A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

Why do you anti-WoW people keep pulling off this crap?
If some losers cannot manage their lives and give a GAME the right priority (where "right" means "very low"), it's their own fault. Does the game force them in any way to play 18 hours a day? Of course not.

And this kind of addicts exist in every single multiplayer game. In WoW they waste their life to get the best gear, in GW to get the best virtual titles, in Battlefield 2 to get the best virtual medals, and so on.

The fact of the matter: WoW is doing it intentionally and bases the entire game on it. BF2 and GW do not. And I wouldn't call these friends losers, they're actually very intelligent well established people. They just don't see the problem, or cannot admit they have a problem. Same thing with most addictions, they say they're just having a little fun, or, "I can stop anytime, see I've not played for two weeks. Now stop bothering me I need to catch up with everyone else, they're two Tiers ahead of me!"

Even Runescape causes addiciton. Remember the guy who died in an internet café because he played 3 days of RS without eating and drinking?
Not sure if it was EQ2, where players attacked each other in real life with knives, ending up with one dead.

So WoW is definately not only game which causes addiction like that.

You are correct. It is the Evercrack model that does. WoW is the culmination of this game model, thus the Millions of people hooked.

I seem to remember this was why many left Blizzard when WoW development took the Evercrack turn by hiring Everquest groupies to lead Design.

They need to open an addicted gamer clinic XD. Im willing to bet that at least 50% of em are addicted azn teenage gamers. And yea i heard that story about the guy who died playing a game. He was Korean I believe, and you know how asian nations takes gaming VERY seriously, and played straight through without rest or anything, i believe its was like 36 hours or something!!! From what i read, he died a painful death and bled out or something. Its a bit foggy in my memory, but I was horrified when i heard about this, i stopped playing GW for a lil when i heard this.

If people are weak minded enough to let themselves get addicted, how is that the fault of the game? It's possible to be addicted to ANY game if you enjoy it enough.

Even then, there's controlling your addiction and still enjoying the game, then there's an all out frenzy of stupidity. Ever heard of Jack Thompson?

WoW is a harder game to just take breaks from.

For example, start a dungeon run in WoW and you're in for the duration, for the most part, unless you just bail out part way through and leave your hapless groupmates short one player, in which case everybody's time may have been wasted.

Start most dungeons in GW (at least with Heroes and Henches) and you can stop anytime, take a break, talk on the phone, eat dinner, and come back to the game later. You don't lose anything. You can even quit a dungeon or mission and do it later because you know you can always either find another group or that the heroes/henches will be ready and waiting to go with you.

These are radically different game dynamics, in my opinion.

Recalling my days in WoW, there were a lot of late nights, missed dinners, ignored phone calls, etc. Maybe that was just me, but I just got tired of that after a while. Even in solo PvE quests in WoW, if you are working your way toward some boss or other, you CANNOT STOP mid-quest because everything you have just killed will respawn on top of your character and/or you will get booted from the WoW server for being afk for too long (I think the timer for that is 30 minutes).

GW is thus inherently more amenable to people who want to take breaks and who have a more casual (or less addictive) approach to gaming. I also very much appreciate the fact that in virtually any mission or area in GW, I can hold my own along with players who have invested many more hours in playing than I have. My gear is on a par with theirs, in other words -- though my playing skill might not be

In WoW you have a kind of "elite player's class" that has developed; at the higher levels/end game content in WoW, you are at a serious disadvantage if you don't have all the best "tier X" gear -- but to get that gear requires more time and effort than most players have to give.

I am not harshing on WoW; it's a good game in my opinion -- just not as real-life friendly as GW is.

GW is no better then WoW for this "addiction" crap. Just do a search for the "how many hours have you played" thread, some people have 5k+ hours, others were in double figures with multiple accounts.

Real life friendly lol by playing an MMO, you're pretty much advertising you don't have much of a "real life" to begin with.

That's a bummer. It's probably my favorite next to Daggerfall.

It's the number of assholes that matter, however. And I haven't experienced as many as I have in the other games I listed.

Gaile said a large reason that they're introducing a high or unlimited level cap is because "it's what they (the gamers) asked for." What's that tell ya?

It was in reply to one of my posts, too. I forget what thread it was in...I'll see if I can find it.

So. It sounds like you find it unbelievable that people are playing WoW because it's actually fun? Could it be that they actually like to kill dragon's, be a warrior and fight beasties, or as a mage and blow shit up? Could they be playing because they really do love Azeroth and all of its areas? Or are every single one of those people fooled

From the way you say it, it sounds as though Blizzard is keeping 9 million people utterly and completely hypnotized. That there is no way people can actually enjoy this game. Do you honestly, seriously believe that WoW is keeping so many people fooled?

If you say "yes", then I'm afraid I can't really comment any further.

And as I previously said, GW's success is nothing more than a prick in WoW's side.

I can count on my hand how many people have broken up or lost contact with their families due to WoW. I also end up the same number for GW and Morrowind, too.

In the end, the thing that's going to addict you the most is whether you enjoy the game or not.

For the sake of argument, I found two somewhat recent threads on the World of Warcraft forums (Longer one and Smaller one) which compares WoW to GW.

What's interesting is that the main reasons the WoW players do not like Guild Wars is that Guild Wars is instanced, not persistant. That, however, is the reason most GW players like GW.

Very old news--"much has change since these interviews" But he said/she said isn't my style, so lets just wait and see.




WoW isn't the only game with these features, the difference is the reward system--the gerbil-wheel endorphin-drip that keeps you a feedin on the teet.

Yes Quick test: Vendor all your items and delete your characters. Proven to yourself that WoW and all the "needy" tricks and pixs mean nothing but, it's just havin fun. You can do it, just walk away . . . Can't do it can you. Of course you'll say you don't want to, you've invested too much time, it's too much fun yada, yada, yada. You don't want to find you're giving yourself Excuses for an addiction. That's the easy way to avoid the truth. Do it. Prove it. If not to us, to yourself. Especially if it means nothing but a bit of Fun. Cut the cord. Take the leap. Repent and amend your ways.

Have I said Yes yet?

My point. Without the stat-addiction, poor Zingeri wouldn't be posting this thread all over the net. Zingeri has admitted it in a round about way. You admit it by the fact that you're vicously defending a GAME. Yep, "it's only a game man, not an addiction", just hit that vendor/delete button and all will come clear.

Deep. WoWs success is nothing more than the fooled and the foolish. A number of players play WoW casually, but they won't last long. I highly doubt you are a casual player.

Remember, when in doubt, Vendor/Delete.

Read both threads and I think you're jumping to conclusions too quickly there. Most of them is crap and juvenile comments. Then you've got a bunch of sensible replies, but I must say that overall their answers are short ([joke mode on]not enought time to post on forums because too busy playing?[/joke mode off])

One question to the WoWers of the forum: would you say that WoW's PvE is better or rather bigger? I think it is possibly one aspect of the addiction, WoW giving to many players the impression that they're in a real world because "it never ends" (an illusion of course and I appreciate GW for this particular aspect, which emphasizes the point made before about being more real-life-friendly, e.g., less addictive).

(P.S.: I now understand whey your answers are so harsh towards Anet and GW in general, no offense but you're mainly wearing the "WoW/Blizzard glasses" and it makes you judge GW/Anet according to the "standards" of the other, forgetting that they don't play by the same rules)

Bigger and better, in many ways. Not half as good in many others. GW is replayable--completely replayable when playing one character. WoW has very little to offer a single character once you've leveled, but end-game grind. You'll need to re-roll to find any use for the early content.

Quests in WoW are doled out as you level. Quests in GW are accessible everywhere once you've zipped through the Missions.

WoW has about 6k quests, 3k accessible to one character(alliance). GW has about 1k quests.

There is definately a solid sense of "place" in WoW. It does feel very world like. But having played both games about the same, GW does not feel any less real, just a bit disjointed until suspended disbelief works its way over the game map.

I don't want to delete all armors/items on my 30 months old character.
Does this mean that I'm addicted to Guild Wars? Breaking news for you: by this rule, 99% of the players should be considered "addicted".
Why should I "walk away" from something I'm having fun with?

You know, some people can *shock* have fun with a game without spending their lives on it. That's what healthy people do: playing games in their free time to relax themselves.

You are not considering all the "average" persons playing online games.
People who don't even know about the existance of sites like this or GuildWiki.
Again, if your friends are destroying their lives for a GAME, it's their fault.

Or are you one of those people who sue McDonald when they have an heart-attack? Like they are forcing you to eat there every day, 3 times a day?

I think you've answered your own question. Now multiply this times ten and you've got WoW.

In GW you can walk away whenever you like. No real issue. WoW it's a one-time deal, all or nothing, poor peeps don't even see it coming til it's too late. Your first born, or your wife. What'll it be?? Don't have a first-born? That's ok. Playing WoW ultimately means the same thing--it's a castration from real-life.

You might just as well say people who go to movies, read books, or take walks have no "real-life" either. An MORPG is just a game or entertainment, after all.

The distinction between whether something is "real-life friendly" or not (from my perspective, at any rate) comes down to the relative ease with which you can walk away from that activity to go do something else -- in other words, the ease in going back and forth from that activity to real life and vice versa. Most people can "pause" their walk, for example, to talk with a neighbor or "pause" reading their book (by setting it aside with a bookmark) to answer the phone. WoW, at least in its instances and raid content, really cannot be "paused" (unless, I guess, all the players in your group agree to the same pause for the same duration).

The point in my post above was that, by design, GW is generally much easier to set aside or "pause" for a while, if you will, than WoW is. That is what I mean by it being more "real-life friendly", although there are other aspects of GW that, in my opinion, also make it more accessible to casual (versus more dedicated) gamers and, hence, more real-life friendly.

One can, of course, become addicted to just about anything, including Guild Wars. You are quite right about that. My GW chat channel is constantly admonishing me to "take a break"!

You are not getting my point.

You said that your friends are negletting their wives/friends/jobs etc. to play WoW. You consider this some kind of unhealthy addiction to a game. And I agree so far. They really need to walk away from WoW.

Then you generalize, saying that everyone who likes to play is addicted too. And I strongly disagree. I'm not one of those uber-rick gods walking amongst mere mortals with thousands of ectos in their banks. But I have achieved in this game way more than your average casual player and I still like the game 30 months after its release.
How am I different from your friends? I'm playing the game as it's meant to be played. Like an hobby. I'm not negletting my work or my social life. Some days I play 6 hours, then I don't play at all for a month.

Online gaming is *one* of my hobbies. If I don't have enough time for my hobby, GW can wait. Some people collect stamps, some like football, some like ships miniatures, some paint. By your reasoning they should be considered addicted if they don't trash their collections.

You are ignoring all the intermediate categories of healthy players: addicted or don't play at all, that's what you are saying. And it's completely absurd.

I think you miss the point here :X

An interesting (though a bit old) read by the way (that made me understand and agree on some of the points mentioned in this thread:
http://gwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...s.Detail&id=20

Now, let's take a deeper look at WoW. It is meant to be a place to live. It's an alternate world for you to exist in and live an entire alternate life. You are to learn to craft specific things. You are to go adventuring and have to walk 18 miles to do so, just like you would if this earth were made of 1500 polygons and had 6-sided wheels. Your goal is to simply live in the game. No end. No ultimate game over, thanks for playing. It is to replicate life in a completely different shape.

This is not what Guild Wars is here to do. I think Guild Wars is here to entertain. It is here to take the tedious aspects of this real life replicate and toss it on it's tooshie. Possibly even give it a cookie with my name on it on it's way out. This is a game that you play to compete (yes that includes against NPC mobs). You don't buy this game to spend your days digging holes to get enough ore to make your new Super Fork of Politician Slaying. You buy Guild Wars to instantly partake of action, to skip the running from city to city. To play a game, not live a life.

In essence, I now understand why WoW could feel more like a world, because there's no map travel and dungeons are painful, almost like in real life. It probably gives a sense of distance and effort to the player, but I guess it's also one reason to get addicted. While GW is much more relaxed and distant from real life, since we can teleport between cities and pause the game, only to come back when we've got time. The comparison then ends up by saying that it's only a matter of personal trade-off, how much time spent, monthly fee and world/story experience are worth for YOU, which may be totally different from what it's worth for ME.

Funny quote from the above article:
You bought it to play and have fun when you needed to have fun. And you know what the best part is to me? You won't have to pay 150 dollars a year to play it. I already pay hundreds of dollars to play my real life everyday. My subscription fees (AKA bills) are high enough and I don't need more.

My generalizations have been a bit broad. I was referring to WoW specifically, Vendor/Delete.

GW is easy to handle, as you and I well know.

And I'd bet there are far more healthy players per "Virtual" capita playing GW than WoW, it just seems obvious. It's why when comparisons of WoW and GW appear, It's Hamma Time.

I love a good debate, and the gist of what I argue is simply a very firm conviction -- WoW was designed as an addiction. GW was not. Period.