A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

Obviously, if you think in these black&white terms, reality gets a different taste for you than it gets for me. I very happily declare that you've won this thead: happy now? If so, please take your trophy out of this thread which may, hopefully, bring us more shades of grey in a world (digital or not) that needs it painfully. (If not, well please, convince yourself that you did; anyway I don't think that this thread will impact Anet's or Blizzard's sales )

In everyone's mind, there are deep personal opinions that can't be changed because of other's subjective opinions: if you had a better experience at GW than WoW, or vice-versa, it's difficult to accept the contrary because many people had different experiences from you. (but at the same time, one also has open-mindedness to put some distance between his own XP and the potential of the game, thus trying to get a more global picture, but that is not easy either)

The bottom line is no one really is going to change anyone elses mind on either of the two games. The idea behind this thread in the beginning was once again a hidden reason to "compare" the two for the betterment of one in the OP eyes and mind. They are always all like that. There's no subjective and lots of objective opinons in everyone of these threads. There's trolls and retards and idiots and IGMO's and a handful of intellectuals that just want to try their hand at debating and arguing again for ole times sake remembering their better/younger days in college or whereever they liked to debate an argue an issue. lol

It's a rediculous circle of his and hers black n white right and wrong about either and or both supremacy, but, the single physical numerical outcome is always the same and can't be denied...WOW is number one.

Hey! If Mr.T said wow is good, then it must be! Who am I to argue with him?
Don't make me post a pic of William Shatner.

I personally dont think its a bad thing to have this competitive attitude ingame. This idea of wanting elite armor or elite weapon to be look better then someone else isnt really a bad thing.

Its obviously not the desired effect and it doesnt take priority over skill and ability, but it is a driving force to play.

Would you deny that you've never seen a person in an MMO with elite armor and thought "damn I wish I had that, because it makes you look tough"?

Its a bit different in WoW because epic armor has a certain look to it. Its all grand and big and over the top, so you can tell epic armor an mile away. While in GWs armor and weapons are more about just looking nice.

But we all still know elite armor when we see it!

I dont feel that kind of attitude is something to be ashamed off at all. It basic human instinct to want to be better or equal to someone else, and see that in a vain sense aswell as a skil sense.

It does no harm because its just a game and I admit thats why I have half my armor died black or white and why I own destroyer gloves because it has that eliteishh feel to it.

Call me vain if you wish, because I know I am in person

I dont think its something which any MMO or online RPG could or will ever escape. Whether it be GWs, WoW, HGL, Mythos, Dungeon Runners etc etc etc. There will be players in all online games who want to look the best they can and as elite as they can.

If for no better reason then when someone wisps you and says "wow you look cool" and you smile to yourself!

Although if your the kind of person actually thinks epic or elite gear makes you a better player then a reality check is needed IMO!

But it is a key part to any online game and if GWs went offline, I think we would loose that and we would loose one of the key driving forces to playing the game.

One reason I choose to play online RPGs to offline RPGs is this very reason. To strive to be a higher level then newbie and to own elite armor before someone else and then maybe go back to low end areas and feel slightly egotistical.

If it was offline, I wouldnt get that because it would be just NPCs and no real people! No human reactions to me!

I question anyone who says they dont act or dress a certain way in an online game to feel superiour to others at some point in their lives!

Honestly I think that anyone who plays GW and thinks WoW is a horrible game is a fanboi. Anyone who plays WoW and thinks GW is a horrible game is a fanboi.

They are both similar games, but they are grossly different in how they handle the aspects of an online rpg. There are pros and cons to each game.
The level of success shouldn't be any indicator that every aspect of one is superior to the other. It simply is not true. Each game has managed to do something well enough to be successful and because of that each game can only be seen as possessing appealing qualitys.

People are passionate about the games they like, but they need to recognize that different games are created from different minds and each dev staff for each game has managed to come up with both great and stinky ideas for each of the game's aspects.
Not everyone cares equally about all aspects in a game.

* Some care more about character progression.
* Some care more about account progression.
* Some care more about immersion and exploration of the land.
* Some care more about variety and exploration of abilities.
* Some care more about an equal playing field in competitions.
* Some care more about dynamic, unpredictable scaled competitions.

Depending on how much weight one puts on particular aspects of each game will dictate which game they see as better. That's simply the way it is and will always be.
Preference can't be used as an accurate indicator of the definitive quality of something, in that it's still subjective and preferences are always fleeting.

the OP's post seems a well thought out way of saying he likes wow more.

i see nothing wrong with wow aside from its monthly fee. and the fact its a trend.

just because 5 million copies have been sold doesnt mean its a better game, it just means 1 million players own 5 copies. also its more of a trend than anything else. and most people consider pay to play something to brag about, they enjoy wasting money, makes them feel superior. and whos to say 5 million people don't have bad taste?

the excessive use of the word "retard" in this thread and on this site is becoming a serious problem. the people using it are very offensive and should receive temp bans. if you must use demeaning words, try Stupid, Idiotic, Moronic, those are by choice, retarded is something you can't help. this is what happens when people care more about a game than their education or social graces.

back on topic. i don't hate wow, i hate the fee. but i have been a blizzard player since diablo 1 and warcraft 1. i know that blizzard steals/borrows ideas from many other games. WoW is just another cheap knock off of warhammer fantasy battle + Dungeons and Dragons coated with pretty colors.
StarCraft was a very fun yet very weak and generic version of warhammer 40k, diablo is a knock off of DnD. though i enjoy diablo and starcraft and warcraft i am not a fanboy. Lost Vikings is the most original product ever made by blizzard and even that is a rip off.

As for guildwars. i play it, it is currently my favorite game to play and i hate 60% of it completely. from the over priced ugly armor, to the same boring items with new skins to the childish community. but hey its better than alot of other trash out there and its free to play. but how many times can you release the same game with a new look? ask anet! I have to say i do love the heroes, the monsters and alot of the skills. Oh and minatures! And the kurzick armor holds a special place in my heart, looks alot like chaos armor from warhammer. very nice look. best armor in the game IMO.

PS: Marrowwind rocked back in its day! and i am not bashing blizzard, i am a fan of blizzard with a very objective opinion.

Post is full of fail because I actually get out of GW PvP much more than I could ever in WoW. Also generalizing isn't a good way to prove your point either.

I wish someone would actually make a post of real differences between the games, and try not to use subjective terms as which is "better" or "more fun". That doesn't do anyone any good!


Example:

Transportation

Guild Wars has Map travel. WoW has flight paths which give you a bird's eye view of the territory, but take longer and cost money. One important exception are Mages, which at higher level can teleport to a main city.


Character Cusomization

Number one difference:

In Guild Wars, only your Primary is fixed. Everything else about your character can be changed, even your secondary (for a nominal fee of 500g in Factions and Nightfall).

In Wow, once you pick your Race and Class, it's stuck in stone. The only thing you can change in WoW is your Profession (the harvesting and crafting skills), and changing that will reset your Profession to zero. There are Talent trees as well, and these can only be reconfigured at a price (caps at 50g). Gold is worth more in WoW than in GW, becuase they have Copper and Silver as well.

After I've played WoW a bit longer, I'll be better able to compare Race/Class vs. Primary/Secondary. From what I've gleaned off the interwebs, there is actually very little differences in the races at higher levels (besides some abilities that are race specific, like Human's detection ability or Dwarves ability to see chests on the minimap). But as to how effective Human's sword bonus is at level 70? That I don't know.

Mounts

One thing Guild Wars does not have is mounts. In WoW you can get a mount at level 40. Warlocks and Paladins get free mounts. Druids can change into a Cheetah for travel. You can pay extra gold to get an Epic mount (goes faster), and in the Burning Crusade expansion only offers flying mounts (these aren't uasable outside of Outlands, the BC area). An Epic flying mount will set you back 5,000 Gold!

And before GW player get too jealous, you cannot fight from mounts.

You are right Mordakai. This topic is largely subjective and so far pointless.
I'll throw in a couple of aspects that are different between the 2 games.

Zone handling:
Non-Instanced Zones (WoW)
Player adventures are more dynamic and exciting in that they can bump into, interact and group with other players while fighting, exploring, ect. Non-instanced zones also create a seamless immersion in the virtual world. You'll never know what's going to happen next in a non-instanced zone, thanks to the always unpredictable player element.

Instanced Zones (GW)
Bandwidth is reduced, lowering overhead, which in part helps to allow the non-subscription model. Servers, or shards are not necessary, allowing the player accessibility in interacting with anyone else who plays the game. Instanced zones also allow mechanics, such as movable pieces to solve challenges, NPCs grouping with players, ect.

Character Progression:
Power Scaling (WoW)
Allows a character to continually grow and be something a player can be proud of. Provides a more rewarding source of incentive motivation to play the game. Also allows characters to easily breeze through content that is trivial to them, thereby enabling them to get to the content that is suited for them much faster.

Build Making (GW)
Player accomplishments have little to do with the power level of their character, but more with the players intimate knowledge of game mechanics and their ability to create and play builds suited to that challenge. This provides an accessibility to game content that is less dependent on time played with a particular character, but more on what the player is capable of.

That's all I got for now. I wonder if anyone will disagree with me.

When this man speaks, you'll listen! hohoho

On the flip side, it also makes lower level content pretty much useless once a character advances past it. Everytime Blizzard makes an expansion, the previous content becomes obsolete to high level characters.

EDIT: This might change with WotLK, as the Death Knight might have to go back to earlier areas to level up... should be interesting to see how Blizzard implements its first Hero class.

Also, you still have to have intimate knowledge of game mechanics to succeed in WoW. You need to decide in advance how you want to advance up the talent tree to avoid paying a fee to change it later. But advancing up those Talent Trees is certainly a carrot that is hard to resist!

I think there are a number of secondary differences, in which I would score these two games as follows:

* Map travel (GW +1) vs. conventional travel (WoW -1)
* No Auction House (GW -1) vs Auction House (WoW +1), etc.

and primary differences such as:

* Crafting (WoW +2) vs. no real crafting (GW -2)
* Monthly fee (GW +2) vs. subscription (WoW -2), etc.

In terms of general PvE I'd place the two games on about an equal level.

In terms of PvP I really can't compare them cause I don't PvP ... ever.

The really major difference between the two games, in my opinion, is in regard to the handling of instancing and all that instancing entails. If WoW ever made it so groups of fewer than 5 players could run instances, either by scaling the dungeons to party size or by adding summonable NPCs, so that such groups had a fighting chance of completing the dungeon, that would probably tip the scales for me in favor of WoW: in other words, if Blizzard somehow retooled their instance content to make more of it accessible to 1 to 4 human players.

This is where GW really outshines WoW as far as I am concerned.

Take, as an example, Sorrow's Furnace. SF is a fair example of a "WoW-like" dungeon that exists in GW. There are multiple quests in SF that can be run in succession in one sitting or stretched out over several days. You can complete the quests with friends or on your own. You can pause in the middle of one, go out to dinner, and come back and finish it later. You never have to worry about finding a group, regardless of your profession or build. In all of these ways Sorrow's Furnace outshines, in my opinion, the instance/dungeons in WoW. In terms of actual dungeon design, WoW rocks. But in terms of dungeon accessibility/playability for all players and playstyles, GW rocks.

I only wish the 18 "unique" EotN dungeons had been more like SF ...

It would not surprise me at all if the folks at ArenaNet are really planning, in GW2, to incorporate the best of both MORPGs (WoW and GW) into a single game. How effective they will be remains to be seen, but I am really looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Although intimate knowledge of game mechanics is helpful in a power scaling progression type, it's not really mandatory unless your level/gear power level cannot exceed that of the enemies'.
I have successfully finished quests in EQ2 and WoW with little interection with the keyboard, simply by outleveling the content and/or obtaining powerful gear. I once got a wand for my warlock in WoW, where I stopped using spells simply because my wand's dps was greater on it's own. And I managed to solo an Everquest 2 raid level quest with only auto-attack, just by outleveling it. I even got a 'gratz' from all my guildies, at which point I couldn't stop laughing.

With EotN came Ursanway and PVE items, which sadly makes guild wars close to the same.

Here's your problem, WoW offers exactly none of that, none. Nothing in either game matters for bupkiss, at all, in any way. Both games are 100% distractions for fun. If you think for an instance there's more to distracting fun in either game, you're an idiot in seach of a village.

There isn't any objective difference between playing to get a shiny new set of armor with no game effect versus playing to get a weapon of 0.05% more damage and 0.06% more fire protection, none. WoW's appeal comes from that fact that most people don't get that, you can count yourself in that category.

Actually, that's not entirely true. WoW's developers exploit the tiny increases in power curves of different gear factors in elite instances to give players a sense that they're actually getting better. In the other 98% of the game, all these high tier items might make you kill a little faster, but they don't actually change anything about your ability to succeed or experience the content. However, they build a particular dungeon / instance all around needing to max out a particular niche element, and they make getting there a micromanagement and time nightmare. So you're not actually getting better, you're just finding ways to waste a ton of time to experience the illusion of getting better. It's like if you had to spend 100 hours playing some repetitive nonsense mini game to earn the ability to get another 1% of your exploration title after you reached 92% normally.

WoW has the numbers, not arguing that, it even is a somewhat better game considered outside the issue of time and money. The problem is that it's not a single one of these factors (higher level cap, infinite gear progression, etc.) you and the most vocal supporters in this thread keep on about that actually have a thing to do with it being somewhat better, they're just the illusion that keeps the gerbils running even though they're not going anywhere any more than people playing GW are.

I agree and disagree. I've never done an elite raid in WoW, so I can't comment on the waste of time bit, but surely people aren't just playing WoW for better stats! Just like in GW, people want better stuff, sure, but the reason people keep playing is because the game is fun to play. The success of MMORPGs depend on a lot of factors, but I would say the most important factor is allowing you to get attached to your character, and don't penalize you for casual play.

This is why games like City of Heroes will never have the success of Guild Wars or WoW: nobody wants to play a game where you can actually get into XP debt, and have to work your way out of just to start advancing again.

WoW actually rewards casual play by rewarding more XP from mobs the longer you haven't played a character (up to 10 days). Graphically, WoW presents the things that seem to matter to MMORPGers very clearly. Just 2 examples: The xp bar is broken into blocks, so you always feel like you're advancing, and when you're on a quest to kill or collect "X", it tells you on the screen how many you have and how many you need to finish the quest (very nice).

Of course, there are just bells and whistles on the same train most of us have been riding for quite some time. But, for whatever reason, it works. And I can't blame Blizzard for that!

The gwonline version of this topic is starting to discuss what Guild Wars was originally designed to be.
It wasn't originally designed to be a game that people would continue to play for long. It wasn't until people who were continuing to play the PVE game for much longer than expected that Guild Wars' developers started to make changes in order to attempt to meet the requests of prolonged character progression in PVE.

There is a quote from Gaile in that topic on gwonilne, but I also know of developer interviews in which they mention the same things. Each campaign was originally expected to show a large increase in player population, then quickly taper off as players left to play other games or moved to PvP until another campaign was to be released, which would be every 6 months.

Now I understand why the GW store started showing skill unlocks, character slots, BMP promotions. There overhead must have been a lot more than they anticipated due to players expecting Guild Wars to facilitate game play length equal to mmorpgs!

Although the point has already been done with (about greifing) and a consensus reached, I still find it funny you can't read all of my posts correctly/completely. I have never "came here and said WoW sucks". Just because I don't like it doesn't mean nobody else can. I am not a fanboy. At least not for GW or WoW lol.

My point still stands very loud and true that in GW, I don't have to resort to "ignoring" people or using methods in which to do so. I am much more confortable in GW playing with my close friends in my guild, then I ever was playing in WoW. I don't want to have to run away from people, fly away, or whatever. I want to play the game without worrying about coming across too many idiots. The difference between the games is that at the fundamental level I can choose between having that happen at all or not. Its quite a valid complaint, one that I am not here to troll about and such.

The more intelligent "pro-WoW" minds here have agreed with me. I am sorry you fail to realize what I am talking about. Maybe if you read my posts more clearly you will start to realize that.

so, why are mounts important? you cant fight on them, you only use them move around, they cost quite a bit, its just like oblivion, i got the first horse then after seeing how useless it was (it had an "instant" map travel to cities) few times i had to walk for long to reach the place.

is the WoW mount killable? as in, if you go to an area with lots of enemies and you get down to kill them, can they kill your mount?

so, why does everyone and anyone always bring the "wow has mounts" argument?
why?
Why?
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy y??????

sorry, had to get that off of my chest

if GW2 has "mounts" i hope they keep it like the wurms and devourers, that they actually do something besides just "speeding" you around.


doesnt GW also has those two things?. i mean, there is the bar telling you how much experience you are accumulating, as well as most quests requiring you X number of stuff (im looking at you succulent juniper meat/flesh/whatever) telling you how many you have in inventory?

I honestly can't remember, but I know in EQ2 the reason the xp bar is segmented is because you get 'mini dings' which refill your energy/hp bars. I think the segments also help guage how long before you can leave the group.

".9% to ding!"
".5% to ding!"
".2% to ding!"

DIIIINNNNG!

"Okay guys, I'm tired. Night."
"Did Pwnzer DRagon just leave after dinging?!"
"Yeah"
"What a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOer"

Why did people "ohh" and "ahh" over the Bonus Mission Pack weapons? Because they look cool.

Mounts are just another development of your character in WoW. And there are times in Guild Wars when going from one end of an instance to another that a mount would be helpful...


I actually hope GW2 goes one step further and allows you to fight from mounts!



Look, this is a very trivial example, but for some reason just by breaking the XP bar into smaller brick size bars, it gives the illusion you are leveling faster. (There's actually add-ons in WoW that makes the XP bar more traditional, so obviously not everyone likes it).

As for "you have y / x items" notifier: it's right there in your screen, no need to go to your quest log. For me at least, that was a nice touch. Totally superfluous, but the less I have to open up menus the better...

Age of Conan will include fighting with mounts, interesting to see how that turns out. Excuse me for being off-topic please continue ;p

Correction: Diablo is a weak knock off of Angbad/Adom family of games. (read removed and simplified a LOT of features and gameplay, added pwetty graphics, was lucky enough to leave what causes those games to be addictive in.

ohh i just hope they dont, really.
last thing i would want is the need to have to buy some mount to be able to play part of the game, unless they provide the mount for free.

A mount quest would be the optimal solution.

Agreed on both counts. The quest tracking feature wasn't there in WoW originally; it was added as part of one of WoW's many upgrade patches. Blizzard also amended the flight paths in a patch, so that now you can chart a flight from point A to C via point B without actually having to stop at point B and "change planes", which was highly irritating -- glad they fixed that! Now, at least, if you have a long flight ahead, you can set it off and go make yourself a sandwich... (I still think the flights in WoW, while initially quite fun, get really REALLY old. Moreover, people that might be willing to help you with a quest are reluctant to do so because it takes so long to get anywhere in WoW. In GW, they can be by your side literally in a few seconds.)

WoW is continually making minor UI improvements and adding nifty features. I have to give them great credit for that. While ArenaNet does the same, they don't seem (in my opinion) as attuned to player concerns and feedback as the Blizzard team. That is probably part of the "subscription fee dynamic" of ongoing service.

ArenaNet does nice things for players who have purchased the game, too, adding improvements here and there, and it's obviously good customer relations to do so, but there is much less of a sense, I expect, of having any actual obligation to make continual improvements in quite the way that WoW does. In general, I would give WoW higher marks for "customer care" than ArenaNet, and, I guess, that's just a corollary of the free-to-play business model vs. paying a subscription fee.

Ppl don't appreciate things that are free. Make mounts hard to obtain and ppl would clamor over them just like any other rare items/pets in-game. I seriously think that mounts would be a good replacement for pets in GW2.

I'd like to see more "mounts" in GW2 along the lines of EotN's Siege Devourer (ie they zone with you). Those things are a fun mechanic.

Sorry but I find that statement hilarious concidering the mentality of some threads in the guru concerning "obtaining things ingame".

How many threads do we get a week going along the lines of..

"I want something made easier to do or attain because Im basically lazey and can't be bothered to go about it the normal way." and then they pull out the "grind" word to defend their opinion.

...I can think of one which asked for all outposts to be made instantly available to new players, another asking for exploration to be made easier with % marks on all zones, another asking for ALL titles to be account based.

If they added mounts to this game and put limitations on how we attain them, or made it a challenge then we would soon have people complaining...

"It takes far to much grind to get a mount"

...and protests asking for it to be made easier!

A majority of players simply dont like being asked to work for stuff in pve and they would call blue-murder if mounts were made hard to get.

"Working to get" and "grinding to get" can be two very different things.

(1) "Working to get" implies -- to me, anyway -- accomplishing some difficult task(s), such as a long quest line or whatever -- to gain something worthwhile: e.g., coming up with the gold for a mount in WoW or completing a difficult quest line for a mount in WoW.

(2) "Grinding to get" implies having to do some tedious and insanely repetitious task in order to gain something worthwhile: e.g., the repeated farming of dungeons in WoW in order to hopefully complete some armor set or other (or farming for some kinds of rep in either WoW or GW ).

The fundamental distinction is not whether the process is difficult or not but whether it is tedious and boring or not. A game, by definition and if designed properly, should be fun to play after all.

I actually think the mount system in WoW is handled well, though I do think the epic mounts are still overpriced there. Mount quest lines would have been a better way to go, in my opinion. I wonder how GW2 is going to handle this....

I agree a persons perspective of grind is terminded by whether they find an activity fun, but unfortunately that is subjective to the individual and their mentality to some degree.

I think if GW2 had mounts, it would work very differently to WoW and use that Anet flavour.

1) All mounts would probably cost the same.
2) All mounts would move the same speed.
3) You would probably get mount armor to change their apearance (including elite) if you wanted them to look spiffy, but you wouldnt be forced into using them as all mount armor would have the same max levels.

Aslong as Anet adds their touch to it, Ill be happy if they use Mounts. I just dont want the WoW system copied of having faster mounts being more expensive or needing skills to ride them and rubbish.

Keep it nice and simple and fun like Anet always does!

But i wouldnt hold out on hoping for mounts tbh. That all depends if they copy the instance system or use a world based system.

Not sure if you are talking about GW2, but GW2 will have both Instances and Persistant areas.


And I don't think mounts should replace "mapping" to different cities, that is currently what I miss about GW. (I have several quests in WoW that I can't be bothered to complete, because it would either cost a lot to move around and get all of them via flight paths, or it would take too much time).

Dont get me wrong, I agree completely! I love the non-complicatedness of GW and one of those aspects is the ability to teleport to locations.

WoW makes up for this with party portals to bring people to the same location if they are too far away. But we just dont need that or mounts tbh because the instances are never too big to just walk through in a few minutes.

Goog frog and flog, no mounts for the love of pete. /gwfanboymode off

I've played both, and the only things I don't like about WOW is the monthly fees and the ugly cartoony graphics. If WOW had no monthly fee and had GW graphics, I'd be playing WOW over GW.

I've played both as well. I currently play Guild Wars and that has been my original RPG game that I started playing. The thing I like about Guild Wars is that there is a campaign to follow and I love doing the missions and following the story wondering whats going to happen next. Lol sounds kind of lame huh? Yeah but thats why I love rpg games. In WoW I tend to not know where to go and start off cause you can do whatever you want. I like in GW in the PvE you can just follow the campaign missions and that will lead you throughout the game.

Couldent of said it better myself.

and i also think wow has more people/sells because its actually advertised...


I think if people actually knew about GW it would be as big or even bigger than WoW

Black Sabbath is a terrible band with no talent.

This is pretty much the GW vs. WoW fight in a nutshell (although the only side that seems to be causing all the ruckus is GW...)

[QUOTE]considering your constant anti GW WOWis my game now posts i stopped right there.

anti everything GW Zinger make a fair compatison that wasnt slanted?

GW forum...i dunno why.
*shrug*