WoW player thinking about GW

So yeah, i've been playing WoW for about a year now(since it came out) and i've gotten kinda bored with it. Is it worth the $50 to buy guildwars. How much of the gameplay is different(besides taht stupid everything is instanced). Thanks

I would hardly call instanced stupid. Yes, Guild Wars is a good game, but coming to a forum dedicated to Guild Wars asking if it is a good game will probably only net yes answers. It won PC Gamer's best value and best MMO, although I wouldn't classify Guild Wars as an MMO.

After coming from a big MMO like WoW you may find this game to be too small, all my WoW loving friends did.

if you hate instanced dont buy GW....

I don't hate instanced areas it just annoys me. Mainly, how does the combat in this game work?

watched my friend playing WoW... I'd never switch from GW to play it. Just my opinion though... plus you can't beat free to play.

If you honestly like WoW, you will likely not enjoy GW very much at all.

I suppose I could clarify.

Teamplay is much, much more important in this game than in WoW. You will (almost) never ever go anywhere without someone else in your party. Your character WILL NOT be designed/able to do things completely on their own.

PVE is short. Tiny, compared to WoW. It's also very much linear, ala Diablo in a lot of ways. It does not take long at all to reach the maximum level (20) or get the absolute best equipment, stat-wise. This game does not focus very much at all on equipment--not nearly as much as WoW.

Combat is relatively straightforward. Your character can only have eight skills equipped at a time, so you have to pick and choose just what kind of character you want to be for each mission. For example, Elementalists have the choice of specializing in Fire (AOE), Air (Single-target), Earth (Utility, expensive AOE), or Water (more utility, snares).

Then there's PVP, which can be some of the most fun gaming experiences you've ever had, when it works. Random arenas (4v4, teams randomly matched), Team arenas (same, except you can put your team together beforehand), Heroes' Ascent (8-man teams progress through a tournament-style series of maps), and Guild vs Guild battles (again 8-man).

I don't know what else to put here so okay!

Coming from WoW myself, a few things in GW really shine, and these things in particular make it for me.
1. PvP- WoW PvP is a bloody mess atm- the only PvP that goes on is instances battleground pvp ANYWAY, and even that involves 1+ hr queues, or stupidy where a 'guild-based' bg team enters the bg, so the other party justexits immediately.

Not to mention the extremely poor itemization between warriors and every other class making it horribly imbalanced atm...

Guild Wars achieves the balance between classes that WoW could only dream of.

But first, you'll have to get passed the fact that you can't run *everywhere*, it'll be easier for you to operate guild wars ala diablo 2, using mouse clicking for movement. Groups are easy to find in guild wars, and the only time you'll see more than 8ish players together are in towns where you find groups.
Otherwise it's just your small party and the big wide world, and a plethora of missions.

If you're big into the 40 man raid business, guild wars isn't going to hold much for you. But if you like epic, close-knit instances where you can actually function as a proper team, guild wars has ALOT in store for you. And once you're through all that, if you're a PvP fan, then you'll be right at home, as guild wars offers team arenas, guild v guild battles (guilds mean something here unlike WoW), big competitive ladders and a host of character and class mixes that you can change on the fly , making no 2 PvP fights the same (nor any 2 party setups either!).

Hopefully some of the more experienced guys can elaborate further on what i've said, as I haven't gotten too far into it all yet!

Hope that helps somewhat.

Thats so wrong. GW is different, and he could well enjoy it.

Besides, if he does not like it after a week, then he can get almost all his money back if he sells his Game on ebay, maybe more than he paid for it, if its got lots of gold in it.

Thanks for the info, I'm not sure if i'm gonna buy it yet but i'll certainly think about it. I might try playing at a friends house before I buy it. There aren't any free trials for GW are there?

it may change comes chapter 2.. which is coming sooner than WoW Expansion.

G.W no grinds like in WoW.

Just Don't be a Wow Noob

WoW Noob: A noob who calls everyone else noobs, is bad at comebacks, and depends on high armor, weapons or character lvl to win.

Too many of these at my school. They Don't like the even PvP playing field of GW.

However if your not a WoW noob then you should like GW very much.

P.S. I am not calling everyone who plays WoW a noob. I am naming a type of noobs that invaded on Factions PvP Weekends and generally come from WoW.

Also if your tired of WoW noobs in WoW then this place is more clean but not entirely clean of them.

Even if you don't end up liking it very much, it'll still be far better value. Guild wars has a one-time fee, and that gives you pretty much hundreds of hours of unique content... Pretty good price, in my opinion. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, charges you the same amount for the game... then charges you to play it... and then you have to wait just to log on... (but ssshhhhh... don't tell anyone! The fact that it's a bad deal is supposed to be Blizzard's little secret! Plus, they need as much money as possible available to make Starcraft 2...)

Guild Wars is technically a superior game. The streaming technology kicks ass and the graphics are beautiful.

It's pretty much up to you, though. I don't really have anything to add to what the above posters have said.

it is not really a free trial but keep checking the GW site for the sneak peek free PVE weekend coming up hopefully soon.

we just finished the free PVP weekend peek a week or so ago.

get a free key, set up an account and look at the tiny bit they want to show you for the weekend no charge

I can tell you this much. I never really wanted to get into guild wars. I was playing Morrowind at the time and that game kicked serious *** because you could do almost anything you wanted. So when my friend bought me Guild Wars for my birthday, and he already had the game, I was motivated to play just because I could team up with him. At first I didn't like it that much because you didn't have as much freedom as in Morrowind. I think "simplistic" is how I described it to my friend. But eventually I got into it. Mainly because I was just plain sick of Morrowind at this point and I had nothing else going on so I played GW. It is fun trying to find good skill combinations to utterly crush your enemies. But it still bugs me that you can't do much in the way of details like pick locks, pick up misc items, totally customize everything, ect. But Elder Scrolls Oblivion is coming out in another month.... if my computer can handle it that game might drag me out of GW for a real long time. Now that I think about it, oblivion could keep me from getting factions. But I guess if anet "purposely" delays factions for a few months, I'll probably get over the initial wow of Oblivion to start up factions too.

Actually, the secret is even dirtier, more insipid than you think. There was a game trade article that did a study. Whereas in Korea, all game clients are free, you just pay a monthly fee to play (if at all), and *NO ONE* would ever dream marketing a game there by charging for the client and a monthly fee. The "discerning" American consumer taste is that we will not value a game if we actually hadn't overpaid for it (a la WoW or EQ when they are first released). Games that do not charge you a premium for a client or a monthly often receive the (incorrect) assumption and the reputation that it is an inferior product because (and inspite) of that reason! Are we really that stupid?

please forgive me butt i absolutely cannot help saying......

*that you have to ask the question is its own answer*

GW = is strats dependent, If you are dependent on level grinding, high end gear, this is not for you.

It's a great game thought

Psht, I'd subscribe to WoW if I thought SC2 would ever happen :P

Btw, its $25 bucks now. Search around for it in stores or online you can find it for that price.

if you arent cheap, i say stick with wow, cause i thing the stanced combat in GW gets dull after a while, and after you beat the main quest farming is the only thing to do, unless you wanna redo the whole main quest again, but hopefully factions will change some of the less awesome features of the game

p.s. i am not a wow fanboy, just my honest opinion while watching my friend play wow

LOL Finding that hefty subscription fee to maintain your characters exp and inventory for a game you only now play casually a little too much to handle??? Gee now you finally understand what we in GW have known from the beginning... there is no need for such a game model... And the fact the MMOs continue to do this when there is a better alternative is proof they are a dieing breed...

Personally I say no... Go ahead and play your WoW that you love so much, and continue to pay hundreds a year to maintain it when you only play it casually now. You will probably not be able to appreciate GuildWars and the spectacular unique aspect of the way ArenaNet has setup their system.

This from your statement obviously you are coming in hating this to begin with, so why bother... last thing we need is more propaganda mongers for WoW in game.

best game on the planet .

after diving in the pve , i give you 6 months , then try some pvp , and see whats action , nothing you have ever seen in any mmo.

peace

The fact that you have shelled out $150+ over the last year for one game (WoW) makes me wonder why you are making such a big deal about whether or not to get a game that you can buy for only $25 and not have to pay a monthly fee for. So, I say...buy the darned game and try it out! If you don't like it, then use some of your WoW grinding skills and get a character to level 20, sell your game and get more money for it than you paid.

what exactly does propaganda mean Iv check the dictionary and they said a war with christians or somthing and im not entirely sure if thats what it means

I <3 GW. My bro <3 Wow. I know alot about both games, and have even tried out WoW for some time.

I think GW is MUCH better. WoW is 90% based on your level and items. GW is great becasue you can jump right in with a level 20 pvp only char or level up.

Spending hours leveling your characters isn't the goal of GW, infact by the time most people are level 20 they are about 1/2-3/4 through the game.

propaganda

n : information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause

For future reference, use http://dictionary.com

WoW has horrible graphics in relation to Guild Wars.

Guild Wars plays like an FPS, WoW is like a golf game in comparison.

No monthly fees, so just buy it anyway. You never know if you do not try.

Unlike WoW you don't spend time gettign skills upped in caliber, you use attribute points.

WOW has so many superfluous stuff like crafting professions.

WoW has many PKers also.

You can quit GW for a while after hitting the desert and come back and not much will have changed in terms of the levels because of the level 20 cap.
You won't be addicted to Warcrack...er warcraft...aka you can quit Guild Wars and come back.

If you want a game that eats up all of your free time, go for WoW. If you want a game that you don't have to feel like your losing money if you don't play it for a day in a month you payed for, go for GW.

GW is good because I still havent see any other MMO that is so fun in the PVP area.

Im suprised no one has mentioned this but the ppl at anet actually care about you(or your money) through giving free updates, interaction with ppl from anet via gaile gray and the frog, and different contests and tournaments.

I agree with you partly there zoozoc. The WoW developers have zero interaction with their customer base, and you'd find a good portion of WoW members (i know I was) were unleashing their frustration on the rather useless 'community representatives', who would rather start flame wars with the user base then accept points raised by people who play the game day in day out.

It has been seen that the only way the customer base could get anything put through with WoW, was to organise mass-scale events to crash the server/make it unplayable in one particular area of the game. Either that or make 500 page multi-topics consisting of just /signed from every player.

Just one thing to remember (and something that I see alot of people saying here, which I really don't like), Guild Wars certainly isn't free, nor do they do anything for free. Sure, they do it better (and i'm happy to give them my money because of this), but Anet DO wish to be releasing standalones on a bi-annual basis- sans profits none of this would be possible for them; whereas subscription services would be doing this in any case. (expansion packs aside here- it's actually one thing that's pissed me off with WoW- subscription, box AND expansion pack expenses- WTF? talk about lining your pockets with the hides of your customers).
There's no "free updates", we're paying for the service we expect here, and if it was any less it couldn't hope to contend with the bigshot games like it has been, nor would it have kept people interested for as long.

Just don't expect to be spending as much time on PvE as you did with WoW. If you don't like PvP, the GW PvE content is still rich and definitely money-worthy, but it won't compare longevity-wise to WoW's 0-60 and raid content. Astonishingly fresh and awesome PvP is what tips the scales in favour of GW

Oh and the graphics *wow*....thank god I'm not staring at the saturday morning kid's cartoon that is WoW anymore...

Played WoW for about 8 monthes meself before quitting and embracing GW. GW is 'different'; kind of a good news/bad news deal:

Server technology -
good news: no queues, minimal lag, streaming tech is fantastic(!), no pking in missions, no kill-stealing. Server downtime = 0.

bad news: player community suffers, you don't get to know the other players all that well. Joining a good guild can help this alot.

PvE storyline/quests -
good news: There is a primary storyline! An average one, anyway. Some good quests.

bad news: WoW has more quests and they are generally more entertaining than GW's.

Level 20 cap -
good news: no infini-grind to get to a competitive level!

bad news: no infini-grind. Takes anywhere from 2-6 weeks to get 1st character through storyline and to max level.

Late game missions -
good news: doesn't take 4+ hours to organize/play thorough highest level PvE 'missions'. Not as hard as WoW's late game raids.

bad news(?): not as hard as WoW's late game raids.

Skillbar/character type depth -
good news: no comparison here. way more depth in skill/skill combos, even for a single (2 profession) character. Add in party configuration interactions, and it just blows WoW away.

bad news: well, if you don't like the depth of the skill interactions/possibilities, I guess that would be bad news.

PvP -
another area where GW just destroys WoW. I'm not really into PvP, and even I think it's pretty cool.

Farming -
good news(?): you can do it; it's tolerated, somewhat.

bad news: not alot of uber items to grind/farm for. ANet likes to make farming difficult.

If you like PvP you will like GW. If you play PvE to find great items and build a superstrong chr, than you wont like GW.

The world is big and beautiful, yet gameplay is very much the same no matter where you go:
Maps crowded with groups of monsters bring fighting concepts down to 1 single tactic: Wait until you can lure a single group towards your party and finish them off! Repeat this untll the map is cleared. Remember, with the exception of some small parts of the map, you *MUST* be in a party to make any chance. No way to solo! Sure, you can take henchmen, but they consume the loot.
You will reach max level fast, in 2 or 3 weeks. There is no reason for 'grinding' because the best items in the game are all variations of items you can buy or get at collectors. No super stuff around. And since you can't solo you probably wont notice much difference in usage when you are in a party. It all depends on how skills work together, not on items.

Basically I have this advice: If you like games like Starcraft and BW, you may like GW because of the PvP battles. If you prefer D2/LOD you probably won't like GW.

Good luck

GW does things for free, unlike WoW. Anet has expanded the game without charging any fees for it (SF, Grenths, new UW) and no, its not free as GW has to be bought but so does WoW AND you pay montly fees. I think that is a pretty significant difference.
GW has also introduced the now infamous green items for free and continues to actively support and work on GW..all without charging players on a monthly basis.

Also, Anet has a very clear stance on what you get for free and what is to be paid for, new professions wont be free (ie requiring buying Factions) BUT if you buy Factions you do not have to own GW to play it. Another big plus in the financial department there.

Any my biggest issue with WoW. Paying for access and not being able to get access for hours, totally and utterly unacceptable.
I tried WoW for 2 weeks and uninstalled it, in that period I was able to play for less then half the time I had available due to connection issues and lag, on GW I have neither yet I dont have to pay GW every month.

I really enjoy GW, but I would say you'll be disappointed in the item/drops category if that's for you -

armor is crafted rather than acquired, all of it is very similiar/not many options
get your outfit and it'll rarely if ever change outside pricey cosmetic options

weapons in general are better from collectors or crafted than anything that drops, outside the new 'greens' with set stats which mostly represent collectors with perfect mods, some with varying skins

it's in fact almost obscenely rare you find any rare of any kind of use, unless you're a solo farmer and really good at avoiding farming code (which quite frankly is probably tough to do, if party = 1 seems an easy enough check lol)

so instead you get farmers mostly for goods that sell for cash (shards, ecto) - yay :b I suppose if there was disappointment on my end that's it, you rarely rarely if ever get stuff you'll make use of, instead trading/selling/buying for stuff where you werent questing/collecting/crafting. even quest stuff is rarely that good, except for early levels where you didn't 'twink' your character (ie first time through or still in presear)

moreso quests drive skills, and experience -> skill pts -> skills, which if you're a completest can suck up an amazing amount of time between the 6 classes, regular skills, and elite skills. A good and bad thing, as it hooks to your PvP viability, thus there is grind if your goal focuses on PvP either through faction points playing PvP (which didnt exist until an update, and then giving you any kind of reasonable points until a further update) or quite a lot of PvE.

Although PvE may be less than WoW, you may hit is several times through for your characters (eventually getting entirely sick of Ascalon, heh). Henchmen aid your effort if you don't want to be bothered with (or can't find) aid most of the time, and get the job done, most of the time. As it is instanced there isn't aid elsewhere - only who's in your party shows up for the fight - ie noone pops by to lend a little hand now and then, and though there are a few places npc guards/allies aid, that's not the norm.

Certain missions get much more challenging with one 'live' player but for the most part you'll do OK. Certain characters are tougher to play PvE through (most notably mesmers) as outside some specific missions their need isn't evident and thus the masses kind of ignore that class. As you start with groups of 2, 4, 6 and only eventually reach 8, groups tend to have a couple monks and more obvious/accessible classes in the line-up.

I tried to identify some sticklers, but I'm probably coming upon 1k hrs pretty soon - for a $50 entry fee ($100 here with 2 for the household) that isn't too shabby. And as I understand it you can get it cheaper now.

Don't think you can go wrong there - cheers,
CKaz

The only disappointing aspect of Guild Wars is just how long it takes to get a decent set of skills unlocked for PvP. Someone who dives into PvP without doing PvE first has quite a bit of unlocking to do.

However, since you'll most likely play through the campaign with one or two characters first in PvE, this won't be a problem for you.

I hope you're still reading to this point.

I started with WoW, before GW even came out. I really liked it, but couldn't bring myself to renew subscription.

Guild Wars basically took over a few months of my life.

Last september I went back to WoW for a few months... but found myself getting bored again. It was fun while it lasted, but I couldn't bring myself to do one more "Go grindquest 200 rock elementals until they give you 6 rare drops".

I can't bring myself to do SM one more time. I actually fell asleep on a run(which was bad, being the priest).
WoW lacked a real story to it. They do addict you with promises of new levels and uber items... but by level 40 I was just tired of it.
And well, if you like things like MC runs in an attempt to spend hours of your life with a small chance of actually getting some uber item that makes you so much better than those without it... stay with WoW.

If you want a truely unique game where skill replaces uber items for the most part... go GW.

Incorrect.

WoW has "Go kill a bunch of raptors for some reason becasue we need their hearts. However, not all raptors have hearts... you know...zombie raptors"

GW has "Go kill these guys. If they're dead, we're happy. I honestly don't need the heart of a dwarf...really"



Wow has "Go travel to the other side of the world. You'll have to take a zeplin, some flight paths, and then run (or ride a mount) a pretty long way... you'll get about 500xp and a weapon you don't really want or need at this point"

GW has "Use Map Travel to go back to Ascalon instantly. You'll get 500xp and some new skills"



WoW has "Go search the bottom of this ocean... good luck finding anything without an online map"

GW has "No water, unfortunatly... but at least we give you a star pointing you to the exact location where items you're supposed to retrieve are at"



Speaking of skills... unlike WoW, you don't spend all your gold you've made every two levels to buy new skills. MOST skills are earned through completing quests. I hated the fact that in WoW I had to only purchase about half my skills because they were costing everything I had.

The new ritualist class is a bellydancer - what other reason could you possibly need ?

guild wars is a great game. cheap now and well worth it, there is simply a lot to do. ive been playing wow for a couple weeks now on a private server, no fees and i burned the game from my friend. i really dont think it compares with guild wars at all. its fun, but i just dont enjoy the grind too much. as others have mentioned, guild wars doesnt involve as much grind and the pve isnt as long and is rather basic, but when you get to pvp and can make custom builds that harness specific strategies, you can chain off and test some fun stuff. i would buy this game for the pvp if you dont like the pve.