threaten to leave to.