WoW player considering a change, advice wanted.

I have been playing wow for over a year and am becoming very tired of the constant farming required since BC was reased. I have been looking at gw for some time now and have already requested a trial key here on the forums. The local game store has a gam of the year version available and I was wondering if this would be a good starting place once I can get my hands on a trial key to see if I like the gameplay. Thank you in advance for any advice.

You could try getting the Guild Wars Trilogy Trial, it's only a few bucks at retailers (check official website for a list of retailers I suppose)

I probably can't really compare gw vs wow fairly to be honest, I had a really bad and expensive personal experiance with WoW so I'm biased.

All I can recommend is reading up on GW or watching videos of it to see if you'd like that sort of gameplay, or keep asking around for a trial key because I'm sure someone out there probably has one.

I'm not a big fan of the way guild wars trial keys work though, they're 10 hour OR 14 days, whichever comes first, which seems a bit limited even for a trial to me.

Anyways, good luck to you, and if you do decide to get into it, welcome to the Guild Wars community.

I've played both, WoW is about doing quest after quest and doing instances with others to get better gear and leveling. In WoW, your gear makes up who you are mostly, since everyone else with your class should have the same skills by the time you get yours.

Guild Wars is about combining your limited 8 skill bar to make combinations of different skills to do things, such as (aka weakening your opponent, and using Stoning to deal damage and knock that foe down because he was weakened), etc.

Guild Wars has a Story Mode to follow, and I'm warning you, GW is pretty much a single player game, the only time you see anyone is in towns (outposts) and PvP matches (which you shouldn't do if you're new because you will get flamed at and pissed at PvP). Play through the game first with a role playing character to get a feel for GW. Right now I'm playing WoW because I've beaten all 3 campaigns in GW with 6 characters already and it got very boring, there's nothing to do when you beat all 3 campaigns that's actually worth time, unless you want to waste time grinding for a stupid title...

Guild Wars is a much more fun experience your first time through than WoW IMO, but I started GW a bit after it came out (June 2005), so alot of people were playing the first campaign, but now I'm afraid that because of no new content alot of people are leaving GW right now whether anyone agrees with it or not, and you may not feel like you're in a populated world when playing...

You don't solo in GW, you always have to bring henchmen to help you kill repetative mobs, that's how I see it. In WoW, you solo usually 1 creature at a time, unless you have AoE. In GW, you STILL need henchmen to finish anything in the damn game, that's what ruined it for me was that and the instanced zones. It got boring after a while.

But it's up to you. I'm fed up with the game, I feel it's too linear, but my first time through it was a fun experience that I never could forget.

EDIT: Anet loves to nerf this game often and likes to make farming almost impossible for the average player, so getting gold in this game is pathetic, their quest rewards money wise is garbage. At least in WoW you get alot of money for doing quests that you can actually live off of with lots to spare, in this game it's more of a living paycheck to paycheck feel.

I love this game and as far as Online games go , it is the best I have played. The story lines are fun, the graphics are great, and the PvP is wonderful. True you find other player only in towns or in PvP areas, but you can group up with people and play through the missions and quests.

As to the above poster comments, You can make a decent amount of money in this game its just not as easy to sell stuff as in other games. I make a decent wage farming items and selling them, and really I find that the skill required to farm elite areas keeps those areas fun.

Best of all this game is free online so if you like the game and play it for a while and get bored, take a break come bacl later no big deal.

This game is based heavily on the people you meet. You'll quickly become bored with the game if you have few or no people to play with. And a large difference with WoW is that you need to work in groups to get things done on GW, while in WoW, it is largely a solo operation. Another key difference is that GW takes some speed & skill, instead of just access to a computer & internet, along with time. (Oh yes, lots and lots of time. But you'd know that being a WoW player) If you choose the monk profession, for example, your healing will have something to do with the speed in which you can react. (It's safe to say that you have the capability to die a lot quicker in this game than in WoW)

Also, if you're tired of farming, GW is the place for you. Farming in GW is completely useless (Atleast compared to other games) and the time you spend doing so wont be that much more profitable than progressing through the storyline. Also, since GW is free to play, don't expect the player support to be as great as it was in WoW. There are many more problems to be addressed in the GW series than in WoW, imo. (Most notably, skills)

You can try Guild Wars now and by the time you'll beat one of the campaigns, the actual expansion will be out by then (end of Aug.) with tons more content for max level characters. That's going to be fun hopefully, and since it'll be new, the fanbase/population for it will surley be big enough to easily find groups.

Guild Wars is a good game to play when it's fresh because later on alot of towns get deserted and it becomes more of an offline single player experience than it is online.

If you are looking for a game where you regularly team up with people to do PVE, then GW is not for you. Most people hench hero through PVE story missions. The few places where you can team up for PVE content such as DoA, Urgoz, FoW and UW (dont worry about the names, you will see if you get the game) you HAVE to have a set kind of build in the team to complete it or you cannot join. That is after you stand around for an hour looking for a team. The high end is made in such a way that if you do not do things in the right way with the right kind of character builds you will fail.

If you are looking for a great graphical experience with a rich story line which you can explore by yourself then the game is for you.

If you are looking for a game where PVP depends on skill rather than equipment with good team PVP then the game is for you.

the two games are at the two extremes;

wow heavily dependent on gears and gw heavily dependent on skills. You will not have to farm to get maxed items, anyone can afford it at the merchant.

It's not hard to find a human team for almost all missions and the major quests, it's the side quests you're going to have to take henchmen on. Just wait for a time of the day when most people play.

If you decide to get the game i would suggest Nightfall its the most populated i can make 100k in one day without much effort most people cant farm that well you just gotta look hard for opportunities to make loot. all the large money is in doing things solo or with heroes or hoh.

Oh dear.
'Medic! Medic! We got another WoW gamer here!'

Advice on GuildWars:
- Buy any version you want. Or even better, buy them all.
- If you buy them all, start in Prophercies because it is best way to learn the game. Slow leveling makes possible to learn many things before you reach maxinum level.
- Consider making a Warrior. And then select Monk as secondary profession (you can do it after completing first quests). W/Mo is well known as best starter profession.
- Join a guild where professional gamers help you if you have troubles.

Welcome to the club!

All posters above state their personal views which is good, because you can read and decide whether it is relevant to you. I hope you see that the above opinions differ according to PvE and PvP point of view.

Basically I agree with Wretchman's story except for the fact that there is not much to do after you beat the game (PvE). If you are only into PvE that could be the fact; if you also like PvP then you are busy for quite some more time Even if you are only into PvE you still can have fun depending on what your goals are (like getting a super rare weapon -see below)

With respect to farming for gears: there is no need to farm for gear other than an esthetic one. You can easily get the best possible gear (stat wise) without grinding for gold. But if you like the looks, you got to work for it. It is your choice.

And that, the choice, is what I love about this game! Hope you get on board.

Yes that is good side in GW, you don't need to farm to get best armor.
Especially in Factions you get large sums of money just by completing the game (dont know 'bout Nightfall)

The learning curve is not really that bad its not rocket science. go with nightfall just for heroes they alone make tip it in the favor of nightfall but more people is another big one.

The biggest thing to make GW more fun is to find a fun guild. Being able to avoid the annoyance of PUGing and the boredom of H&Hing is really what makes the game so easy to enjoy. GW is alot easier to just pick up than WoW, because being limited in gear doesn't last long at all, so you can concentrate on perfecting your skillset and be able to compete with veterans.

I can not join any guilds since I have possibility to play only at weekends

My only complaint about GW is that the majority of players are more interested in spamming stuff to sell of dancing naked in town.

I almost never meet anyone who is a roleplayer AND who likes to adventure. Good players I have met are not usually roleplayers, and the roleplayers I have met have gone through much of the content and are content to sit in a town somewhere.

Because of the instanced nature of the world outside of town, the only way to find others who are doing what you do is to LFG unless you are in a guild.

As far as guilds go, I was in one back at launch but it seems like most people have moved on, so I now have a one person guild going. I would join a guild if I could find one that PVEs AND RPs but so far that has not worked out, so I mostly play WoW.

You don't need to farm for best armor but IMO if I had the right skills and if it was a melee character, with max weapon, I can go with one piece of max armor and still pwn as long as I have a monk with me. The game is about skills.

PvP is all skills since you can make a PvP character with max lvl armor and weapons, but you get faction during PvP, much like Honor in WoW, to unlock PvP character only upragdes to your equipment.

PvP is frustrating though sometimes. In WoW, you can't blind anyone, here you can. While blind, you miss 90% of the time which makes you completely useless as a melee or even ranged attacker. And most of the time you have to depend on your teammates to rid you of that stuff, which in every form of PvP that isn't organized by your very own hand (picking your own teams rather than joining with random, like BG's in WoW), then you won't be so lucky.

Not to mention Anet always had a thing with nerfing skills almost every month, if not week. That's what you get for having a game that's light PvE and PvP heavy.

lol I think farming in GW is worse than in WoW. In WoW you can do daily quests and which nets you around 150g a day. In GW with the currect loot scaling you can count urself lucky if a gold weapon drops for you and you can count yourself very very lucky if that gold weapon is worth more than 10k. Plus in WoW you're farming to make your character better in terms of DPS/Healing/tanking but in GW you're farming to just look different...