A Litany of Comparison: GW and World of Warcraft

Brilliant idea, and it would likely make Blizz much more money, being that some players have played a full year+ in hours 365 x 24 = Cash Cow Baby!!

It would also help reduce the addiction issues, though I do see folks spend their whole pay check playing the lotteries, maybe it wouldn't help.

Maybe it's the server you played on, or the time of day? Your location says "Belgium". Well, I'm in America...

Again, I only played on Malfurion, so I can't make statements on the other servers.

@Balan: I have heard the lottery referred to as "The Idiot Tax"

How can PvP in these game possibly be a tie, but then again, just like the OP, you don't really have a strong bases to argue on this subject? GW clearly has better PvP. Like you said, GW is better balanced, resulting in much (for the most part) fairer PvP. From what I've seen, the skill needed to win real PvP in GW is worlds further ahead than WoW.

Taxssechussets, much like Blizzard, encourages Addiction. I guess it's just another twist in life that seperates the weak from the strong.

I don't think the European servers are hosted on the same place as the American.....

Here's a little something to get the thread rolling.

WoW music or GW music? Both of them definitely have amazing music. Jeremy Soule's compositions are absolutely amazing. Great music, sets the theme.

But WoW music definitely fits the land at parts. Eye of the North actually mastered a balance between the combat music and travelling music while Nightfall was just BAM! BATTLE MUSIC! BAM! TRAVEL! I hated Nightfall's music. Prophecies was the best for actually doing what WoW accomplished with music fitting the scene.

Factions was not bad at the start. Actually had an Asian setting. Maps were terrible so it was quite hard to work around.

Some areas in WoW, the music actually changes a bit too much for my liking around the lands. Ashenvale being a great example when travelling from Splinterwood to Blackfathom deeps. Haunting alto singers, and a few steps later, African tribe drums.

People like consistency in the themes when in a wide area; not having it change every 30 seconds.

Wouldn't Server quality in WoW depend on the server your on?

That's why I only mentioned WoW battlegrounds and GW ABs. I don't really play the higher end pvp (WoW arenas, GW HA and GvG) so I didn't include them. I based my PvP verict on battlegrounds and ABs.

Would you rather I pull a verdict randomly from a hat, judging arenas, HA, and GvG although I don't know them well?

I love the music in both games. I do hum GW stuff while at work or driving or find it playing in my head when I wake some mornings(a good thing imo), can't say that ever happend in WoW. As well I've considered buying GW music, never thought of that for WoW.

WoW seems to have more atmosphere, much like the air you can see or the shadows you can't, you do feel it, you do sense it.

GW presents it's music like a hollywood score, Out of Africa dramatics.

They're both exceptionally handled.

Not having spells that completely freeze an enemy is a feature of guild wars. Especially because you have 8man pvp in most cases. However, there are ways of shutting someone down without a single spell, and it requires skill and experience. It also requires skill and experience to avoid being shut down, while waiting for a spell to wear off includes no skill whatsoever.

In reference to PvE and groups, I have only used "Ursan Blessing" in the mission that requires it's use (Blood Washes Blood, I think), and It's not too hard to find decent groups for pve. It only requires a friend's list/guild, maybe a few pugs, and fill in the extra spots with heroes.

Also, something to add to your comparisons, the fact that once you leave a town in Guild Wars, your party gets it's own area. I like this for two reasons, the first being that you don't have to compete for enemies. The second reason is explained through an experience I had within 24 hours of starting WoW. Being a female gamer, I made a female character and found myself with a 13 year old kid following me around asking questions like "how old r u?!," "where r u going?! what r u doing?!," "help me with quest pl0x!," "you r a gurl u r so coooooll!!!" In guild wars it's slightly easier to avoid people like that because they can't follow you into an area if you don't let them in your group.

Sniff. Now, I'm getting nostalgic for WoW.

/sarcasm off

In truth, my fondest hope is that GW2 might actually offer players an option to play a given region as either instanced or persistent, with mob/loot scaling and/or henches/heroes, etc., to match whatever playstyle choice you make. Such an approach would offer the best of both worlds, allowing players to play GW2 as primarily instanced, primarily noninstanced, or any combination thereof -- much the way GW1 can be played solo, with a full group of 8 players, or with a range of combinations in between. This is not likely to happen, I know, but still...

A few things you may wish to note.

1) Real PvP in GW require team work skill, which at the end of the day, is more challenging and more skillful than individual skill. Teamwork requires good commication and greater planning.

2) Being good in GW PvP relies on being Proactive instead of reactive. For example, Proting in this game takes more skill, and gets better results than simply pushing up red bars with healing (which is what monking is in other games), and the fact that skills like Diversion and Shame being far better for Mesmers than simply interrupting. Being reactive takes little skill, other than being able to press a button when you see something happen. Being Proactive requires on to think, and predict, looking for patterns or other signs in the enemies movements.

3) The one thing that above all, that makes PvP in GW far far far far far better than in WoW. PvP Characters, altough not perfect, this was by far the best thing A-net has ever done to reduce grinding.

In terms of "what I'd rather listen to before I go to sleep", I'd go with WoW. The soundtrack has some pretty epic themes in it. I remember entering Ogrimmar and literally going "holy shit", the huge drums bangin' in mine ears.

And I RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing hate the battle music in GW. I literally have to stop moving and not do anything for me to truly appreciate it.

In regards to the PvP debate, it depends. In terms of casualness, both are about the same. In terms of high-end, Guild Wars wins. But like WoW, it takes a lot of time and dedication to actually get to the goods. That's probably my favorite thing to compare about both of them: It takes a lot of time to get into what's best.

I like how WoW also has singers, which GW tends to lack. Then again, with Jeremy's contrapuntal style, it's not really needed. Lament of the Highborne is absolutely amazing and caught me off guard when I found the amulet.

Ah man, such a sad, sad quest...

Beautiful video for it, too. Bastard Lich King.

Seriously? Is it the arrows or the bow? *lol* I'm getting WoW soon and my toon uses a crossbow in some cases.

The arrows. You won't notice it on monsters too much since they're mostly stationary.

It's done like such because there's a miss value, so when you miss it really does miss. It's pretty tricky to still make look good, it's fine as is for me.

One of the first comments I made on this forum a while back was about GW and casual PvP. It was actually hard to casually participate the way you can in WoW. PuGing it WoW was really a lot of fun, PuGing in GW for the first time is very daunting and actually requires very solid player skill to pull it off. Not enough wiggle room for NooBs such as I was at the time. As well GW large arena "Alliance Battles" was not as PuG friendly, being you needed a party going in, not very viable if you didn't have loads of time. Of course lots of this relates to the very solid, refined structure Arena Net has created for GW PvP. The large arena is the one you want to encourage new players PuGing within, it helps displace the load of inexperience a bit. I still don't AB much because it takes time dragging a team together from the guild or alliance. FA is a great example of a mini game, but it just barely compares to WSG, in it's rhythm and tempo--fun once in a while--but not quite an epic battleground, should have been three times the size with twice the players, with few more strategic obstacle/defense points. And a hero auto join/kick routine that completely removes queue waits. When comparing AB with AB: you actually know where you're going in Arathi Basin. Alliance battle are rather helter-skelter, seems some of the areas should have much stronger thematic differentiations and focus.


But, once again, on a whole, WoW fails miserably at PvP primarily due to itemization and balance issues. WoW pvp is completely unplayable as a casual player. Regardless of skill, or innate ability you'll get stomped by No-Lifers with no skill--the stat differences between a No-Lifer and a casual player are far too great.

Early Alterac Valley, Ver 1 (with the massive map) was PvP nirvana because the best you could field in regards to gear were blue-rare equipment. Players weren't getting one or two shotted, matches weren't a 5 minute steamroll.

PvP in WoW for anyone but No-Lifers Is absolutely the Worst PvP available in a popular MMO. There is no map or Battleground so well constructed that it's worth suffering such borked itemization issues.

So we're down to some elite player-skill requirements and average environments for GW, or getting completely ganked/steamrolled by No-lifers in WoW.

I'm almost in agreement with your assessment of these games being equal for casual PvPers, but GW comes out on top for PvP systems and balance, WoW only has PvP environments, the combat is horrible.

What's amazing is that Blizzard would only need to cap-stats vs PvP and problem solved. But addiction to a competitive grind is what drives players in WoW, I really doubt Blizzard would every design counter to this principle--regardless of how exploitive this design principle is to human nature.

"To get to what's best" is what I referred to the best qualities of both games: In Guild Wars, it takes a long time to get to the best - GvG. You need a large number of skills unlocked as well as with equipment. Sure, you can buy an unlock pack, but that's a hefty fine.

With WoW, it takes a long time to get to what's best - Raids. You need to level up your guy and grab some decent starting raid gear before you head in.

Of course there's different paths you can take, but those paths may not be as polished as those that the games want you to go on. But both get the job done: PvE in GW is fun, PvP in WoW is fun. Not great, not perfect, just fun.

I think it's more a players personal "Skill"--the player's ability--not game skills that separates GW from WoW.

Being a "casual player" might indicate they are gainfully employed, that they can purchase the PvP packs. Casual is very viable in GW, it is just difficult to break the learning curve early on. Even purchasing all the GW content; it is a lot cheaper than playing the endless hours to Raiding/grinding for top Stats in WoW . . . Regardless of the fee, the real-life overhead is massive.

This I can't really comment on since GW no longer challenges me (hence my continued subscription of WoW.) While it is true that more thought process goes into a build rather than that of a WoW character, there is a certain peak you can reach where nothing in PvE is really challenging or difficult. Of course this is still me talking.

However, one concern of mine is the issue of "faking it." Why is it that the PvX wiki is so popular? Because the game relies heavily on skills and builds. The hard part is not in using the build but putting it together, and being able to just grab a build of the web so easily can really take out the thought process.

Now with WoW, you still need a bit of time and effort into getting all of those epics. Sure, you could just eBay and take all that effort out the window, but 1. Are you really willing to pay so much money (they can get expensive) for a 3D avatar that 2. could be banned quite easily?

But you still have to either A. Dish out a lot of cash or B. Spend a *lot* of time unlocking everything. The fact that this goes well against the casual player is one thing most everyone can agree on with Guild Wars PvP, and that's also its downfall in that regards.

In terms of like social quality? Then yeah it does depend on the server and it's people.

Don't really understand why you try to write an unbiased comparison and then puts [subjective] in front of everything you write, seems kinda useless imo.
Only a WoW fanboy can say that WoW has better/equal graphics than GW.
Ive only tried WoW on a small scale and never got further then lvl 15 so i can't pretend to know anything about the game mechanics, but i must say i wasn't impressed at all of what i saw, i simply can't understand why people get so addicted to it.
There are so many games just like it out there, a lot of them free of monthly charge.
Not to say GW doesnt have it's flaws, but at least its one of a kind...

I think there are two different comparisons going on here.

First. Comparison between two *genres* of games. "Collect your gear and boast with it" style MMORPG vs the GW genre. I am even not sure how to call the latter since there are not so many other games out in this genre. Let it be CORPG then as A net calls it.

Second. Comparison between two *games* as representatives of the genres. Here, WoW is definitely the most popular, with most content and possibly also objectively best in its genre. (Not sure about the latter, may be somebody can correct me.) GW is just unique in its genre. (Same - correct me?)

I have *not* played WoW so I don't know how does it do as a game. I don't like the genre. In the case of GW, I personally like the genre, I just wish GW would be a better game. (I am mostly annoyed by the lack of social interaction - and means to achieve it, by the lack of Z axis. I'd also like to have a RvR PvP; it would be a chaos but it would be a easy entrance for beginners who then could start considering other arenas.) Let's wait for GW2...

I think the best way to look at it is to think of a pro bowler vs an avid bowler.

The pro bowler makes a big deal about his gear, and puts a lot of emphasis on his "pro" status.

The avid bowler might bowl on a league, and may even own his own ball, but they aren't a defining part of his person, and he wouldn't make a big deal about having to bowl w/o his gear.

In the case of GW and WoW, GW is the avid bowler and WoW is the pro.

The WoW player, since they pay monthly, put a lot of emphasis on "WoW time", and since it is a much longer game, every level, every item is given significance.

The GW player has a more relaxed outlook; ok so I can't play today because I have other obligations, I'm not really losing out because I don't pay each month. Each level gained or item found, however, is not as significant because they can get max stuff relatively easily. This is a plus if you don't have a lot of time to grind, but a minus if you "need" rare or unique items to distinguish you. Another plus, however, is that you can grind for this stuff if you feel the need to.

Overall, my only gripe w/ WoW is the much slower travel speeds, the lesser graphical detail, and the inability to go as far w/o a human party. Both games definitely have their merits, and, (of course), the above is my opinion...

I don't put emphasis on the fact that I'm a "pro" or that I need to distinguish myself, I just need the gear to experience the later levels in the game. Gear is the only way you can truly progress your character without a holy-shit-that's-high level cap.

Plus, picking up a powerful sword or shield is pretty damn nifty : )

Also, saying they're different bowlers can be a bit misleading since both games appeal to vastly different crowds.

I'm really not sure about that. The more I read on this topic, the more it seems to me that a lot of players cross between the 2 games, if not playing them at the same time. WoW players come to GW because they're fed up with the fees and the difficulty to get the best gears, or want a really challenging PvP, while GW players come to WoW for its level of support and permanence. So overall the two communities are not so separate and players not so different.

WoW definitely has the advantage, but I'd say it's more a question of "sheer numbers" (Blizzard is steam-rolling in this business, let's not forget that they didn't started from like Anet, they had 3 very successfull games before them; the merge with Activision only confirms that and they'll continue to be very successful for a very long time) than of subjective opinion. I'll continue to say that IMHO Anet's vision of the genre is more balanced and nuanced, while Blizzard more heavily relies on making it "big", rather than "good", the subjectivity of which is not a reason not to try to (and Anet made bolder moves than Blizzard given that it is small and can do so).

People have fun on both sides of the electronic MMO divide (or whatever you call it). I guess that WoW players feel that WoW is so big (in terms of subscribes and universe) that they don't feel threatened by GW or its players' opinions. While GW being small is always at the risk of Blizzard/WoW taking on their small world (Shatner and Mister T advertising WoW on tv? I'd rather read the MMORPG.com's review of EotN...) and its players also clearly see some aspects of both games that could be improved (WoW, being the monopoly of MMOs, does not need to improve drastically, only to change at a pace satisfying to its population).

I think that in the end all GW and WoW players are happy enough not to start a revolution. We're probably discussing a non-problem . Nevertheless, I very much liked trm819's idea of GW2 giving the choice to player on instancing or not, that would be really great and probably an extremely difficult architectural challenge. But well, with Anet we can expect a lot .

Fril Estelin, the funny part is the WoW ads are all over gwonline's forums.
But I don't mind, I played both and saw them as 2 different games.
I doubt GW is trying to dominate anything. Strain sounds like he doesn't want people to play any game exclusively too.
I don't know why so many people compare GW and WoW.

Let's start comparing Street Fighter to Tekken now.

Well, honestly, this thread was quite good. You can learn a few things, correct misconceptions and fight prejudices (WoW is all this, GW is all that). Even if it does not change your vision of both games (because it was correct in the first place?), it may do so for other people. It did for me .

Fight!

Chump change compared to the amount of GRIND WoW requires. A couple of hundred dollars to unlock everything, compared to a couple of hundred days (in hours Thousands of hours), get a job, you'll understand--There is absolutely NO comparison. And you fooling yourself if you think ANYTHING is challenging in WoW. Herding Cats is challenging, and that's about all your going to get when GRINDING raid dungeons.

WoW = Massive Grind, a little skill. To advance your character.

GW = Skill, much less grind. To advance your character.

WoW = Massive GRIND to continue your Journey

GW = Very little grind to continue or Complete your journey.

Balan, I think it's clear enough for us to understand that you hate WoW and has long become GW's BFB. So I guess you can tone down your WoW hatred a little bit or maybe try not to express it here without anything else to support your words other than your feeling, eh?

personally, i feel WoWs dungeon require more co-ordination then GW's does but less individual skill during combat, the dances are harder to learn. I personally dont find WoW appealing as the gameplay is too linear for me [the builds, the instance routines etc, the progression of ur toon, required time investment etc] but it does hav alot of content and big brand company to back its development and marketing, so its no suprise that more ppl prefer it to GW.

O yeah sum1 said earlier that only poor ppl and kids play GW? i play it cos it doesnt require no way near as much grind to mmo's of the evercrack model and also allows a higher degree of freedom in terms of builds and play style, and also think it requires more individual skill during combat - while also allowing casual gaming style to be more rewarding, since i dont want to b glued to the pc screen i prefer this. That and the fact that i dont feel WoW is worth paying for, to me it seems more like a lifestyle then a game, and a lifestyle id rather not hav and dont want to pay for - this is imo 1 of the reasons y u get some wow fan boys shooting down every other mmo and boasting about there own 1 imo, theyre defending their money investment and lifestyle and need to prove to themselves and to others that it was all worth while , dont get me wrong though i do think WoW has some pretty cool features but overall i dont like it.

anyway thats just my opinion.

WoW = Massive Grind, a little skill. To advance your character.

GW = NO skill, NO grind. To advance your character.

WoW = Massive GRIND to continue your Journey

GW = No effort at all to continue or Complete your journey.

Guild Wars is so ridiculously easy in 95% of the game. There is no character advancement. Guild Wars greatly resembles a child's 2D side-scrolling "educational" game. Can't die, your character doesn't get any better, and it takes as much brain function as a 3 year old can put out.

The sad thing is, many people struggle with it, which just blows my mind.

WoW....grind, bad graphics.

One thing that WoW does have over Guild Wars is....the ability to do SOMETHING that doesn't consist of fighting. The ability to mine, craft armor, craft weapons, enchant, and all of that stuff IMO adds a lot to the game.

7,000 hours on GW
Level 20ish, twice on WoW

Bored to hell with Guild Wars, no incentive to play WoW...

Actually playing Oblivion, and Warcraft 3 Custom Maps nowadays.

When I wrote that I had been thinking of the number of times GW actually does exactly that -- for example, there are quests that convert town areas (which are normally persistent, obviously) into instance areas, such as when you have to fight torment creatures in Kaineng City or Lion's Arch, etc.

From a coding standpoint, it does not seem like it would be that much of a challenge to design "parallel" regions, one instanced and the other not, that the player could then choose to enter based on some UI option (like the way selecting a district is handled now).

In "Persistent Mode", you would encounter other players and perform quests and fight mobs much like you would in a standard MMO such as WoW.

In "Instanced Mode", you would enter an IDENTICAL region, but with mobs, quests, etc., all scaled to match a player/hench group much as is done in GW1.

If ArenaNet did offer such an option, I'd love for them to make the instanced areas require smaller groups (I have always felt 8 is way too many). It would be better to limit instanced areas (except for perhaps mega-endgame encounters or elite dungeons) to 1 to (at most) 6 players.

Basically, if you entered a region in "instanced mode" with fewer than the maximum players, your xp, loot, etc. would increase, providing a range of hard to harder modes depending on party size.

For solo-oriented players, you could then offer 1 to 5 fully customizable Heroes (including primary profession) that could be used only in instances (i.e., dungeons/missions) or "Instance Mode" regions.

If GW2 were set up in such a way, I would enjoy playing regions both ways -- because I enjoy both playing styles and can see the benefits of both persistence and instancing. If ArenaNet comes up with anything like this, I think they would have a real winner of a game on their hands.

EDIT: Moreover, there would never be any waiting around for other players to fill out your group, which is and always has been my single biggest gripe with WoW and other MMOs of that genre.

/trivial post warning

Well one thing WoW did beat out GW on for me this year was the Winter Veil present:

Logged in with hubby, both got a "Rocketbot" (mini robot) present from under the tree. We both summoned it and they immediately fired two rockets at each other and mine blew the crap out of his.*



*Not permanently, his just got unsummoned, but hey it made me laugh.

Short reply here (so that the thread is not hijacked): it would be much more difficult than you think, because there's an obvious balance to maintain in order to run the system efficiently and at a controlled cost (the only way Anet can maintain the no-monthly-fee). Anyway, it does make a lot of sense as you explain.

OK. Thanks. I'm no programmer, so it's all "easy" to me. lol.

Point of comment regarding gear progression in WoW: In patch 2.3, the Season 3 ("Vengeful Gladiator") Arena Armor sets, equal to Tier 6 armor (i.e. end-game raiding), can be obtained in a few months without serious playtime commitment or skill.

The trick is that you get Arena points even when you lose in 5v5 Arenas. So no matter how much you suck, you can eventually get epics. You can get atleast a few hundred Arena points per week with this method, and an epic armor piece (out of 5) costs between 1,000-2,000 Arena points. So you can do anything you want, just do only 10 matches a week, and eventually get epics.

How more casual friendly can you get?

Some on the WoW forums, infact, complain that this is too unfair to raiders, as it's basically "welfare epics." (as coined by the WoW PvE developer)

I myself was unable to get an Arena team for this trick, since everyone I knew took the Arena somewhat seriously...

(And in unrelated news, my Xbox 360 RRODed, so no Mass Effect for me. Hmm. Might as well find something to play on my Wii.)

If a friend in WoW says "Bryant, I ain't gonna be able to play WoW no more due to real-life stuff. Any games you'd recommend that can still sate my interests?", I'd say "buy Oblivion."

It's not a matter of fees/no-fees but of interests. Players enjoy WoW because of the high levels and larger reliance on gear - and that's why they're a bit disappointed when they come to GW. It's not that it's reliance of skill over gear, it's the fact that there's *no* reliance on gear. It's why I don't call GW an MMO: It has little to appeal to that audience.

And most of the WoW-to-GW players that I know come to GW because they're totally spiteful of WoW, not because of the PvP. I've also known those same players to be massively disappointed.

It's mostly done by Guild Wars players.

WoW isn't challenging? Then GW is Diablo on "I'm Too Young To Die." On Guild Wars I've hit the wall. On WoW I have not.

It's less of a trick and more just how the game is.

And lol at the people complaining. I remember people were complaining that "PEOPLES LEVEL TOO FAST" due to the leveling changes.

And also, you can now get T1 Arena (still a kickass set) for not everyone playing in the arena anymore - you can now purchase those sets with honor points.

TF2? I'm always playin'...

You're only 17? Aw, itty bitty baby :P.