Guild Wars vs. other MMO's

Guys, I have to say, after playing both GW and a number of other MMO's...

Most of the other MMO's could learn a major lesson from GW in terms of polish and good design.

Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of the other games are different *kinds* of games in the first place, so in terms of gameplay it's often apples and oranges. It's hard to give a direct comparison between GW and, say, EVE Online just on gameplay terms, and GW isn't trying to be the everything-to-everyone MMO that WoW tries to be.

Where GW shines is the consistent quality (and completeness!) of their shipped campaigns, the consistency of the style and artwork, user friendliness, and replayability.

No matter what else I'm playing, I still get on GW. It's funny, when sitting around with a bunch of gamers someone brought up GW, and half the people were like, "yeah! I play that! It's nice because you don't have to do it all the time, and can come back later". The other half wanted to see it, were impressed, and picked it up themselves.

Most of the GW players I know either have other MMO accounts or have had them and canceled them, and still play GW.

Another area where GW does well is clear, complete patch notes and a good relationship with the community. This is a clear contrast with some of the other PR train wrecks out there recently.

So, count yourselves lucky! I'm off to find some new loot or dye something black.

And GW can learn from other MMOs in terms of depth and content.

Yeah I do keep coming back, I don't like it much but there's something fun about it.

As for the good relationship with the community....NO that's not true. It's decent but it's not good. At least not anymore.

I enjoy GW most than others. But there is something lacking in GW.

Two of the big ones for me is:
No LARGE end game raids. This is what brought me to be really good friends with some of my old WoW buddies. The feeling of accomplishment after doing a 25 man raid was just amazing.

And no open world (being implemented in GW2 though).

Also, as I've said previously... open world PvP is so much fun. Sure you get pissed if you get ganked while leveling, but to turn around and gank them back is just soooo much fun.

Guild Wars isn't an MMO. Crossing genres for 'vs' threads just doesn't work

QFT. For or against the game, they always turn into a California brush fire after a page or two.

Oh, and use /search.

he never compared any games, +1 for reading.

anyways, your post has a lot of truth to it and is very similar to my own experiences. i have switched between a LOT of games, and GW and RO are the only two i have consistently enjoyed coming back to every once and a while.

any reason you made this post, it probably will just become fodder for trolls... i mean look half the people that responded, they didnt even read it

having played 6-8 mmos (long enough to judge them meaning 1 month of more) - I would say that GW is the best by far in terms of consistency, content, PR (although that has slipped some) and most importantly - enjoyability over the long haul. Of the other games only one had the content, & consistency to keep coming back.... sadly it looks like a cartoon and cost $15/month so I quit it. (i bet you can guess which one I'm talking about lol)

Bingo.

Besides that: many can learn from GW, GW can learn from many.

And I wouldn't be too sure about that "good relationship with the community". That's what many consider to be GW's downfall. But Regina has been doing a pretty decent job as of late.

That's just the most anal-retentive argument ever.

Why is Guild Wars not an MMO? Because NCSoft marketing department says it's a CORPG.
So what's a CORPG? It's GW. No other game uses that moniker; it doesn't exist outside GW marketing.
Why did NCSoft marketing department decide to invent a new moniker for GW?
Because their research indicated that people associated "MMORPG" with monthly fees, an association NCSoft marketing really, really, really, want to avoid.
And so it became the only CORPG there ever was, or will ever be.

Of course GW should be compared to other MMO's, it is one. And I know for a fact it compares favorably to at least Everquest 2.

There are some people that prefer instanced PvE (such as myself). Also, to me, open world PvP is so much not fun. It all basically revolves around the luck and chance of whether or not someone targets you. It becomes to hectic to actually require skill.

But, more importantly, do you know what it doesn't compare favorably to? WoW.

I don't call GW an MMO for numerous reasons, but chief among them is expectation. These days, when you're called an "MMO" and you have dragons and magic on the boxart, people expect tons of thousands of things: long level cap, end-game, mounts, tanking-and-spanking, DPS, threat levels...And Guild Wars doesn't have any of that. And when an MMO doesn't have any of those, it's considered "ba-yad".

Besides that, the game just feels more like Diablo to me than anything else. Each outpost is a chatroom, each explorable/mission a server.

And as a sidenote: "World PvP" is an oxymoron.

Be very careful with those words. You will bring out the denial fanbois "This is not an MMO" *Stomps foot on ground*

And that's what made Guild Wars so good

And made the traditional MMOs, in my opinion, suck.

Lemme break it down for you Numa:

CORPG: Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. Hence going through a storyline; all instanced game play; choice of henchmen, then heroes as the game evolved; team-style, not world, PvP.

The game's role started changing as more people assumed it was an MMO. They started adding MMO qualities to the game, which, to be on topic, shows agreat aspect of the game: flexibility. Considering they have done things to the game which were never accounted for in its original framework(compare Prophecies on its own to the entire game as it is now), The game grew and developed a lot. With titles, dungeons, elite areas, they tried to do as much as possible to offer some of the traditional MMO experience to its players. They also assured success for casual players, and you could say are trying to transition the game to give a hint of GW2(HoM, PvP/PvE separation).

The limits are because the game is not an MMO. No long leveling, no persistent world, no "Sword of a Thousand Truths" style weapons. Because of its build as a CORPG and the devs' desire for PvP balance, the game can grow only so far. In MMOs you can launch campaigns and hold sieges till the cows come home, and have that variation of levels and a persistent world to keep things interesting. For that you get the disadvantage of grinding and imbalance(read Ganking).

Regardless of what it is, numa's point is that invalidating the comparison because it is a "CORPG" is stupid because it's the only, self-classified, CORPG. Nobody ever said MMOs required high level caps, ptp fees, or weapons which clearly outclass others. That's just what people associate with categorical MMOs. It's just ANET rhetoric so people have an excuse to validate poor qualities of the game which can be attributed to not being "MMO" caliber.

GW isn't maintainted by PVP balance, PVE skills are a sign of that. The game creators can just as easily make PVE weapons. What you could say is that Guild Wars began as something unique, but once people began losing interest it developed MMO qualities, which makes it perfectly suitable for a comparison now, shifty categorization or not.

You can read more about that in this thread:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10297855

/claps
He's completely right. The fact of the matter is GW is not an MMO. GW PvE was never intended to last long. PvP was supposed to be the end-game experience. But people loved the mechanics of GW so much that they never really wanted to leave (including me). But then they get stuck, because there was never a lot of content at the end because Anet never intended on players being in PvE for a long time. Then they tried to make the PvE game last longer, ended up with some good ideas and some bad, but ultimately realized that the game they made wasn't suiting the fans and are starting anew. It is very smart of them to do so, and I can't wait for what they bring to GW2.

While it does not change much in the ongoing discussion, I just like to mention that CORPG does NOT stand for "Cooperative Online Role Playing Game", but for "Competitive Online Role Playing Game".

Official FAQ:
Anyway, the last time I saw an A.Net employee use the term "CORPG" must have been 1987, srsly.


Back to topic:
Guild Wars is the only Online Game (to avoid the MMO debate) I *constantly* keep coming back for more than 4 years by now.
I play GW, I get bored, I play other MMOs, I get bored even faster, I play GW.
My ever-lasting Online Gaming Life Cycle™.


[e] Keep in mind that the quoted FAQ is 3-4 years old, and Guild Wars has changed a LOT meanwhile - constantly acquiring even MORE MMO traits.

The main difference between GW and all others is that GW did not begin as a polished game. It began as an experimental, low-budget, free-to-play game that grew and changed as ANet worked with community input, etc.

As a result GW has been tailored to suit the tastes of the average community member. The new game offerings are expected by us to be polished from the get-go. When they don't compare well with a 3-yr-old GW, we walk away.

I'm sorry, but phrases like this make my blood boil. GW is massive, it's multiplayer, it's online, it's an MMO. Please, stop making up game genres.

i agree... having to worry about people kill stealing and camping mods just isnt fun to me. instanced pve is actually the first thing that attracted me to gw and pulled me away from certain mmos. im very disappointed that theyll be removing this in gw2, at least to some extent. but o well, what can ya do?