A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

On the subject of grinding, I honestly think GW has a lot more grind than most MMORPGs. Why? Because all other MMORPGs have alot of things to do, places to go, and perspectives to explore. For example, if you PvE mostly in GW, you have beaten all the mission your only options are to:

1. Farm
2. Try for titles, many of which require tons of money, time, or just the tediousness of playing the same missions several times over.
3. Try to obtain prettier armor, weapons and mini pets. Totally pointless and once again requires step 1.
4. Stop playing Guild Wars until new content is released (good luck)

any other MMORPG offers:

1.Hunting monsters (not everyone's favorite, but some very much enjoy it)
2.Dungeons
3.Exploring, worlds in almost any other MMO are larger and more enjoyable to explore.
4. Professions and Crafting
5. Experience the world from another race's perspective, their quests, classes, and environment.

Not to mention, how long does it take for you to learn how to play to be PvP competent? It took me about 1000 hours to learn that how restrictive the game was in skill balancing, that only certain builds and tactics were actually useful in PvP. Hell, back in the day they didn't even tell us what the agro circle was, or about calling targets. Most people now are running around with a firestorm-healing monk build, with a res or some other nonsense.

You basically have to learn from a rude, egotistically Swedish guy who just fell out of Counterstrike, whose every other sentence is "ZOMG BBQ NUBCAKEZ, ZOMG PWNED!!!"

Atleast WoW teaches people how to play and is easy to understand, you don't have to look for hidden tips inside Mhenlo or already be "T3h L33ts4uc3".

1)what is the difference between 1 and1?
2)There are dungeons in GW....
3)The world in GW isn't that small,and more beautifull than most MMORPG's
4)Atleast you don't HAVE to get more expensive/harer to obtain gear.
5)true,will be in Gw2 though.

GW farming is mainly the process of clearing out dungeons just to advance a specific boss in hopes that he will drop a good item. Once, nobody does, do it all over again. Ok, maybe monster hunting isn't exactly a good example for things to do in MMORPGs, but I know quite alot of people that enjoy it and are dissatisfied with its absence from GW.

What exactly do you understand under monster hunting?When I am vanquishing a hunt a whole (goredengine?) lot of monsters

Strange. I beat all 3 campaigns and the expansion, still have HM to go. And yet I find that all these points are valid for GW (no dungeons? you don't own EoTN I guess or haven't experienced The deep, fow, uw, doa?; 10 professions?; high-end/endgame/BMP weapons?; tons of quests?). I guess it's a question of which glasses you're wearing, or which way you're looking at the game...

Back on the topic: I think the comparisons between GW and WoW fail for various reasons:
- most problems come from the huge range of subjective opinions (PvErs vs. PvPers, hardcore vs. casual, elitist vs. populist, visual vs. gameplay, skill vs. time); everyone sees the game world through its own experience, sometimes with the added confirmation of friends or guildies who share the same point of view;
- most comparisons need to take a lot of aspects into account, see the business model discussion where one needs to consider addiction and time to play to really understand the problem as a whole (instead of one particular aspect of the problem); comparing aspects one by one fail to capture GW's trully wide gameplaying experience (I'm a PvEr at heart but I liked the Factions mission where you have to play Fort Aspenwood and I'd like to try AB and enjoyed the Costume Brawl and Snowfights)

Last and not the least, I would like to add that Anet is targetting a particular community of players, smaller than the WoW crowd (which is confirmed by the merge of Blizzard and Activision, who becomes the biggest gaming company in the world ...) and with a more "subtle" vision of MMOs. It reminds me of Apple, who was targetting a much more specific hardware platform of computers so that they can run a more "nuanced" OS and applications, leading to the iPod for example. They privilege a balanced approach, instead of a more "raw" approach, not only purely based on numbers (lvl 70 vs 20, 8 vs. 30 skills, biggest gear vs. max weapons) but also based on the whole concept of the game: lore, storyline, co-op, graphics (Prophecies exemplifies that perfectly with its long storyline, range of landscapes, etc.).

I've never played WoW but it seems from what I heard of it that GW is much more intelligent than WoW (and the argument that cookie-cutter builds make the game so easy applies to both games!). But I won't fail to notice that my comment also applies to myself, and I mean be biaised due to my status of casual gamer. Re-reading Zinger's OP I think that he's (like some others here; and btw one wonders if, apart from the Q&A forum, GWGers are not those that no longer play GWs...) harcore gamer tending to the "l33t" (no offense, it does not put all harcore gamers in the same bad as there are a lot of different harcore gamers, it's more about addiction and time involved). What is obvious in these comparisons is that the focus is on the "high-end" of the games, the most difficult and latest during the game evolution. While for most, the interest of the game is in the middle, not at the end.

For the last three years ive wondered what wow was and its been interesting to read about your insights of wow. The one thing that has me hooked with GW is I get to yell at my girl for no prot/infuse and its the only time I get to yell at her.Beats TS abuse.

Sagius Truthbarron, I don't think guild wars has lots of grind to it.
However, where the grind does exist, it's the quintessence of grind. lol

Define "Competitive".

My sister likes to have her lv20 char (with best gears she can find) staying in pre-sear and she's happy about it. Does that make her "less competitive" than others? (I doubt it)

I myself mostly played with heroes/henchmen so I don't quite need to compare my power with other players. I don't have max level for my title-based skills because I don't have time to grind. Does that make me "less competitive"? (I doubt it)

My friend likes to group with people. He says that's how online games are supposed to be played (true or not doesn't relevant here so just leave it at that). He also doesn't have time to grind for those title-based skills. Does that make him "less competitive"? (Yes)

I solo mostly in WoW because I don't have much time to play so I can't raid. I usually have to do something while playing and have to go afk once in a while so I usually can't group with people for instances. Does the fact that I don't have the best gears on my char make me "less competitive"? (I doubt it)

Some people in my guild raid a lot everyday. They need the best gears they can find in order to be powerful enough for some raid instances. So they have to grind for them. If they were wearing the same gears I have, would that make them "less competitive"? (YES!)

What's the difference again?

Compare this. Wow has literally killed people, Guildwars just kills your soul.

Zinger, despite all of the shit that everyone gives you, you really don't deserve it. Being cynical about Guild Wars doesn't mean you don't know exactly what you're talking about... which you do.

I think that the primary reason you hear more Guild Wars players complaining about Guild Wars grind than you do WoW players complaining about WoW grind is because when you spend 20 hours straight raiding Black Temple, you have a chance of getting the sweetest and most powerful loot in the entire game... but when you spend 10 hours straight raiding Slaver's Exile in HM, you get a shitty Ritualist green that no one will even take from you for free.

You only see what you want to see. If you compare GW to WoW gear-wise, you're already looking at GW from the point of view of WoW main gaming aspect (but not the only one, of course). During your "raid" in Slaver's Exile, there may have been fun going through the dungeon, beating the monsters and bosses, discovering hidden treasures, play co-op in a non-pre-determined way (from what I've raid about WoW raids, they're more organised but more mechanic than GW's), looking at the nice grottos, flora and fauna, etc.

I think the only way you can start to reach some level of objectivity when comparing GW and WoW is to stop focusing on the "high end", start from the roots and then focus a lot on the "medium end" where most of the game is played (once more, you can go very quickly through the game, if you do the minimal number of things, but I guess both games have much more to give than these minima), slowly going up the ladder.

Unless you want only a "high-end comparison of GW and WoW"?

How do you know people have never died because of Guild Wars? (I don't think you can say a normal game can actually "kill" someone) Maybe someone has died, but the game isn't popular enough for the reporters to care?

Do I have to, say, kill myself off by playing GW without eating for you to say that "oh, they're comparable"?

Though the initial point was somewhat "moot", I'd say that if that had happened, it'd be in the news. Like the WoW story did. Or other WoW stories, such as China wanting to limit the amount of time people play it.

Let's go back to the topic, please, instead of digging deeper into the extremes.

Yes it does,especialy on gear based characters.

It doesn't matter if the game is popular or not, if the death involves a video game, or has some (even the thinnest) Link to video games, the media will go on a "video games (not the half arsed parents who can't enforce simple rules) are evil" rampage.

I have played both WoW and GW extensively. The original post here was very interesting. Thank you, Zinger. In general, my sense was that you feel WoW is the better of the two games.

My own observations (based on what I look for in a game) on the two games can be stated fairly succinctly:

(1) Graphics. GW wins. WoW has some nice landscapes, but I find it feels more like a Saturday morning cartoon. The GW world just looks better. (One point in WoW's favor, however: animals leave pawprints, not shoeprints, in the dust and snow. It always bugs me that my ranger's cat -- and Zhed -- leave human shoeprints. Sheesh! )
(2) Story. GW wins. GW has an actual story that you work your way through; WoW does not. WoW has a lore backdrop for its quests, which is not the same thing.
(3) Solo player accessibility. Kind of a toss-up here. Most of WoW can be soloed, quest-wise, but not the dungeons. I found grouping to be pretty miserable in WoW, and the dungeons take too long (half the time can be spent finding the group you need--or that "one healer" you need). There is no Dunkoro to take along so you can just go. However, once a group has formed, I have to say I prefer WoW, which feels more like a real group working together, with everyone contributing, to achieve a goal.
(4) Guilds. Draw. Both games play better if you find a good guild. However, I think the guild mechanism itself inherently favors more serious gamers. Casual gamers do not play enough to build the kind of relationships that make a guild work as effectively for them. The support and design system for guilds in WoW is better, imo.
(5) Interface. WoW wins. It is far more customizable (though it can get a bit cluttered!). The chat options make more sense in WoW. The guild window is more helpful, etc.
(6) Instances. Another draw. WoW has well-designed instances, and GW also has enjoyable instances (I am referring here specifically to GW's dungeons/missions, not the instanced regions). The big difference is that, dungeon-wise, WoW's instances are for player groups only. GW, however, has a "workaround" in its Heroes/henches. This gives solo players and small groups (2 to 3 people) the option of completing a dungeon/mission on their own terms and in their own timeframe. You absolutely cannot do this in WoW. WoW's instances are designed for group play only. Period. This is not necessarily good or bad, but it makes WoW's instances much less accessible to casual players, imo.
(7) Travel. GW wins. That first long gryphon ride in WoW is fun... But, have mercy, the long travel times in WoW get really, really old really, really fast.
(8) Class distinctions. WoW wins. I really think WoW has done a better job of making classes unique, with a wider variety of skills. There is nothing in GW to compare to "sheeping," "stealthing", "underwater breathing", "rooting", "shape changing", "teleportation", etc. Although GW does have some nice skill options, such as a necromancer minion master, that WoW doesn't have, I'd say WoW offers a greater and more distinct variety of abilities.
(9) Social/"Real-World Feel". WoW wins. In WoW, you can form partnerships on the fly just about anywhere because you run into people all the time in your travels. I think this really gives an edge to WoW in contrast to the relatively solitary experience you have in GW.

All in all, I have enjoyed both games tremendously, but I generally prefer GW because of its graphics, combat system, single-player accessibility, and free-to-play model. My biggest peeve with WoW was that playing as a predominantly solo/casual/"groups occasionally"-type player makes you feel, especially as you level up, like a "second-class" citizen in Azeroth, whereas in Tyria it hardly seems to matter what your style of play is -- very little in Tyria is "off-limits" to solo players, whereas much of the good (instance/raid) content (i.e., the best gear and instance experiences) in WoW is restricted to group-oriented/dedicated gamers only.

That said, if the wait for GW2 is very long with nothing in between to retain my interest, I will probably return to WoW for a while before GW2 comes out. My hope fro GW2 is that it will incorporate what "works" from an MMO such as WoW, while retaining GW1's best qualities.

^
aprove the above post.

Either one makes me run off screaming... more than 1-2 hours in the chair anymore for any game makes me crazy.

I do agree that the loot in WoW is huge... just give me admin level 3 access to the servers and the ".additem" command line reference, and I'm a happy camper. Well, that and the ".die" command for epic bosses with quadrillion hp.

About me and my WoW and GW experience... I used to be a relatively hardcore-ish gamer during my bachelor days. I'd play 2-5 hours at a time maybe three nights per week, with shorter 1-2 hour sessions another three nights.

Then I found a chick and married her. Now I play here and there and only find the time for extended sessions maybe 2-3 times per month.

I canceled my WoW account. Why? Because I'm not paying a monthly fee for gaming that I can now do only casually. I was feeling like I was wasting my money by not playing, which of course I was.

I'm certainly going to keep my GW account because the game works well for people with different amounts of time to game. I don't have even close to the amount of time necessary for a WoW level grind anymore. The game just isn't worth it if you can't play it an awful lot IMO. GW is the total opposite.

I wish the OP would have mentioned this in his review.

Are you looking for a fight or something?

Comparing or evaluating games based off of solo compatibility is akin to rating off Team Fortress 2 because there's no deathmatch mode.

Mentioned, what? That WoW takes up a lot of time? (thanks for pointing out the typo)

read again, he means the opposite, that you cant really play WoW if you dont have a lot of free time, while if you have little free time, GW is your game.

So thinking about your built isn't really preparing... ok...

That's totally not my point but, okay.

Maybe, but it is what you wrote.

Most people will always prefer what they started first. A paradigm is formed and then they play another game and compare it to the previous. Of course WoW is a good game it's subscription base proves that. Gw is a good game. But the games are at the core different- persistant vs instanced. I just don't think you can make a honest side by side comparison. People try and come off favoring one or the other. Never changing anyone's view. Both games offer different things that appeal to a different kind of gamer. I for one enjoy the no P2P and graphics. But for every one of me there are 2 of the WoW fans. Thanks for the read though. You did take time to write it and I'll give ya that for it. But I came away with the conclusion from the start of the article that the conclusion was already determined.

QFT. I agree 100% with this post and I think it shows what maybe alot of people think. Having played both games I will have to say there is so much more to do in WoW that you may never see it all. The stuff you can do however is solo by its very nature and not really needed. I dont want to make my own armor and have to craft bolts of linen, etc. the idea of an arrow count, shot count, damaged armor and weapons sounds like a grreat idea but I hate it in practice. Its annoying.

edit, i forgot to mention how much I miss maptravel when in WoW.

I guess I am an exception to this.

WoW was my first online game, and I quite enjoyed it. I avoided playing GW for the longest time because I had read somewhere that it was less casual/solo friendly than WoW. (Little did I realize that just the opposite was true.) I finally left WoW for GW back in the "pre-TBC" days because WoW turned into a huge dead-end once you hit the level 60 max. At that point, there was nothing left for my level 60 characters to do but extremely time-consuming high-level dungeons and -- worse still, imo -- 10- to 40-player raids.

At that time, I tried Factions on a freebie trial and absolutely loved it. I still think GW is the better game of the two, for me, anyway. In general terms, I think GW is simply better designed for casual players (like me) who like to play alone or with perhaps one or two other people.

On the contrary, since a significant proportion of gamers only play games solo it's irresponsible to rate a game solely on the multiplayer experience. This is a major problem in the mainstream gaming press, where the reviewers invariably have a large group of coworkers with with identical schedules and lots of game time to play any game they like with. Many, many gamers spend the vast bulk of their gaming time playing single player, failing to discuss how the game plays for them is irresponsible in the extreme. It's directly equivalent to disregarding how the game plays in MP/with a group.

I'd much rather be lazy and poor than have no life

I've played both, and liked both for completely different reasons. I'm sticking with GW for now, however. It's a game I don't feel I have to be playing in order not to feel like I'm throwing my money down the drain. If I don't play GW for a week it's cool...no loss. If I'm paying for WoW and don't play for a week...I've effectively lost money, grind time (and my armor will no longer be in favour).

Hopefully all online games will see the light at some point and get rid of monthly fees. Only then could we truly compare.

As it stands, GW is in a class of it's own right now, because it offers us so much for so little. You buy the games, and expansions if you so wish; there's no need to feel you HAVE to buy the expansions in GW as with WoW (to get the epic gear of leetness and those extra 10 levels), and that's it...no need to keep burning money up as you play, or choose to take a week or two off.

The skills needed to play WoW are different from GW. We have 8 skills at our disposal when we enter a mission or leave a town, and it makes you think about what you're going up against, what you'll need, what will be most effective. With WoW, all you have to do is click around your UI, all your skills are there, not much thinking involved beyond 'point and click a bunch of times', in my experience.

There's not so much emphasis on gear in GW. You won't fail a quest because you don't have the right max armor. One of the main things that puts me off WoW is the stupid amount of status put into gear. If you just want to look different, try something new, have a different approach...you're slated, you won't get groups, you'll be laughed at by guild mates. In GW gear is pretty much just aesthetic; the runes and insignias you put on are not THAT important, and by no means a deal breaker when getting into groups or completing quests. By far GW is better for the less anal and more casual player who doesn't feel the need to grind away hours of their lives just to get the 'right' pair of gloves so he/she fits in.

Like I said, both games offer different experiences, and I do miss some aspects of WoW, but not enough aspects to allow me to throw away month after month of money (regardless of how rich or poor I am) on the off chance I might have time to sit and get to that quest that's a balloon ride and a 15 minute horse/cat/raptor ride away, only to discover somebody else already killed the boss, so I have to wait...then have to waste my precious time on all the respawns.

I guess when GW2 lands upon us we'll have more of a level playing field to compare...but even then, GW will be in a class of it's own due to the fact you won't be paying monthly for the pleasure of playing.

Then what do you do when WoW is clearly labeled, and even further explained by the devs to be a fully social and multiplayer game? It's like saying an apple is being a bad orange.

Only if the world spends most of its time eating applanges (or orpples, I suppose). It's legitimate to examine any game for its solo playability. Some games are worthless in that regard, but that just means that to an SP player they're worthless games. I have no use for MP only games, and appreciate knowing when an MP only game is really MP only. TF2, for example, was originally advertised to have AI bots to play with. That would have been mildly interesting, whereas in its current form it's worthless to me (fortunately Portal and Ep 2 trivially justify purchasing the Orange Box for me, so I just left TF2 uninstalled).

Similarly it's valuable to point out to MP players that a game does not accomodate their needs. Gal Civ 2 (the best single player strategy game on planet Earth), for example, is worthless to people that insist on playing with other people.

Any review worth spit is going to tell both crowds what to expect from a game for thier respective play types, even if what they can expect is nothing at all.

You make a good point here. But the fact of the matter is that most of the time spent in WoW (until you hit the level cap, I imagine) you are on your own, completing quests and whatnot. Even the most dedicated "group-oriented player" in WoW is still going to be spending most of his or her time completing quests on his or her own. If you were to poll the players of WoW (or players of similar MMORPGS) on how much time they spend soloing versus how much time they play in a group, I would imagine the great majority of playing time gamewide is spent soloing.

It therefore seems valid to expect that any worthwhile review of an MMORPG is going to address to subject of soloability vs. player group-only content

No your not an exception. You fit right into my statement. But when you started playing GW you compared it to WoW and liked GW more. And yeah GW is better for the person with a life.

You're either being deliberately obtuse, or simply disingenous. Let's not kid ourselves that more than a small percentage of either game is playing full on multiplayer. In both games most people are either soloing or, at most, in a 2 or 3 man group of actual friends for the vast majority of their play time and it's very fair to compare how the two serve most of the player base.

In WoW I had a great time with a friend or two doing quests, most of them were much more fun that way. GW is much the same. Missions/Dungeon type content is where GW blows WoW out of the water for this particular gaming scenario. By all means, I've seen nothing in GW that compares to those times when we managed to get a 6+ group of players working together, the issue is just how often that happened, and how often it happened successfully. WoW was a string of standups and bad dates with only the occasional home run for much of the content. Sure, you could try it with only 2 or 3 people, but it only very rarely worked out well (and with XP penalties for dying, you couldn't even have fun trying to Brute Force & Ignorance your way through stuff). In GW, it's just not an issue. Whether it's just me, or me with one or two other friends, the content is almost equally accessible due to the game design, and that is why GW wins out for me. I've never needed to get together half a dozen players at once to tackle something in GW, and that's the way it should be as far as I'm concerned.

WoW's enforced multiplayer for so much of the content is a valid game design choice, just not one I and many others care for. A review should make as much clear. It's not an apples & oranges dilemma, it's one of serving the reader: if you were planning on getting this game and either playing it with just a friend or two, or even mainly by yourself, be warned, a significant percentage of the content is blocked to you, much of it explicitly. Conversely, any review of GW should point out that the game is a much less hard core affair, it won't take too much effort to "beat" the main content and the larger metagame is involved in chasing prettier armors and weapons along with earning "Drunkard" under your character's name. Further, while playing the game with full parties of actual AIs can be a lot more varied and fun (YMMV ), it won't actually get you anything in the game that a guy who never so much as partied up for a free res signet in Pre can get in roughly the same amount of time.

They both appeal to the whole spectrum of multiplayers, from the mainly solo to the mainly large group type players, but they provide very different results because of the game designs.

WoW = MMO

GW = Not an MMO

End of discussion and comparison

You heavily, heavily criticised GW in comparison to WoW, yet left out many of the things WoW lacks that GW has. I'd write a "comparison", but it'd take me 3 hours of writing.

WoW and GW are truly incomparible for what's "better". I love both games, yet they both lack what the other has.

GW: The ability to map travel instantly, you can pick it up and put it down any time you like and items mean nothing. Actually has a story as you play.

WoW: Heavily item based, a more fluent game that normally involves a few hours at a time. "I'll do this quest... Oh look. I got enough ore to make some armour now... May as well sell it off at AH. Wow, look at those offers. I'll take ten of those... Ok, now to finish that quest... Oh another quest!" That's why I only play weekends. Of course seldom playing makes some people think about how much money they're "wasting" by not playing. Lacks an immediate story with a lot of depth in background story.

It's fair to examine it as such, sure, but marking down because of it? That was the problem with the first bit that I originally quoted, it was appeared as such that WoW was inferior because it did not cater to solo players. Saying "it is the inferior game" is in that sense unfair, as unfair as giving Bioshock an 8 because it has no multiplayer.

There's a difference between having solo content and catering to solo players. WoW does indeed have a lot of solo content (hell, I even know a lot of players enjoying the game that rarely go in parties), but it focuses its main attention to that of group PvP and raids.

What I'm saying is: expect the best stuff in WoW to be only enjoyable with a group.

Glad to agree with ya, Samurai.

I've always thought there should be seperate scores for the two. Even in the case of games that have both SP and MP, the two are frequently almost completely different games. A joint score in most circumstances is just silly, and bound to mislead one type of player or the other.

I'm merely trying to get as much fun as possible from this kind of threads. What else can an ass like me do, or can be expected to do. I mean, it's not like anything really productive, like a solid conclustion, or non bias facts will ever come out of this thread.

Plus I'd like to see Zingy-boy answer Ugly Betty question of REAL PvP exp.

That's a good reason why you see "game experience may change during online play" - because it's true. While it also means something more specific, you will be essentially playing what seems like a totally different game when you go online. Dawn of War is a chief example: The campaign modes are a fun and challenging game with a decent story. Go online and you'll be in for a very harsh community.

...Not post?