World of Warcraft vs Guild Wars

I'm willing to support Blizzard also, I love their games, but to the point where they make over a BILLION dollars a year in subscription fees?

Point of comment: WoW is only $20, not $50. Price drop a long time ago.

I, however, don't have anything to add to this thread, because the amount of strawman arguments and general ignorance about the features of WoW is ridiculous.

GW art > WoW art

Then again, it isn't a fair comparison. GW's art is just too over the border.

Agreed on the artwork point. WoW characters have this cartoonish feel to them: exaggerated features, etc. GW feels a bit more "real."

wetsparks, trust me, Blizzard will continue to rake in the dough for a while. When StarCraft 2 comes out, the amount of money Blizzard will be taking in will make WoW look like chump change.

Realism in a video game. How wonderful.

Why must you make stupid comments like this?

People may like their game realistic; maybe they don't want to look at cartoons. "OMG ITS A VIDEO GAME" shouldn't mean anything. Cartoonish graphics aren't as immersing as realistic graphics.

Key word bolded.

No one can make the conclusion that Guild Wars's graphics are better than WoW's. Art is a subjective medium.

Example: A picture of me on my Netherdrake.



I personally think that's more badass than FoW armor. But people have conclusively posted in GW vs. WoW arguments that "GW art > WoW art."

Your drake appears to be blind, as it has no pupils. Are you sure that is safe to ride?

A big shrek-looking dude in a dress wearing a yellow hockey facemask thing riding a giant purplish dragon thing is the definition of cool.

I would have to give the nod to Glint, personally.

I love you, you love me.....

He'll look even cooler when they fix them shoulders in the next patch.

How bout you dont play games. Get a girl, a hot one at that, get some rubbers, and spend the rest of your life on a secluded island.

Tom Clancy's Endwar BTW if u want a game. :-P

Wha?!

sand+girl = "oh! my hair, what ever will I do!!"

Just as an example my last character created has had his gameplay blogged so I know exactly how long he took, he reached level 20 after 12 days (just under 2 weeks) consisting of 11 hrs game play (a few hours). By comparison after 3 months of WoW I had a L29 Druid, I don't know how many hours it was, but I would estimate somwhere in the vacinity of 120.

My own experience with both games tells me that the items in the list are completely valid.

This can be added to the list of completely reversible strengths/weeknesses. To me the instancing is one of the things that set GW head and shoulders ahead of its competitors. The ability to go out into the wilderness and never having my gaming experience ruined by other people is a godsend.

I think both games pretty much suck fat, hairy nuts

You know, the sand can be a problem but not because it gets in your hair. Please use your imagination and then have some pity.

After reading this thread I decided to do a WoW trial. Obviously I've only played a little (a bit in the evening the past couple of days) so I haven't made many conclusions.

There are things about WoW that seem better and things that seem worse. Most of the things that seem better are directly related to things that seem worse (i.e., it's much less structured which is frustrating when you have no idea where to go or what to do, but gives you a sense of freedom and uncertainty that Guildwars lacks).

Anyhow, two thumbs up to the thread.

the graphics in guild wars blow away the graphics in wow, wow isnt appealing 2 the eye, nor close 2 realistic, the are the same graphics from warcraft III
PvE=GW, whyy?
1. actaully has a story line
2. dont have 2 spend your whole life reaching a high level cap
3. quests and missions are actually fun, all the wow quests are, go kill 10 of those or go kill these and get 15 certain items from it
4.gw is fun right when you start, playing wow u need 2 reach lvl 40 to have fun, that way u may aquire good skills and join raids etc.
PvP=GW

Pros of WoW
jumping
glowing weapons
mounts
auction house
Cons
everything else, especially resurection system. who wants 2 run all the way 2 their body, it can take up 2 five minutes at times, if you choose 2 rez up at the shrine type thing your armor durability decreases by 25%

guild wars if f2p, i cant believe i actually payed for WoW for a few months. you dont have 2 devote your life to guild wars, you can pick it up at any time because its f2p

i could go on and ill prob get flamed but i dont care, the point is guild wars hands down, unless you want to pay for a boring crappy game which you have 2 devote your life to in order 2 get your moneys worth

People should pay a little more attention to Zinger, and respect the opinion of someone who has plenty of experience in both games.

Now then...

Guild Wars is not written for both DirectX and OpenGL, it has higher system requirements and it has no games that it has to refer back to for a majority of the texturing and modeling.

Are the graphics better? Yes.
Are the graphics used better? In my opinion, no.

All of this is just opinion, but please act like you know what you are talking about before you decide that we need to hear it.

As someone who has a lot of experience with Guild Wars (two accounts, more level 20 characters that I can shake a stick at, lots of titles, fancy achievements, blah, blah, blah) and light to moderate experience in WoW (one lvl 53 character and a handful of lvl 20ish and below other characters), this is my 2 cents:

Guild Wars:

Strengths:
- Great graphics for a MMO and will get better with EotN.
- Good game for people that like to have multiple characters since it's a lot easier to make a lvl 20 (highest level) character than it is to make a lvl 70 (highest lvl) character in wow.
- Easier than WoW to pick up and play.
- No separate servers so you don't have to worry about having a friend that you can't contact just because they are on another server
- No monthly fee (duh)
- More stuff to do after reaching max level.
- Easier to get good gear for your characters with perfect stats, but rare skins can keep up desire for getting more new loot.
- Instant travel between towns cuts off a LOT of downtime.

WoW

Strengths
- More in depth process of leveling up.
- Arguably more complex which can often keep the game interesting.
- Much easier to find others that role play
- Dedicated servers make it easy to associate with others that share your interests (pvp, roleplay, pve, etc.)
- More in depth storyline
- Better suited for 1v1 type play while still having good team based play.
- It is possible to download addons that can really come in handy
- Auction House makes trading and the economy much more organized than GW.
- While travel can sometimes be a pain, the variety in travel methods can keep things interesting and finding upgrades for travel (mounts, trinkets, enchants, etc.) gives more depth in terms of loot collecting.



As for PvP, although I admittedly don't focus on PvP too much, I would say that both WoW and GW are both pretty well balanced at giving a good PvE and PvP experience. If you like 1v1 duals, then WoW has a step up on GW since GW's fighting system is really only balanced in teams.

P.s. As far as the debate between cost of the two games goes, the difference in price depends on how long you play. To buy all 3 chapters of GW, it will cost you about $120 and the new expansion will add another $40 to that (going by prices from www.ebgames.com). To buy both WoW and it's expansion, it will cost $50 and the next expansion in novemberish will add on another $40. With the monthly fee of $15 a month, you can play almost 5 months until you equal the cost of GW. Longterm players will end up spending more with WoW than Gw, but not by as large of a margin as most people think.

While some would say that it does indeed put them ahead of it's competitors, I'd rather say that it makes Guild Wars simply different. While it is pretty cool to not have anyone steal your kill - which really doesn't happen a whole lot in WoW, anyways - you lose the oppurtunity to run into people. Whenever you leave an outpost, you're shut off from meeting new people.

I don't think it comes out until Mayish next year.

Not having to meet new people is exactly why its a strength for people like me. Being forced to interact with people when I don't invite it is a bad thing whether its kill stealing, trying starting a conversation or just waving as I walk past. I think "different" is too weak a word to describe it. It is a huge strength to some people and a major weakness to others. I would hazzard to say that if GW weren't instanced, I'd be playing Oblivion or NWN2 instead.

Which takes us back to the OP (which I think was lost somewhere along the lines ), which game is "better" for the inividual is determined entirely by what you want to get out of it. For me, Guildwars is infinitely superior to WoW, and pretty much anything else out there, I couldn't even imagine playing any other game for over a thousand hours. You on the other hand, clearly have differing desires for your gaming and hence you prefer WoW.

First off Cellard: I agree completely with your post.

I'd go with Oblivion personally...Or the original timeless classic, Neverwinter Nights 1.

Qouted for 100% truth.

cellardweller - right on, man. That pretty much sums up any and all arguments about which game is "better". Now, can we call this case closed?

Okay, I like WoW and GW and EQ2, they are all cool games, but what I can't understand is how on earth a game like Lineage 2 reached the numbers it did in it's prime.

Agreed. Talk about grind. *groan* Surely we can all agree GW and WoW are both much better games than L2...

Oooh man, every time I think about L2 my head either hurts or explodes. It is the enigma of computer gaming.

why is that ?! is it very bad ? becasue i didn't play it before..

Yeah, it's a terrible game, yet it's come third to WoW in the MMO race reaching a peak of 2 million.

MMO Race? what Race?

except for Lineage, ALL Preexisting MMOs never reached even 1 million
(550k was everquest at its peak 4 years ago)


that said,
many mmos are successful with only 100-150k subscribers

dont need to be King to survive

The short answer? Koreans. Apparently they like, no, they LOVE grind.

Gaming culture isnt the same the world over, its that simple.

WoW PvP has not, nor will it ever be balanced for 1on1 fights. The fact that you can duel is fun and all, but it gets old really fast. Duels are basically matches where whoever has their cooldowns up will win most of the time. The developers have stated that the game has never revolved around PvP or 1on1 combat, and it never will.

The fact that you can duel and there's more 1on1 is just super and peachy but the imbalance is ridiculous.

Sorry. It was just my metaphor of saying "most popular". I didn't mean any of them are going against each other.

I'm not very far in wow but i enjoy it for a more Rpg game and i also like gw cause its more tactics based.I'm still messing around with chars in gw sense it really don't take that long to reach lvl 20.

I find it funny that people are trying to say that WoW isn't a grindfest... THATS ALL IT IS. I have a 70 warlock and a 59 rogue, and getting those characters to that level was possibly the most boring time I've ever spent on a computer, let alone a game. The support team is worse than Verizon (and thats saying something), the classes are unbalanced and the community is not very helpful.

I will say that I extremely enjoyed the endgame raids, I really did. It was a lot of fun taking on ragnaros and nef. However, after the 10th time it became so tiring that it wasn't enjoyable anymore. I remember one time me and my guild raided for 7 hours, and anyone that left was kicked from the guild.

If you enjoy taking on epic bosses with a ton of people, then WoW is for you. If you like to pvp and are more casual, then GW is for you.

In my time of playing Wow the community in game is MUCH MUCH more helpful than in Guild Wars. Of course there are always idiots everywhere but it seems to be less much in Wow.

I think this is due to WoW's dedicated servers. In my experience most asshats tend to go towards PvP, for which I really feel sorry for the standup players who do PvP, but then again, I've found that most of the disrespectful people in PvP tend to stay at the bottom whereas the mature ones are able to progress much farther since they spend more time communicating about how to do better and how to improve as opposed to hour long mother joke swapping and other such crap. This is I believe the difference between those who PvP for the challenge and competition and those who PvP as a method of inflating their ego or covering up their insecurities.