A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft
-by Zinger314

Relatively recently on GuildWarsGuru, user Kakumei made a thread comparing Guild Wars and Hellgate: London, as she has had ample experience with both games.

Since she was able to write an unbias, well reasoned comparison thread. I thought “I’ve played both Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, perhaps I could write a similarly rational thread as well.”

Ergo, this thread. While I will admit that Guild Wars and WoW are very different, they are comparable in the sense that they are both RPGs. I know that many people have heard and stated different things about WoW when the subject is brought up on these forums; most of the time, they are completely and utterly wrong, their information is out-of-date, or they are bias.

I have had through experience with both games, and both of their advantages, and both of their faults. When all the reasons are evaluated, and GW and WoW are put on a scale, I believe WoW comes out on top.

(Note: For anything that is not completely objective and fact, I’ll put [subjective][/subjective] tags, just in case.)

My Personal Online Gaming Background

I first began online gaming in 2002 (yes, when I was 12, sue me, CAPTA) with Magic: The Gathering Online. While not a MMO in the traditional sense, it was my first foray into the world of an online infrastructure.

Back in 2003, one member of the MTGO community mentioned a new game called Guild Wars that had a free beta test (the very old one, where the game started out at Gates of Kryta). Curious, I checked it out. It crashed my computer (integrated graphics chip FTL), so I didn’t think too much into it.

However, in 2004 (and a new computer later), another Guild Wars beta was released, this time starting in pre-Searing Ascalon. I was hooked by the atmosphere and the ability to mix-and-match skills (which was appropriately derived from Magic: The Gathering). Since the game wasn’t going to be released until April 2005, I kept it on the backburner.

I was, oddly, interested in Everquest II in 2004. However, when I saw an online poll that stated World of Warcraft was the popular game in town, I did my research. I had never played a Warcraft game previously, so the Warcraft universe was very intriguing. When the Open Beta/Stress Test was made available in last 2004, I eagerly joined. I was amazed by the depth of the game and how much you can do. And on November 20, 2004, I made my Human Paladin (which, ironically, I gave up at lv. 13 in favor for a Human Rogue.)

I took a break from WoW when Guild Wars was released in April 2005. I made a Warrior/Necromancer because I thought the idea of a Warrior who could heal himself and deal damage simultaneously would be effective (oh, how naïve I was). I ended up abandoning the Warrior because I couldn’t find a group competent enough to complete the Ascension missions (such a long time ago, isn’t it?). I ended up making an Elementalist/Monk. Had the same problem. I began to hate people.

After that, I began to alternate between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. I eventually obtained a lv. 60 Troll Rogue named Crassus, and a certain female Necromancer named Syria Blackblood with 15k Necrotic.

Sorrow’s Furnace, Factions, and Nightfall renewed my interest in Guild Wars for awhile. But during that time, I was working on a Night Elf Warrior named Avanna…

Then, in January 2007, The Burning Crusade was released. I didn’t want to take an old character into the expansion, as their gear was too shameful (it didn’t matter anyways, as all the gear is replaced immediately as you enter Outland). I tried Blood Elf Paladin, Draenei Shaman…but couldn’t bring myself to like either. Eventually, in the summer of 2007. I made an Orc Warlock named Zingeri. With my lack of a vacation, I leveled him to 70 pretty quickly.

During that time, I was very resentful of the decisions ArenaNet was making, and was skeptical if I was going to purchase GW:EN. I didn’t.

And here I am now. I do not play WoW currently, as I seek to maintain a high GPA, and I know I have a high chance of becoming addicted. Instead, I’m playing Mass Effect for the Xbox 360…but I’ve almost beaten that as well (almost finished my Insanity playthrough). Hmm. We shall see.

And now…the core gameplay comparisons:

Graphics

Graphics are impossible to compare objectively between Guild Wars and World of Warcraft. It is conclusive that Guild Wars has a more realistic artistical approach, while World of Warcraft is more “cartoony.” Time to use those subjective tags.

[subjective]Guild Wars is beautiful. I will not deny that. The landscapes and the character models are very, very detailed. However, the character and enemy animations annoy me to no end; when a character attacks and moves, the frames don’t update simultaneously, which gives an impression of a character being “dragged.” The Wand and Staff animations are also…questionable. Weapon design is varied well and is very authentic.

World of Warcraft relies more on aesthetics instead of environmental details. And it succeeds; if you compare any major WoW city, such as Stormwind and Silvermoon City, to GW major cities, such as Lion’s Arch and Kamadan, you’ll notice that LA and Kamadan seem rather congested in comparison. The cartoon style also helps illustrate the mood of the enemies/environments, which make the numerous demons and demon locales feel evil. (The Realm of Torment, in contrast, is just very, very dark.) Animations are more fluid in WoW, although some may attest to the fact that you can walk through other characters as a “graphics flaw.” Weapon design is wacky and lackadaisical, but there are more aesthetical “glow” effects and enchantments for weapons.

It’s a tie, frankly. Although, I personally favor WoW’s graphics because they don’t murder my computer…[/subjective]

Low-End/Medium-End PvE

After Prophecies, ArenaNet reasserted that leveling up is somewhat pointless, and that all the real content should be at max level. In Factions, max level can be achieved in 3 hours; In Nightfall, 5-6 hours. You can do it even faster with the easy lv. 20 Heroes from EotN. However, the quick leveling comes at a price; players do not have the time to learn their skills and experiment with them. Of course, that only applies to some players; others are on their 5th or 6th character and just want 15k armor to show off in PvP. ArenaNet makes that possible and encourages it.

In World of Warcraft, the low end/medium end PvE is half of your entire game time. With the updates in patch 2.3, leveling is faster and more intuitive. You obtain many solo quests so that you can learn your class’s skills, and you have dungeons (fully optional) in which you can learn how to use your class in a group. WoW is more traditional RPG than GW in that sense; the development of the individual character is the highest priority.

High-End PvE

“High-End PvE” technically encompasses the second half of Factions, Nightfall, and all of EotN. In theses areas, you can either group, group and use heroes, or use heroes and henchmen. However, since the Guild Wars population is spread throughout all 4 areas, finding a group can be difficult. Especially for Hard Mode, where there are very, very few groups forming. A very nice guild is virtually required for Hard Mode.

In a game such as Guild Wars, where all end-game armor and weapons are equal, what is the purpose of high-end PvE? None, really, but due to popular demand, ArenaNet added “Elite” bosses, namely Urgoz, Kanaxai, and Mallyx. However, the areas are unforgiving for all the wrong reasons; enemies who deal overpowered amounts of damage, everything is instant-kill on non-Warriors, unnecessary environmental effects, and the rewards are low given the time investment involved (A 30k Kanaxai’s Axe for spending 2 hours in the Deep?!). Those three encounters aren’t too well designed also, as they can be cheesed with only one skill (Edge of Extinction for Urgoz, Recall with Kanaxai, Mallyx being near impossible without “There’s Nothing to Fear!” or Ursan Blessing”. However, it does give an “epic” feel to the Guild Wars and is definitely something to do once all your characters are maxed out.

[subjective]The advanced game mechanics specifically in Guild Wars are not very intuitive as well, specifically tanking and pulling. What causes enemies to break aggro? Seemingly anything. How does a puller make sure the enemies don’t leash? Heavy prayer, from what I can see. A sizeable percentage of the time I have spend in these Elite missions consisted of trial and error from the tank. Staring at the screen doing nothing while everyone else is ready doesn’t seem like a fun time to me…[/subjective]

In World of Warcraft, you have four things you can do when you hit lv. 70: Solo, Group Dungeons, Heroic Dungeons, and Raiding. The majority of quests at lv. 70 can be completely soloed (that is, you, and you alone). Group dungeons help you obtain end-game rare items (blues), and even if you don’t succeed, you still get reputation. Heroic Dungeons, only intended to be completed after the normal dungeons and have relatively good gear, but they reward epic items (purples) and Badges of Justice, which can be redeemed for an epic item of your choice. Raids, often maligned by those who do not play WoW, consist of 10 or 25 people (not 40 anymore) and require intense coordination.

World of Warcraft is a more intelligent game than GW, because it requires you to think a lot more about how to handle specific situations, instead of spamming C + Space. Even solo quests that require you to “kill 20 demons” require some tactics, as you have to be aware not to (a): aggro an enemy during combat or (b): not aggro an additional enemy. Some quests require you to kill three enemies at the same time, which requires skill, practice, and luck for many classes. Group Dungeons and Heroic Dungeons require constant attention from all members of the party, due to threat. Threat is proportional to the amount of damage done by a player. Enemies will attack the member on their hate list with the most threat. If a DPS class outputs too much threat, he dies. If the tank is ineffective, the group dies. One boss in a normal Dungeon for example, Blackheart the Inciter, mind-controls your entire party for 20 seconds every minute and forces you to kill each other. How do you prepare for that? How do you recover from that? Raids amplify this difficulty; not only do you have to manage threat, threat can be constantly reset or even ignored, meaning that everyone in the raid must watch what they are doing.

[subjective]Putting hours of effort into obtaining more power makes more sense to me than spending hours for a slightly cooler weapon…[/subjective]

Quests/Story

The Guild Wars universe is relatively new, so there is some sympathy towards its undevelopment. Guild Wars has the advantage of a centralized story, which gives guidance for the play around the world and its background and secrets.

Most of the quests in Guild Wars, however, are somewhat irrelevant plot-wise and reward-wise. EXP, Gold, and Reputation are much more plentiful from Missions, and the quests are for idiots only (Follow the Green Arrow, Kill Something, Profit!) [subjective]The quest text is also uninteresting to read (So, hey, there are these Luxons, they suck, kill them.)[/subjective] There are very few quest “chains.” (such as the Koss’s Family quests in Nightfall)

The World of Warcraft universe is obviously more developed, as it has had a ten-year head start. Some quests are picked on as “Kill 10 Boars,” “Get Me 10 Crocodile Eyes” (which oddly don’t have a 100% drop rate), and rightfully so. However, some quest chains offer very rewarding dialogue; and very nice experience, money, and loot.

”Grinding”

Guild Wars has been billed as “Skill > Time” when Prophecies was released…but 2.5 years later, it now doesn’t seem that way. Reputation Grinds in Nightfall and EotN serve as a primary form of replayability. Although a large part of the grind in EotN can be alleviated with reputation books, it’s only short term. After that is the non-reputation title grind, such as the Sweet-Tooth Title, which is purely cash. [subjective]In neither case I see “Skill” being relevant.[/subjective].

However, to become competitive, little grind is needed, thanks to Balthazar Faction and the low level cap.

World of Warcraft has always been insulted for its grind…but in recent months it’s been alleviated. Patch 2.3 decreased the experience required to level from lv. 20-60 by 20% and increasing quest EXP, which overall decreases the amount of grinding per level. At the end-game, reputation is obtained mostly through dungeons, which is definitely not considered grind. Unfortunately, some reputations do require additional grind…but the rewards are usually worth it.

Low-End/Medium-End PvP

Doesn’t exist and is not comparable for either game. Both games were intended for max level PvP only. (I’ve heard several people claim that WoW’s PvP sucks when they have only played low-level PvP, which is obviously an improper claim.)

Random High-End PvP

If you are bored in Guild Wars, you can join the Random Arenas, Alliance Battles, or Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry. Random Arenas are…random; if you don’t have a healer, the odds of winning are significantly lower. Alliance Battles are merely chaotic; capture something and hope the rest of your team is competent. Fort Aspenwood can be pathetically easy or impossible depending on the other team, and I still don’t think anyone plays Jade Quarry.

World of Warcraft Battlegrounds are the same way. Warsong Gulch (CtF) requires someone with enough balls to get the flag and team members coordinated enough to turtle. Arathi Basin (similar to Alliance Battles), Alterac Valley (40 vs. 40), and Eye of the Storm (no one plays this), require your team to be able to follow directions and capture and HOLD resources.

[subjective]World of Warcraft has the advantage of not communicating with the other faction, so no “SUXONS” or “KURDICKS” taunts.[/subjective]

Professional High-End PvP

Guild Wars marketed itself as the “high-end PvP game.” It is very accessible, although costly; spend about $100 and you can be any class with all skills. Whatever your party needs, you can be. GvG and HA are still popular, and there are many tournaments. Hero Battles…are the black sheep of PvP, unfortunately.

Guild Wars PvP is heavily team-based, with teams of 8 in both HA and GvG. As such, coordination is key. Due to the power of healing relative to damage, killing the enemy is regulated to well-coordinated spikes, well-coordinated pressure, or just hoping their Monk slips up.

World of Warcraft was not marketed as a PvP game, but with the addition of Arenas in The Burning Crusade, it has received some attention. Unfortunately, some do not like the gear dependency of the Arenas nor the inability to create max-level characters for PvP only. To obtain PvP gear in WoW (which specializes in +Stamina and Resilience, both important PvP stats), you must…PvP. You get Honor in Battlegrounds and Arena Points in Arenas, which can be traded for PvP epics.

The most professional Arena format is 5 v 5 (there are 2 v 2, and 3 v 3, but they are somewhat unfair) The main difference between GW and WoW’s PvP is that WoW has much more active spells (i.e. no powerful Hexes, no Protection tree) and powerful crowd control (i.e. affected target can’t do anything). To combat the potential imbalance, PvPers can obtain an item (known as “the trinket”) which breaks all incapacitating effects (CCs and snares) once every two minutes. With the lesser amount of players, individual skill is key.

It is odd, however, that World of Warcraft beat Guild Wars into being accept into the MLG.

Economy

Guild Wars’s economy is one based of vanity. What else would you spend money on? Every max armor and weapon are cheap. People pay for rarity and unique skins. Many skins and armor are rarer and others, and people pay to look pretty.

However, GW’s economy has been somewhat inflated, making it hard for newer player to get rare-skinned weapons without grinding…which is not intended.

World of Warcraft has an Auction House, which reduces the hassle in selling items and makes life more productive. There is a World-Wide Trade channel, which allows you to sell goods and services that you couldn’t sell on the AH (i.e. Crafting/Enchanting)

Daily Quests allow players to make a good sum of money each day doing fun quests (one involves bombing some eggs, another involves playing the old electronic game Simon). The money makes many expensures in WoW seem very minor.

Guilds

Guild Wars is big on guilds. (no, really?) You have a guild Hall for your guild to meet, you have services in your guild, and you have an Alliance in which you can chat and visit other Guild Hall (oddly ArenaNet didn’t expand that functionality). And a cape, of course.

World of Warcraft had extremely low guild interaction at the beginning, but Blizzard is adding more features. Guild Tabards are present instead of capes. Guilds have a 500 person limit, compared to Guild Wars’s 100 person limit. Guilds have a customizable hierarchy with up to 7 ranks, for those who like to roleplay. Guilds have a private voice chat channel and an expandable guild bank with permissions. Guilds could arguably be as important as in Guild Wars, due to the requirement of Guild for raiding.

Value

Guild Wars is about $20-30 per game nowadays, which results in about a $100 total cost. You need all four games to be competitive in PvP, and even a little bit in PvE (i.e. Ursan Blessing). If the 8 character slots aren’t enough (or you simply want a character for more storage), you have to pay ArenaNet $10 for another one.

World of Warcraft is $20 (with 1 month free) and the expansion is $30. Technically, in four months, World of Warcraft would have cost the same amount as Guild Wars; easily enough time to level one character to lv. 70, even for the most casual. You can have 50 characters on the entire account, 10 per server, and each individual character has his own bank account, making storage very convenient.



There are many, many, many other points of comparison between Guild Wars and World of Warcraft. I haven’t scratched the surface. But this post is very, very long, and I believe I have covered the brief outlines. (This post is TLDR to myself!)

The games are more alike than you may think, and I encourage you try them both before you make judgments on either.

Yay, you wrote it!

Really interesting stuff, and from what I experienced of WoW, I generally agree--granted, I haven't touched PvP, haven't joined a guild, and haven't leveled past ~35, so my experience is rather limited.

The games, at their core, are intended for different audiences, I believe. WoW is gear-based, GW isn't, and that's an enormous difference between the two--enough that I believe the two games can certainly sit side-by-side without any real interference.

I'll just pick out a couple things from your post I wanted to mention, though:

Heavy disagreement. Standing on the outskirts of a mob of enemies, luring one at a time, and picking them off while watching your aggro isn't really 'intelligent', in my opinion--and having your success defined entirely by "did I aggro only one or two enemies?" doesn't really make for fun encounters.

Plus, in WoW, if you're ever struggling with a quest, you can always just call up a guildie and ask him to come help, mid-quest. Quantity over quality.

I do rather like WoW's dungeons, though. I know Anet tried with Eye of the North, but...it really didn't work, though I can't pinpoint quite why.

I have always wondered why a game so focused on guilds doesn't really let you...do much with them. No specifying individual permissions? No custom ranks? Weird.

fake edit: Oh, oh, oh--one more thing I forgot to mention! I remarked on this in my HG:L thread, and it holds true in WoW as well--why haven't any other games mastered the art of good-looking, detailed armor? The graphic style doesn't bother me, overall, but damn, I don't think they could have made any blander clothing if they tried.

Some may, many play both. A lot of friends, guildies and I play both games and like them both for different reasons.

Fanboyism is something that always escaped me...I owned a SNES and a Megadrive (Genesis for the Americans); I have a Dreamcast and a PS1; Xbox and PS2. I like Mario and Sonic; Final Fantasy and Zelda; Guild Wars and WoW.

GW and WoW are two very different games in a genre, I happen to like them both and play them both at different times depending on what I want to do.

Which is better? Try them both and decide for yourself. But just remember that you CAN play both, they're not mutually exclusive

First, Nice post Zinger...I for some reason figured you were older than you are...

Now as i read through this article....i seemed to notice that you were not truely unbiased. If you go back through and read what you wrote you will see that the language you used to describe GW was "negative" where as the language used to describe WoW was "positive" (i mean the general tone used)

For me I don't think I could play WoW...because of one simple thing. TIME. I do not have the time to level a character to lvl 70 nor do i have hours to spend in dungeons/raids. I am a married man with 3 kids...my time is very limited. So one of the biggest perks of GW you left out. Travel...from my understanding you must walk/ride to places in WoW where as in GW i can travel to any town that I have ever visited...instantly. That is a tremendous boost for people with time constraints.

But all in all a good comparison....If i had more time i would try WoW out...but i don't so i can't

It seems to me that you didn't really play Hard Mode. Most difficult areas require advanced preparations, as well as what monsters to attack first. For example, in Arbor Bay, Stormcloud Incubus is a dangerous threat, and it is best to bring the right counters, as well as taking out the foes on the south first to ensure that vanquish is done before reaching the 60% death penalty. Although it is an option to bring PvE-only skills or consumables, c-space is definitely not going to work. You still need to flag your heroes in the right position and make the right aggro, otherwise you'll just be overwhelmed by mobs, since they do patrol very closely.

The term, grinding is defined as a person doing boring and repetitive tasks that are mantatory to progress in a game. So far into Guild Wars, all the so-called grinds are really optional. In fact, there are people who enjoy gaining reputations. Does grinding exist in Guild Wars? I would say it's a matter of perspectives.

That's not true. Nearly every rare-skinned weapons are now cheap to afford or nearly nothingless. Of course, there are still expensive weapons, but we do need entitlement to these weapons to some extend, which is reasonable.

Also, most new players make decent amount of gold to afford their basic needs, even a lot of other extra stuff. With loot scaling, new players make a lot more money than before without having the need of soloing.

To be honest, it really depends on how the player wants to play the game. For some players, one campaign will satisfy them. For some others, a few more game slots may be needed. You shouldn't add up the cost of the game just because a few players have a different variety of playing style.

Most of your points are made based on the experience you had back when you were playing, and some of them are no longer true at this point. Also, I noticed that you made many other points toward Guild Wars solely based on the negative responses from the complaints on the forum. The problem is, these complaints are usually from a miniority of the community, which does not apply to majority, which is the casual players. I would encourage you to play Guild Wars again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I have noticed, there were too many criticisms made to Guild Wars, and there were many persuasive techniques used to minimize the known criticisms made to World of Warcraft. What you wrote is a persuasive arguement, which is used to convince someone else to your idea, which in this case, to play World of Warcraft.

Personally, I believe a balance is needed for real life and gaming. Although people do believe there are many problems with the current Guild Wars, Guild Wars is still a good game when comes to choices: a player can still choose to play casually or hardcore, and when they do not want to play, they can just drop the game without worrying about the monthly fee. However, for World of Warcraft, I heard it is very time consuming: a raid takes up a whole day. I actually knew a group of people who played it; they spent 300 dollars each person just to play a year, and their grades in school significantly dropped. In the end, they all had to sell their accounts to get back into their lives. My point is, there are other important things in life, and no matter how good a game is, it is just not worth it.

I played a trial of WoW and couldn't move stuff from one character to another, yet, on the WoWwiki it spoke of mule characters. I know there are limitations with the account and was wondering if this was one, or if they have a different kind of mule.

Very nice write up! It won't convince me to re-activate my WoW account though... I'm not that interested in high end PvP, and I don't have 4+ hours at a time to sit down and do a raid, so once I hit level 70, there'd be nothing for me to do.

There is one good reason why I will not play WoW, and will never consider that it worth anything more than trash. Simply put, no game, no matter how good it may be (and WoW does not meet this standard I consider good) it not worth paying monthly, unless it feeds, rests, educates, loves, provides liquid, and entertains me constantly.

Naturally, neither games hold a candle to Morrowind.

As I said in the Hellgate thread, these games are not rpg. They are called RPG just to put them in a marketing category.

very well done on the post my roomate and myself play both him wow and me gw and at times its interesting to here him cus yell and scream over something at the same time im yelling about it in gw then again, he thinks capping at lvl 20 a crime, and i feel paying a monthly fee where im not sure to log in enough to warrent it a rob to lol

They are RPGs, but it would be like saying that apple and oranges are fruits. I even come from the RPG community, the paper+pen+dices equivalent of our electronic worlds. The goal is vaguely the same, the means very different.

Thanks for the mega-comparison Zinger314, but I feel that you fail to capture the point of view of casual gamers, which may be due to the fact that you're also in WoW, that is less appropriate for that kind of gamers.

I'll try to read and comment more inline with your ideas later. BTW the "value" section should point to the thread on business model.

The problem with fees isn't the fee itself, really. It's the design decisions that invariably go with it. Everything about the design of WoW reflects the fact that it wants to waste as much of your time as possible, from big things like the atrocious travel system and movement speed to small things like the inability to skip quest dialogue scroll out and the fact that respawn + no map travel means you spend as much time coming back from a quest as you did going on it in the first place (fighting the same enemies in the same places, no less, such that inherently you have to do everything at least twice). All of this is driven by the fact that one needs to slow a players progress as much as they'll tolerate to keep the carrot comfortably in front of them and keep them playing month after month, but to anyone who's paying attention it makes for a lousy game.

Oh, and Morrowind (properly modded, and the modability is a major selling point IMO) is quite possibly the best RPG of all time. I'm still trying to find a mod combination for Oblivion that I love half as much.

There's an option in the preferences to disable that.

And Morrowind, guys? Seriously? That game was so ridiculously boring, but that's not on-topic at all.

Very nice post Zinger : ) And loved the bit on Blackheart. Heavy says "GOOD Times!!!"

If there's more to comment on I'll do so, but I just woke up. Merry Christmas, btw.

Hard Mode, at the most, made me rethink a little bit about what builds I bring into those areas. Then it was cake.

Bear in mind that as long as you don't go over the tank's threat that you won't win. You have to be able to maximize your DPS and minimize your threat at the same time. It's about knowing how frequently to use such and such skill and the like. If you're DPS isn't high enough, the healer will start to be stretching low on mana and will be unable to heal the main tank. This leads to a whipe.

Of course, there's other things that can happen with mods as well. For instance, there's one monster in the raid dungeon Karazhan that after a certain point in health will freeze the maintank and attack whoever has the most threat after the tank. Preparing for these little tricks is essential.

Bear in mind that boss encounters are largely varied, as well. There's one boss named the Big Bad Wolf that after a few moments will turn a random person in the raid into Little Red Riding Hood and that person has to run around the stage or die. In this time the Wolf chases little red so the raid blows all of their DPS on him. It's a *%#ing laugh riot.

And the overaggroing bit holds true to Guild Wars as well, in a lot of instances. Most of the time your team will do fine as long as you don't aggro another group.

In terms of which is more intelligent: All I can say is that I'm no longer really challenged in Guild Wars, but I'm still being challenged in WoW. I can leave it at that.

It starts to get a little iffy when you take WoW into consideration with casual gamers: It is, in general, somewhat of a hardcore game...So if "casual gamers" dominate the market, why does WoW have so many players??

Well, what you can do is you can send gold and items to another character on the same server (can't send things to people on other servers) through the mailing system. I dunno if you can use the mailing system on the trial account, though.

It holds no candle to Daggerfall. The melee combat in MW is now dreadfully boring. It's the exploration that was the biggest selling point, though. Going into a dungeon you haven't seen and finding a unique weapon was pretty sick.

And good point about the modding, Vinraith. It's a very big plus for WoW.

the fact that so many people play WoW means that it must be a casual game.

Disagreed. WoW, especially at high-end, is a game of musical chairs. Who can run away from the slow-moving or slow-casting spell of instant death? Aggro-maintenance is easy - don't pull aggro - especially with the wealth of accurate add-ons for the game that display aggro in numerical form. Aggro in Guild Wars is more of an attention system - i just nailed this mob for 200, of course it'll get pissed (would you stand there beating one guy up while 4 others kick you from behind? no). GW aggro is more about reaction time, if you're afforded that.

Agreed and Disagreed. Hellfire Peninsula in WoW is a fantastic zone with a solid, gloomy and broken mood. Then you begin to get into the latter zones, specifically raids - Black Temple, for one, seems imposing at the beginning, but just seems like a bland backdrop for bland combat as you get further along. WoW, as a whole, is a cheer-based game; everything is comical and cartoony, and that destroys the mood. Even your largest, or strongest opponents look goofy.

The title tracks are purely optional, and should never be really seen as Grind. They're there for the accomplishing type, the completionist player; PvPers should obtain tracks of their own, in contrast.

When the Burning Crusade came out, WoW was entirely grind-based. Not XP - levels 1-70 are rapid, and moreso now. The "lore" behind quests within the game is questionable, as there is no solid storyline in the manner of Guild Wars - there may be small story arcs, however, but most are irrelevant to anything but themselves.. and nobody reads the quests. The environment seems far too stolen from other fantasy sources or convoluted and rushed to have any purpose anymore. Example: Illidan Stormrage, big bad boy, is actually sieged in his temple by other big bad demons. Why must you go kill him? He's not a threat to anyone currently. Convoluted.

Of course WoW beat GW into the MLG -it has 9 million players. That's a sizeable crowd to appeal to. WoW's issue with their PvP setup is that it's entirely based on class balance - and it's broken. Blizzard is also entirely lacking in attention to balancing the game for PvP, and generally a "PvP Balance" ends in a world-shattering PvE nerf. The game should be built with skills assuming PvP and PvE roles, and the coding is possible (Everquest 2 does this). Further, as you mentioned, Arenas are highly gear-dependant. Without the PvP gear to back yourself up, you will melt. Oh, and doing the PVP required for the supplemental gear is one of the worst grinds.

Overall, and this is subjective, the aesthetics, storyline, and play of GW is what draws me here. I've killed Illidan. I've beaten WoW. I quit shortly thereafter - it's generic.

To be honest I feel that you did a shamble of a job on the graphics comparison. You have to compare them on how relative they are to the graphics of our generation.

GW uses bump mapping, dynamic lighting, and even in small areas an amount of Shaders (all though primitive) WoW does not utilize these advanced techniques in their graphical engine. That is why the graphics in GW are superior to WoW's... Not because oh I like cartoons better then real people. Thats how dumb @$$es go about doing it.

Not to mention for what GW graphically achieved for such a low computer requirement, in our time is unheard of. Now I'm not being subjective at all, I do not prefer cartoony to realistic or vice versa. I admire the power and excellence achieved by the engine of which ever game may have you that I'm looking at. Oblivion may have ugly people, but the HDX lighting is unbelievable. In Gears of War you play a steroid pumped gorilla (something I extremely dislike), but the graphical atmosphere is striking due to what their engine utilizes and achieves.

So in short what I mean to say is, artistic style does not make a game graphically superior to another one. Its based off of the amount of graphical techniques used and how well they're executed. When I played WoW, I didn't find things like bump mapping, HD resolution, anything like that present. Now don't get me wrong GW is a stone age game on my desktop next to Crysis and Call of Duety 4, but it still tries to have some graphical prowess. Well when GW2 comes (Dx10) we'll really see what Anet can do with next gen graphical engine software.

I would think your cost calculation is a bit off...you should not check the games at their current price, but at the price when they were release ( €50 or so ).

I have to disagree your division of pve:

What you described low-end pve is basically Tutorial.

Low end PvE is basically storyline and quests in normal mode.

High end PvE is HM/Elite areas/Challenge missions/Masters quests...

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Also, you assessing GW PvE based on tank-n-spank model is quite unfar, because most effective PvE is the one without tank. Tanking is imported from other games by players, so it is unfit and as result boring and lacks supporting mechanics like taunt.

True. However, it gives a sense of spacial awareness (knowing where you are standing) not present in Guild Wars PvE (i.e. "steamrolling" through mobs. Spacial awareness in GW comes from stepping out of AoE...)

True, but IMO, it's less rewarding (you get half EXP, loot, and money, and you have to fight someone if a green/blue drops. Yes, that has happened many times).

Guildies, however, are helpful beyond helpful for group quests which require 2-3 (or a full group of 5).

All computer games try to tailor to all sorts of computers. If armor is Crysis-level detailed, it will alienate some portions of the playerbase.

There's a rest bonus for the extremely non-active players (double exp for up to 1.5 levels). While I do regret the lack of GW's instant traveling...NumLock (auto-run) helps alleviate that.

Raiding does take up a whole day. However, if teenagers are letting their grades fall by playing WoW, that's their fault, not the game's.

I payed $50 for Mass Effect. I beat it completely within a month. So I effectively paid $50/month for my gaming time, whereas I definately could have received the same amount of game time from playing WoW. The $15/month has saved me hundreds from buying $50 dollar games over the past 3 years.

Then why did Blizzard reduce the leveling time in 2.3? That doesn't sound like "wasting time."

The lack of map travel makes WoW feel like a "world." In GW, the instanced world makes the world feel empty and fragmented. Respawn/Death Penality is instituted so that dying has a severe consequence (whereas in GW, Dying only affects your Health and Energy, and can be removed easily) The "carrot" is only truly evident at lv. 70, which is a very long time away.

While many game companies do have ulterior motives...those aren't.

Purely subjective opinion: I've watched my brother-in-law play WoW. Some of the art is mediocre, the rest is so horribly juvenile I feel insulted every time I look at it. Because of the art alone, I will never buy WoW.

Objective but (maybe) out-of-date: Back in '05-'06, some former guildies (in GW) also played WoW. They often had to wait an hour or more for WoW servers to become available before they could play. There's no way I'd pay a subscription fee to wait in line. I hope WoW has improved their service since then. Whether they have or not, seeing others' experiences at the time really left me with a bad impression of the company behind WoW, regardless of the qualities of the game itself.

Good job Zinger. Interesting Comparison.

One thing that I have really missed about GW when playing WoW is Missions.

I really like the way that they are implemented in GW and make it feel like you are playing through a Story. The quests in WoW just feel completely disconnected to me.

It may be true that the background lore is more extensive in WoW, but in my opinion, GW wins in the story department.

Oh, and I don't care if it makes it feel more like "a world", Walking FTL, Map Travel FTW.

Also, my WoW account is free, so this is coming from someone for whom monthly fees don't play into the equation. I just enjoy GW more and time is precious...

Another reason why this comparison fails.

And by the way, is it so hard to remember my name is spelt with two "u"s, not two "d"s?

First of all, I played both games extensively, spent exactly one year on WoW, during which I had 113 days playtime, was decked in epics, reached Marshall under the old system (the system where there could be only three or four marshalls on a server at a single time), and on Guild Wars I'm nearing 20 max titles (without the EOTN rep titles), got r9 Kurzick and 4159 hours played. I am a Game Designer and Programmer in real life.

I only have a few minutes to type this but I have a serious problem with this part of the OP:

Oh really. I guess you did not take the fact into consideration where you have to change builds in Guild Wars. Half the battle in Guild Wars comes from proper preparation. In WoW, you can count the effective cookie-cutter builds per class on one hand, it has a talent tree with only very limited options, and all core skills will be the same although they might receive some minor buffs due to talent choices. There isn't much variation. Most variation comes from gear, but WoW's community doesn't encourage creativity, they sure didn't like me when I had a warrior running around with daggers, leather and mail armor and 3200 hit point that did twice as much damage as the number 2 in the raid, because warriors are TANKS and anything different is evil and should be crucified.

As for spamming C-space, that doesn't happen in guildwars unless you're running a boring build and are in some n00bgr00p. And what are WoW raids? They are a drill, learn the dance and execute it right, and you get the loot. It's all predetermined. 15 seconds left until boss X uses skill Y! All hurry over to the corner! Magnificent gamedesign there, really encourages creativity and emergent gameplay! /sarcasm

Oh and for C-Space, let me give you a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udtLM...eature=related

For those that don't know: This is WoW, where a mages always kill melee classes and can do so with their most basic spell with they get at their first level. There was a video with a level 48 mage in green gear killing the best geared warriors at level 60 with just his basic spell for damage. Mages can immobilize, polymorph, slow, and teleport themselves away. They can also cast a shield which absorbs damage and causes warriors to get no rage (adrenaline equivalent). Warriors get an item, which they have to sacrifice an item slot for, which can remove one of these effects once every two minutes. They also get a move called Intercept which makes them run to their opponents and removes slow effects, but not the other ones. They can use this once every 30 seconds IIRC. Of course the mage teleport is on a 20 second timer. Oh yes and they had the BRILLIANT idea of making all magic armor-ignoring!!!

Finally, an actual post on this. Maybe now people who have never even seen WoW and make comparisons on it will get a clue.

People still wait a long time to just play, not to mention they have a an massive amount of downtime. Some things have improved since I as well from what I hear but most things that grip me have not. But Zinger(OP) mostly bores me even though he tries to be non-biased yet he ties WoW with GW in terms of graphics. (EPIC LULZ)

Here comes to person who probobly still thinks I have a level 30 character and I started to play WoW when he was 14.

It's probably the last game that somebody actually bothered to optimize the code. For some reason* they've stopped doing that in games.

*profit

As I play both of these games fully all I can do is say the following:

/agree on all points.

DreamRunner, when's the last you played WoW?

Oh please bryant, the OP's post is full of crap points. WoW having a story, Tanking in GW, AB is choatic.

"easily enough time to level one character to lv. 70, even for the most casual"


Last time was about 6 months ago.

-Zinger's point about a story as not that WoW had one but that WoW has a much, much more developed history.
-In regards to tanking, he was talking about game mechanics in general.
-AB's are chaotic. That's hard to dispute.

Likewise, one of my oldest and most used characters is a level 2 Priest named "Mahbank."

And if he was attempting to play and level and actually do quests, then he's probably one of the worst players imaginable, so much that I don't fully believe that quote.

Nice write up here. WoW even though I've never played it (lotro has some things that WoW does) has some great things in the game that make it worth paying to play it.

The fact it's big is a given..Auction Houses are invaluable. Mail boxes are possibly the best thing ever. For those 3 reasons I'd get WoW to play it. I haven't yet though waiting for a new PC.

Guild Wars seems to be addicting however, I don't know why I like playing it even though I dislike it at the same time.

Morrowind was a great game, although I like Oblivion better exploring wise because it's so beautiful. Especially with OOO+MMM and NE mods.

Do you have a higher res version? I can't read things that small.

A good, extensive comparison, good work zinger.

I played Wow until about level 15, and I know people will say that I'm missing out, and the game gets better at X level, or I'm too lazy,

They'll be right about something, I am stinking lazy, I just can't be bothered getting all the way up to level 70 even with the new patch decreasing grind time.

It's not that it wasn't fun, it's just that I couldnt bothered doing what I was for another 55 levels.

I believe the point to the balance between real life and gaming various from people to people. However, previous reports have told us that a child has died due to neglect by her World of Warcraft-addicted parents in Korea. Although it is possible to point out that it is the parent's fault, we should not overlook in which the game itself may have been a contribution to this tragedy. Although we do not know the exact scales of possible addiction to both Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, we do know that a possible addiction in World of Warcraft can lead to a child's death, and histroy tends to repeat itself.

It is possible to point out that the problem are really lies within people themselves, but we need to consider that a game can be a possible trigger to these negative causes, and in this case, it is World of Warcraft. My point is, if it is possible to reach this kind of addiction and this kind of consequence just to play a game, is it really worth it?

WoW has a much more developed story because it existed for much longer and has developed a story from previouse warcraft games. If you give Arenanet 10-15 years time to create a story for guild wars I'm sure they would have done a better job. Nevertheless, story doesn't matter me personally.

To compare the "intelligence" required to play WoW and GW first divide the games into PvE and PvP

First PvE: Both games are simple: PvE is easy but there is one difference that makes WoW worse: gear. All you need to know in WoW PvE is which mobs do what and what you should do at a certain time. This has become increasingly easy with UI mods, taking all of the "skill" out of it. GW PvE is not much different: look up several hero builds online, plug them in and viola you have an awesome party! So in both games PvE skill is minimal and is little more than looking up what to do or listening to the raid leader. However in WoW no matter how much you know the raid encouter there is always a gear threshold you must breach in order to complete the encounter, the same situation in GW except in GW it is easy to get the "best" gear while in WoW it takes weeks if not months of grinding to get the gear needed to control an encounter.

PvP: The same situation, except I think it is safe to say PvP takes more skill (knowledge, twich reflexes, and adaptation) than PvE. Arena PvP in WoW does take skill however it faces the same threshold of gear as PvE: in order to rise to the top you NEED the best gear which REQUIRES you to grind for weeks/months, while in GW the best gear is easy to get. However there is another pitfall that WoW has: class balance. While both games have a rock-paper-scissors mentality, with WoW certain classes can beat other classes up to 90% of the time, for example mages have a tremendous advatange over warriors, and warlocks have an advantage against mages and so forth. In GW,class balance is less of an issue because of dual classes and the limited number of skills you bring to the battle. For example: a warrior is very weakened by blind however that same warrior can create and use a build that utilizes multiclassing to have a powerful counter against blind (sight beyond sight, antidote signet, mending touch etc.) But by doing so that warrior now is weaker against classes that don't utilize blind (limited 8 skill slots), hence balance is achieved.

T H A N K G O D!..another wow vs gw post..i was getting worried there. Thought maybe someone had went outside or something. Shew, ty god someone spent 2 hours reminding us that wow and gw have different features you may or may not enjoy depending on preference. I look forward to the next novel "Is Guild Wars Dying?" and the stunning finale "Sunlight Burns"

WoW does have history, which is largely due to Warcraft I, II, and III. But the game itself doesn't really have much story, nothing that really contributes to the story/lore/history like the RTS's do.