A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

But then he'd not get his spotlight of "LOOK AT ME! I'M SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT FROM YOU!" fix.

Who are you to say, really? I solo, as I said. Why should I, or anyone else, care how "competitive" I am comparing to others? Same goes for my characters in GW without UAX OR max title-based skills.

...I didn't bother to read through 7 pages of responses so it may have been said before.

From what I can see you have been playing more WoW than GW and have yet to experience high end PvP such as high end GvG, but you have played enough WoW to have several high levelled characters and have done most of what the game has to offer. Sorry to say it but it sounds kinda biased to me...

Because all that she compares are WoW's PvP and GW's PvP amIright?

Because all that high levelled WoW characters do is PvP right?
I have to agree that the comparison is biased at parts, but you made some valid points. Like blurmedia said, it seems like you haven't really played GW as much as you've played WoW, hence creating a slightly biased opinion because you havent explored/played it to its full potential.

DoW's fantastic SP, especially with the Dawn of Skirmish AI mod. And yes, from what little experience I have with it the online community is nucking futs.

WoW hasn't killed anyone, its the idiots fault, not the games. I could sit down for 50 hours reading books and it would kill me, that doesn't mean that books killed me, my own choice to be inactive did.

50 hours won't kill you. You'll only die four days after not drinking any water, not two.

Back on topic, WoW and GW are just two online games. They offer different qualities that attract different styles of gamers. Saying that one is better than the other means that you just like one better than the other, as many things that you dislike, someone else may find as attractive features. No real way to compare the two as better or worse IMO.

QFT.
Just like there are [subjective] quotes in OP, I will also put [subjective] and say GW is better game then WoW! Now what? Whole OP is subjective, and as such, not really valid for proving anything. Tastes are diffrent, get over it.

/lock kktnx

Just downloaded the mod, AI is a hell of alot smarter now. Koo!

WoW is a westernized korean grind game (added lore of a popular franchise to make fanboys and other non-knowledgeable mmorpg players think it's good).

IMO it doesn't deserve 10% of the credit and praise it gets, because it barely brought any innovation to the genre.

I am an ex-wow player.And realy,you only solo in Wow?The fedex quests,and killing the same foes over and over must be very enjoyable then.

I've played both games and i prefer GW over WoW easily. I think the OP was ,although trying not to be, biased towards WoW.

WoW for me is just too childish. When i play rpg/mmo's etc i expect to see gritty realistic graphics similar to books that i enjoy from scifi authors like Steven Erikson/George RR Martin etc I don't want disney-esc graphics that look like zelda on the N64. I got no satisfaction from hitting stuff in WoW. Arrows and melee weapons are terrible to hit with and are really like from a low level console. Spells are more fun but still not as spectacular as they could be considering the lack of amazing graphics they could have made the spells more attractive. But considering in an MMO you spend most of the time killing stuff this should be alot more fun and attractive to look at.

I think the WoW franchise makes the game more popular for younger people like the figures and trading cards. Also when i was playing WoW i was in college and didn't have that much money to have much of a life at the time. Nowadays though based on my friends and people from work from ages 18-30 no one i know would have time to play WoW and have a life. If you want to get to do anything fun in WoW you really have to invest way to much time in it.

I'm a gamer in that instead of using some of my spare time to watch crap on tv i prefer to game instead. GW and other games are fine for me in this respect. WoW however seems to be for kids without jobs or slacking on school/college work or older people with not much of a life to be honest. I'm sure there's casual WoW players but the game structure generally doesn't have much to give for these players, which is a bit of a waste of money IMO considering the monthly fee.

I really loved Warcraft 3 when it was out and played it alot online which is why i got WoW but i find the storyline in WoW less involving than the Storyline part of Warcraft 3 strangely. WoW storyline is too fragmented and drawn-out to enjoy. Whereas Warcraft storyline was amazing IMO. The PvP in WoW is really far too scissors/paper/rock orientated, taking the fun away.

GW's for me has problems like crap rewards for completing quests and missions, introducing skills like UB which took away from the gameplay IMO, they could have made more animated and high end weapon skins like stormbows etc green items mostly just use basic weapon skins dyed a different colour, end game items aren't cool enough for me and they could make more stuff for guilds to get involved and more ranks/titles for guilds and obviously the non-jumping thing which will change in GW2.

These complaints are just minor problems though and overall i think GW has a good thing going on and has done a hell of a lot more in it's short time than WoW has done in all it's time.

Of course this is all just my opinion and obviously you're going to get opinions like this on a GW forum. Gaming magazines rate both games in the 90's most of the time too so it really is up to preference. As a GW player i think WoW is more for kids in general. I'm in my early 20's and that's the feeling it gives me but i'm sure many will disagree as it's all based on preference and opinion.

It's for the sake of....wait for it... COMPARISON.

And for what it's worth, it's not like you're doing anything different in GW anyway. Feel free to prove me wrong.

God, is it so hard for some people to discuss the point instead of insult others simply because they're not GW's BFBs?

So now I am a fanboy?I never said WOW was bad,only that you are missing out a lot of stuff if you play it solo(more then Gw),and it harder to combine with taiding/PVP because your gear will be gimped.And yes,the quests in Gw are(imo)far more intresting then the ones in Wow.

Sure, it is mostly the idiot's fault if he dies because he is too busy to do nessecary things to keep himself alive. However, some blame does lie on the designers of the game. The game is specifically designed to keep people playing. It is designed to be addictive. We're designed to be attracted to stimulants such as computer games, drugs, caffeine, books, movies, and TV. To say that no fault lies to the designers of the game is to be incredibly naive, and is like saying that no blame lies on the manufacturer of the drug that some poor sod ODs on.

I did actually try WoW out, and it just annoyed me. With GW, you can pick it up and play. When I installed WoW, it took awhile to install the 5gb of files, and then it had to update five times before I could even launch the client. When I got into the game, I found a pretty bland tutorial-type area, where the most exciting quest I could find was a tie between "Collect 10 of these things" and "Find this area far away in a generally southern direction".

I didn't actually play for very long. Got very bored, very quickly, and was glad that it was only a trial, and I didn't waste my money for nothing. That being said, there were some things that did interest me about the game. Some of the races were interesting, the Tauren being my choice (after I tried a night elf and found it too generic and boring). The lore was interesting, though most of it was collected from the series of RTS games. I think it'd be better to say that WoW integrated the established lore well into the game.

All of this is my own opinion of course. I know that I am incredibly biased, since I played WoW for 6 hours at best (and, as a couple of my friends assured me, had I managed to sit it out and get to the main playing areas, I probably would have enjoyed it more), whereas I have played GW for 3000+ hours. Overall, however, I don't like the monthly fee associated with a game, especially if I have to buy the product as well as pay to use it. It's the same reason as why I will never, in the foreseeable future, get a credit card. I don't like feeling tied to something, like I constantly owe something, in this case game time that I am paying for.

Maybe so, but face facts, until Zinger can prove that he knows about actual PvP in this game, he can't claim to know this game well, and thus this comparison is a total waste, just like all the other threads like it, what are the odds of that? The problem with all threads like this is that they are written by propagandists who miss out the huge chunck of this game (or WoW) and claim to have good exp in both, this will never change since good PvPers wouldn't waste their time writting something so........ pointless.

No offence to PvEers, but until you've PvPed well, you can't say your good at this game on a whole.

Which game is better is purely a matter of opinion and viewpoint.

And that should end the thread.

We are in 100% agreement here. Any review or comparison of these two games should say as much.

The purpose of the thread is to share those opinions and viewpoints, not to "settle" the issue of which game is better. What is interesting here is to hear why players prefer one game over the other.

A smart game designer -- AreneNet, are you listening? -- would try to evaluate what people are generally looking for in a game and incorporate as much of it as possible. Some features, such as group-only dungeons, can hardly be both solo-accessible and group-only ... or can they?

There are times, seriously, when I wish I could mix GW and WoW (I like them both, after all) in a bag together to make the One Game to Rule Them All.

/Agreed

I must admit that I have never played WoW. Only watched . But I can make the agreement on my experiences in life. For example I am a MRI technologist. I have scanned on many different brands of scanners and the top 2 are GE and Siemens. And In my 15 years of doing this I have said the most perfect MR scanner would be a hybrid of the 2. Taking all the postives from both and leaving the negatives behind. And I'm sure that one could make a Uber-game taking the positives from both games and making them into one. Let's hope that is GW2.

Yea, although i hate to admit it, WoW does come out on top by a bit. Guild Wars does prove to be competition to them though since they always bash us on how our game sucks and vice-versa. But i must say its not bad for a game that just started. I hope that GW does continues to grow and beats Warcraft one day...

Can you see why I'm hyped about GW2? ; )

As to people dying over video games, I think there've been two that've died playing Unreal Tournament, and to my knowledge only one over Starcraft (all Korean, I think).

man that should be the GW2 motto/slogan "One Game To Rule Them All" bwahahaahahaha!! XD

Just a short comment on the GW-WoW best-of-both-worlds for a second: it can't happen, that would be a WoW-size MMO without monthly fees and with competitive PvP. Maintaining such a game would be impossible, the company behind it couldn't cope with big number of players, frequent updates and a good average ping on servers.

Anyway, this is an interesting point to explore, in order to realise the gap that stands between the 2 games, which makes the comparison easier. I believe this gap is a sort-of limit between 2 kinds of gaming tradeoff, which encompass not only the financial aspect but also the other ones mentioned before (story, PvP, graphics).

In other words and to emphasize something already said here, we can't go "deeper" into subjectivity but only "wider", i.e. with more opinions but nothing that will clearly separate the 2 games (apart from the monthly fees and the graphics). It's difficult to remain objective when comparing the 2 games.

WoW is better - but the fee means you have to make a lifestyle decision really :\. tbh i don't want to waste so and so a month to do something to relax

this man has the winning arguments!!!!
/fail.

On the neighbour thread on "most pathetic scams" I stumbled upon this:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=404

no-GM-like-WoW claims

Anyone really into this game KNOWS there are not GMs like in WoW.

Is this true? Are there WoW GMs that are preying on the WoW community? (emphasis on the some GMs, I guess most are honest) If this was the case, it would undoubtedly change my vision of WoW and put even more weight into the GW basket.

no,they meant that there are simply no GM's in Gw.
The Gm's in WOW are fine(if they answer that is).

I wonder about this, because -- from what little I have heard from ArenaNet officially -- it really sounds as though they are moving at least a few steps closer to the WoW MMO model (i.e., persistent regions, interactive environment, etc.). I imagine if they felt "it can't happen" then they wouldn't be headed in that very direction.

How WoW-like GW2 ends up being is the big question, but I think, at the very least, GW2 will be a lot more WoW-like than GW1, and that has been confirmed (based on what features they have revealed are in the works) by ArenaNet.

I personally hope it doesn't turn into a WoW clone Persistent worlds are not what I want from this game. That's one thing that makes GW different and allows it to stand apart from the other games like WoW.

I know quite a lot of people who will be sticking to GW1 if it becomes persistent and not instanced. I don't think they need to bring in that aspect and just be another clone of a cartoony, low-brow, tried and tested game that offers nothing more to the genre.

Guild Wars has broken ground on many levels, it would be a shame for it to slide backwards into WoW's pocket.

GW2 is definitely gonna be a WoW clone, only free and probably won't rely heavily on items to win.

I am less concerned about the use of more persistence in GW2 than I am about the (apparent) elimination of Heroes/henches, the single best feature in GW for a player like me who likes to solo a lot.

Still, I am trying to keep an open mind. GW2 could incorporate a few WoW-like features without becoming a "WoW-clone". I am, in fact, (cautiously) optimistic about what GW2 will be like. It's hard for me to imagine that the developers of GW1, such a great game, would stray that far off the track and that far away from the current GW1 player base.

There will apparently be bonuses so you can still solo entirely but without heroes, hench and so on. Will it work? Probably not. Let's see how they play it.

I too would be concerned if they were making max parties a requirement for GW2. Fortunately, they are not. The whole entire game, from what we've been told, will be soloable.

Not only that, you get to bring 1 companion with you. And you don't have to bring them if you don't want to.

GW2 will be more WoW-like because the vast majority of the current playerbase wants it to be that way.

GW1 is revolutionary on many levels. a game that looks like a mmorpg, that plays like a FPS, combined with a bit of RTS, with a skill system that's based on magic: the gathering (except better). that's GW in its essence. unfortunately, it is TOO revolutionary. being revolutionary does not sell itself. being more WoW-like will.

Just one thing I like to point out - in terms of artistic direction, Guild Wars may win hands down, but in terms of sheer ambience, the outdoor environments and cities in WoW make Guild War's seem pale. Areas in Guild Wars are too clustered, too single-track, too one dimensional. You never feel truly part of an living breathing world, instead, you simply are in a map with a start point and an end point.

Compare say the Magumma Jungle to STV or Ungoro. Magumma doesn't really feel like a jungle per se. There are trees sure, but mysteriously enough none grow in areas you travel in, and all the monsters can conveniently be found on the paths. Contrast that with WoW, whereby off the main path, there are actually trees which require navigating around, where monsters may lurk just in that ruin deeper in or flit in between the trees. Which feels more like a jungle?

Other examples in which Guild Wars clearly lacks ambience would be simple stuff such as the Battle of Jahai. Supposedly one of the major battles in Elona's history, it seemed to me nothing more than just 20 small figures fighting another 20 small figures in the distance hapzardly. Take a look at Hellfire Peninsular or Shadowmoon Valley instead. You have NPCs struggling by your side instead of doing God-knows-what in the distance, actual encampments that feel like military encampments and not some hodgepodge obstacle in the terrain with NPCs sitting around a campfire.

That's the theory, anyway. It won't sell the game to me of course, because I like GW because it's GW, not because it's sort of like a fee free MMO.

I have serious doubts as to Anet's ability to beat Blizzard at their own game, though. Duplicating your more successful competition isn't really a very good business model.

I agree. The terrain and environments in WoW are more cartoony, but they are also much more open and "real-feeling" even so. I suspect GW2 will definitely correct this problem. In WoW you can fall off a bridge and die a horrible death or drown at the bottom of the ocean; nothing like that ever happens in GW because the pathing is so rigid and, frankly, artificial. In fact, I'd say the ambience in the instances in WoW also makes GW seem pale. ArenaNet could learn a lot from Blizzard on how to build a dungeon well.

I also will confess that the enforced-player-group dynamic that you find in WoW (as much as it irritates me sometimes) does add a certain something to WoW's gameplay. If only finding groups in that game wasn't such a royal pain...

I have had many fun experiences working through some dungeon with a motley crew of other players in WoW; the "wham-bam, thank you, ma'am" mission runs in GW really cannot compare. It's strange, I know, but completing a five-man dungeon run in WoW just feels a lot more ... "real" somehow ... than most group missions with other players in GW. You often build friendships along the way, sometimes really good ones, by the time you get through a dungeon in WoW.

It's ironic, I know, coming from someone who generally prefers to solo, but I'd say some of my best times in WoW were in small groups of strangers and/or friends, clawing your way through some dungeon or other. It almost makes me want to resubscribe ... almost. Maybe it's that the eight players required for most GW missions feels so much less "personal" than the (usual) five players you run with in WoW. I dunno...

In any case, for those of you who dread GW becoming WoW-like, I think it is worth remembering that WoW does a lot of things better than GW, quite frankly, so becoming a bit more WoW-like isn't necessarily a bad thing. A hybrid game of some kind sounds more and more appealing and, at the very least, intriguing.

I completely agree with Gigashadow about Guild Wars & community. I have not played WoW - my experience comes from LoTRO. I don't like LoTRO as a game. It's too slow (your guildie needs a hand in Annuminas but you are in Misty Mountains? It'd take 20 minutes to get there so sorry, no...). Too much grinding - to level, to get best gear, to get reputation with factions, ... PvP is completely unbalanced, and very very miserable. Most of the quests are very dull (kill 16 boars in Angmar!).

In GW, everything is fast. Quests are actually often much more interesting, and even if not it's ok, since you don't need to run/walk/swim/ride a lot. Gear is not important. PvP is much better. Etc.

On the other hand, LoTRO has a strong community of mostly mature players. Every server has it's forum, and you can see how friendly people are to each other there. Running around in the game world, you continuously see familiar people, from familiar guilds/kins. I've had some bad experiences with PUGs there, but mostly they are ok. In GW, I have had practically no good experience with group play. First of all, I've almost never tried - H/H is good enough to do everything in the game. Second, just to give a concrete example, when I was doing the final quest of GWEN, there was a guy who was looking for a party. I decided that why not, we can do it together. After seeing my skillbar, the guy ragequitted, without saying anything. I then went on and did the quest with H/H: it took only two tries. The forums are better, but not always; and especially in the class forums, people are often called noobs if they offer nonstandard skillbars. I'd really like to try DoA, UW and other areas but because of my previous experience, I am really afraid of PUGs.

This is my major pet peeve with GW. Another problem of course is that now it's a graveyard... GW2 is coming, hopefully, in two years. I don't see many people continuing GW1 up to then unless they decide to produce a new expansion or two.

Smaller annoyances. I think the game (NM) is way too easy. And there's no real reason to do HM unless you are hooked; instead, NM should be tougher. Storylines are too short, and all campaigns by themselves are too small. Combatwise, if you have a good skillbar, then you almost don't need thinking. Spam X, press Y if health below 50%, spam X, press Z, spam X, spam A. And finding a good skillbar is usually easy because Guildwiki and other such resources.

This all doesn't mean I don't like GW. It has major advantages compared to LOTRO (and thus also to WoW). It's free. It's not a timesink - everything is fastpaced. No grinding! Better quests. And I really like the ability to respec.

For everybody, I'd recommend to read http://westkarana.com/index.php/2007...why-mmos-suck/

It points out many common problems in MMORPG design. However, people there either don't know GW or don't consider it worthwhile. I think GW doesn't have all the problems mentioned there and thus suck less, but it could still be improved. Having moddability, especially in the current graveyard status, would be just great.

The trick is if they can create a WoW like immersion in the world while simultaneously making it feel fun to every sized group, if they can manage that, they will have beaten Blizzard at their own game. While I agree that some of the best times were in groups, those were such rare times due to time (specifically lack of) that a large percentage of the game content was effectively off limits and a reason why I'm WoW free 17 months and counting . I'm still not sold on the scaling bonus mechanics they're talking about in the early information to achieve this, though. If it's no harder and no more rewarding to adventure in a party of one versus a party of one + companion versus eight human players then it will feel artificial and kill whatever immersion they've sought to add in with persistent areas.

Admittedly, in one sense, letting us party up with H/H isn't any different, but it feels so different psychologically. Not to mention saying bye-bye to the diversity of choices in party builds and how it affects the game play. I hope I'm wrong, but the whole Eye of the North buff is suggestive of this mechanic and I personally hate it, it doesn't feel like it's "me" doing the work, it's the buff. Each time I've taken a sub-20 character there for the easy access to some heros (which already makes me feel dirty enough ), I leave and don't go back until I actually reach L20. Going up against boss monster "Fredo the Bloody Wang" on Monday in a group of eight and finding him no more challenging solo on Wednesday would disappoint me.