World Size?

Heheh it's funny I think the direct opposite here.
GW world is more like diablo 2, areas full of angry mobs and nothing else. No forts, villages, ruins, anything. For example Elona is just different colours of desert with random swamps & palm trees, that's inspiring.
World in WoW is more Morrowind exploration style, art design is in whole different level when compared to GW.

Mind you that I'm not comparing graphics, just overall design.

Why do you people insint on comparing Guild Wars with Word of Warcraft?

Guild Wars IS NOT World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft IS NOT Guild Wars.

This is so clear that i can write it in mathematical lanaguage:
Gw =/= Wow

And since when WoW became a refference? Compare it to Ultima Online or Sonic 3.

Morrowind had probably the best world layout I had ever encountered.

I still play that game, a lot. That and FFVII

Prolly WoW since half of the area you can see on the maps you cant even explore.

I assume WoW is bigger, £8/$15 times bigger

Since we're comparing world size, Runescape is absolutely HUGE!

Honestly what really matter is how much you can play the game without getting bored, right? About a year and a half ago, several key members (including the leader) of the guild I'm in stopped playing GW and started a guild in WoW. Recently, (this soon?) their WoW guild disbanded due to lack of interest and they're ready to come back to GW. I'm sure a lot of you know people that have done the same. And to be fair, I'm sure some of you know folks that went to WoW and will never come back. The point is, what matters is replayability. If you play a lot, then you'll eventually get bored with either game, what really matters is how long that game will hold your interest.

oh and only 40% of all that area is actually playable in.

Wow, alot of WoW haters in this forum ...(no pun intended)

But to each his own.

I never found Oblivion's world to be expansive. It was packed with detail yes, but it was all very medieval and woodsy. Then it gets a bit snowy at the north, and then to the south they tried to do some like.. exotic thing. The houses looked like crayola boxes to me with cat people walking around.

Personally I never really liked WoW's world or even GW's world either. Oblivion's world would probably fair the best if it were not for the lack of differences between the areas. WoW's world and GW's world both have what Oblivion lacks which was very unique areas that are dramatically different from each other in design. Think Echovald Forest vs Jade Sea, or in WoW's case just something as simple as the nightelf territory vs the undead territory.

But back on topic though, GW to me is a condensed version of WoW... and in the condensing process it lost a few nick nacks, for one I'm not really a fan of how little monuments/land marks play a role in GW. Theres plenty of them to be found in WoW, they're just in seas of endless trees/crooks/paths and maybe a few houses with peasants giving "kill 5 of monster x" quests.

Let's for a moment assume, that Guild Wars would also design the areas in such a way that the coastline is the only border players encounter. What would be gained from that change? The designers can only create so much space in the time they got. Limiting everything to being an island wastes a lot of resources on designing the coast. It's better to give the designers the freedom to create the "level" the way they want and accept natural borders. After all, a coastline is just the same.

It's also hard to compare GW areas to WoW areas, since every single GW area is designed as if it was a raid dungeon in another game. There is little to no room to just plow through the world looking at its marvels. GW is right from the start a hardcore RTS-like critter and not a sightseeing game glorifying your favorite franchise (Star Wars, Trek, Warcraft, Dragonballe, etc.)

I know my post comes in a little late, but has anyone actually ran across a continent in WoW? I'm surprised to see so many people think WoW is much larger than it actually is.

I cant compare WoW to gw in map sizes because i kinda got bored of WoW xDD However my brother used to play WoW, i introduced him to GW because he said he was getting bored of WoW. He mentioned WoW was bigger, but didnt have as much detail or compact missions and quests like gw did which is more entertaining. Though now hes moved off GW and has gone onto LOTRO, i play this too and the map on there is much bigger. Though LOTRO and WoW are pay to play so you would expect them to have bigger areas, so people feel they have value for money. You shouldn't really compare a pay to play to a non pay to play MMO.