Guild Wars...any players?

[inflames07]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Having played Guild Wars and gotten my character to level 5, and then playing WoW a little while later, I would say that WoW is much better. It has an infinitely more develped culture and storyline, and the expansions are truly worth buying. Also, the gameplay and spellcasting is fairly similar, except for the point-move/ arrow-move. The action bars on the bottom of the screen is the exact same format, making me wonder if someone copied someone.
Here is a list of what I consider to be the pros/ cons of each game.

Player Interaction: World of Warcraft
-In WoW, the whole world is an open area where you can meet up with other players at any time. In GW, the whole world is solo play except for the towns. You are also given an "Area Chat" where you can talk to everyone that is in the same area as you. Guild Wars is much more chaotic, and you can only quest with other players if they join your group and leave the town with you. Despite the Horde/ Alliance no-communication division in WoW, I still think it wins this category.

Storyline, Lore, History, and so forth: World of Warcraft
-I think WoW wins this category for obvious reasons. A main one is of course the diversity and background in each of the different choosable races. Being a fan and player of each Warcraft and Starcraft game since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, I can tell you that the world of Azeroth is so rich and involved that it would be hard to beat.

Player Interest/ Indentification: World of Warcraft
-For other reasons, you really must play and find a Race and Class combination that works for you. Once you do this, you truly identify with your character and it is that much more fun.

Character Customization: Guild Wars
-This could possibly be a downside. In what I played of GW, I noticed that the classes were very flexible in what you had to choose. This was actually one of the reasons that I dislike GW, but I can still see how others might enjoy this. Also, the WoW character creation screen is not that much more involved than the GW character creation screen.

Beginning level walkthrough/ Teaching how to play: World of Warcraft
-Although this was a close one, I felt in Guild Wars like as soon as I got to a fairly low level, I was released and not shown where to go next. The quests seemed to send me all over the place with no clear next destination.

Map/ Direction: World of Warcraft
-The quests sent you just where you need to go, and addons made this even easier to locate the correct position you needed to be. In Guild Wars, I felt like there were expert areas right near the beginner locations that you could fall into if you weren't careful. The WoW directions were much simpler and that much easier to follow.

Roleplaying Capabilities: ?
-All I remember of GW regarding this category is that I saw several characters dancing. I know that WoW has an extensive system of emotes and RP actions, but I am not in a position to judge those of GW.

Tech Support: World of Warcraft (Blizzard)
-GW tech support that I recieved was the usual unhelpful mediocre aid that you normally recieve. I think I ended up having to fix the problem myself that time. From WoW on the other hand, the service I recieved was exceptional. I fixed the problem within 30 minutes.

Player Community: World of Warcraft
-Due to each realm being separate, and being even further dividedin half into factions, causes an overwhelming sense of a community within each of these divisions. You can always identify with, and possibly befriend, anyone who plays on your Realm and is in your faction. This is because you are bound together from these connections.

There are more categories which I will edit in later, but for now my fingers are cramping.
Hope you enjoyed my commentary, even if I do have a bit of WoW bias.

You made a judgement like that after only getting to level 5? Wow.

Player Interaction: World of Warcraft

5 million players, one server. Enough said. You can communicate and meet thousands of players instantly with guild wars without having to travel and walk long distances for a handful of people. Might I add that there is no subscription?

Storyline, Lore, History, and so forth: World of Warcraft

4 games, LUXON AND KURZACK in factions. You based your conclusion off of playing an hour of the game. Guild Wars has more content than almost every MMO I've ever played. And not half assed content like WoW. There is also a lot of lore in guild wars as well, obviously something you wont learn much about if you only play till level 5 in one of the four games.

Action bar

There's an action bar in every MMORPG.

Player Interest/ Indentification: World of Warcraft

Can't really compare this since every game is different. Whatever game style floats your boat I guess. Both games equally offer classes of each type. However Guildwars lacks "races".

Character Customization: Guild Wars

Both games have crappy character customization.

Beginning level walkthrough/ Teaching how to play: World of Warcraft

Guild Wars shows you EXACTLY where to go all the time. Maybe you're just not smart enough to your map or something. Also every game has a newb island/area. You probably didn't even leave the new player zone before you made your assumptions.

Map/ Direction: World of Warcraft

You don't even need add ons with guild wars. Everything you need to know is given to you in the game.

Roleplaying Capabilities: ?

Guild Wars has just as many emotes.

Tech Support: World of Warcraft (Blizzard)

I've NEVER had an in game problem with Guild Wars. The game is practically bug free. Plus the in-game store is bad ass. I bought all of my expansions through it. And if you ever need help with anything, you simply type /wiki (insert topic) and POOF, instant answers.

Player Community: World of Warcraft

Like I said, everyone plays together. No servers separating the population.

I've played both WoW and GW. The only thing WoW really beats GWs at is that you can randomly meet up with people across the map and there is more adventure. The instances in Guildwars gets boring, but effectively eliminates bot-farmers, killstealers, etc. Also Once you beat Guildwars, there isn't much left to do afterwards besides farming for nice items. But that gets old.

Also, this thread is about people who play guild wars. Go lurk in the WoW thread.

[YoshiSlayer]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

You made a judgement like that after only getting to level 5? Wow.


4 games, LUXON AND KURZACK in factions. You based your conclusion off of playing an hour of the game. Guild Wars has more content than almost every MMO I've ever played. And not half assed content like WoW. There is also a lot of lore in guild wars as well, obviously something you wont learn much about if you only play till level 5 in one of the four games.

You arent very accurate with your statement there buddy. True GW has the Luxon and Kurzack factions but they are no where near the deapth of the WoW story line. WoW, although it may seem like it is, isnt a stand-alone game. Before WoW there was Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, and the frozen throne expansion. All of which have been buidling upon the story of Warcraft. And now that WoW came out they continued and also brought back the story line of those previous said 4 games. So there is no possible way you can say WoW has "half asses content." If one would actually take a step back and actually realize what was going on, then they would see that there is in fact... A Story To The Game. So before you go posting anymore false information, actually play the game, watch the introduction movies (which give a small part, a beginning if you will, to the story. a beginning to one side of the story.) and if you made one character of every race then you would see that each race has a different story but they all blend into each other. Even the semi-end dungeons continue the story of Warcraft (caverns of time, for instance) It partly explains why the horde are such bitter rivals against the alliance.

So, i again am saying, dont post false information unless you truly know what you are talking about, which in this case...you dont know what you are talking about.

[inflames07]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

You arent very accurate with your statement there buddy. True GW has the Luxon and Kurzack factions but they are no where near the deapth of the WoW story line. WoW, although it may seem like it is, isnt a stand-alone game. Before WoW there was Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, and the frozen throne expansion. All of which have been buidling upon the story of Warcraft. And now that WoW came out they continued and also brought back the story line of those previous said 4 games. So there is no possible way you can say WoW has "half asses content." If one would actually take a step back and actually realize what was going on, then they would see that there is in fact... A Story To The Game. So before you go posting anymore false information, actually play the game, watch the introduction movies (which give a small part, a beginning if you will, to the story. a beginning to one side of the story.) and if you made one character of every race then you would see that each race has a different story but they all blend into each other. Even the semi-end dungeons continue the story of Warcraft (caverns of time, for instance) It partly explains why the horde are such bitter rivals against the alliance.

So, i again am saying, dont post false information unless you truly know what you are talking about, which in this case...you dont know what you are talking about.

Learn to read full posts. The closest thing I found as a storyline was when I played the expansion as a Draenei.

[sjoecool1991]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Personally, I pretty much do not like GW or WoW.
I didn't like GW because it was too short and easy.
I didn't like WoW because there basically is no low level content whatsoever and the community is so ****ing terrible that it made me want to stop playing.

Also, I never really liked fantasy anything.

[YoshiSlayer]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Ok enough bashing now haha.

I have a question about GW though. How is the newest expansion to the game?
I was thinking about picking it up fairly soon but then i heard someone say that GW2 was coming out later this year before WoW: The Wrath of the Lich King.

So should i get the newest GW expansion, wait for GW2, or just continue playing WoW?

[CrashJet555]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

I'm sensing some hostility from you inflames07.... Notice that I am not promoting WoW, and I do say that I have a bit of a WoW bias. I'm not saying, "This is what's good about these games, it's true and I will kill you if you think otherwise!" I'm simply saying that this is my opinion of my gameplay experience. I also mention the fact that I only got to level 5 on GW so that you would know that I don't have that extensive of a knowledge of the game. I said that I can only judge on what I saw. Furthermore: These are just my opinions. They are not fact in any way, shape, or form. And you're right, this is the wrong thread for WoW vs. GW arguments. Maybe we should make a thread about that?

YoshiSlayer, thanks for backing me up on the Lore part. Azeroth has a much more involved history, culture, and diversity in races than, I'm sure, almost any other game. (Notice I said almost, not definitely, there may be some other game with better- I don't need an example.)

Also, from what I played, just in the lay out, World of Warcraft has a much cleaner and smoother looking interface than Guild Wars. I don't know, to each his own.

[Mr.Nothing]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Ok enough bashing now haha.

I have a question about GW though. How is the newest expansion to the game?
I was thinking about picking it up fairly soon but then i heard someone say that GW2 was coming out later this year before WoW: The Wrath of the Lich King.

So should i get the newest GW expansion, wait for GW2, or just continue playing WoW?

Personally, i'm waiting for GW2.
WoW is far too repetetive, and the community is large but lacking greatly.

[SSCUJO]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

it should be noted that the real gameplay of guildwars doesn't actually start until your lvl 20, which is the max lvl. depending on the campiagn you will spend the first 10 lvls in a loose tutorial/simple missions, and b4 u reach 1/3 of any campign you sohuld be lvl 20.

the point of guildwars is not to see who has the highest lvl, the point is to see who is the best when everyone is put on an even playing ground.

all the pvp action is done at lvl 20 only, many of the best and the most enjoyable missions can only be accessed once your lvl 20.

normally i would say this is bad, but since it takes such a short period of time to get to lvl 20 aswell as the fact that your lvl 20 characters can transfer from campign to campign, you really get the feeling of a finely tuned team set for timing and skill rather than a mob of 60 players at lvl 60.

that being said i've never played WoW so i'll leave my comments at that.

[Master TAnK Evans]

it should be noted that the real gameplay of guildwars doesn't actually start until your lvl 20, which is the max lvl. depending on the campiagn you will spend the first 10 lvls in a loose tutorial/simple missions, and b4 u reach 1/3 of any campign you sohuld be lvl 20.

the point of guildwars is not to see who has the highest lvl, the point is to see who is the best when everyone is put on an even playing ground.

all the pvp action is done at lvl 20 only, many of the best and the most enjoyable missions can only be accessed once your lvl 20.

normally i would say this is bad, but since it takes such a short period of time to get to lvl 20 aswell as the fact that your lvl 20 characters can transfer from campign to campign, you really get the feeling of a finely tuned team set for timing and skill rather than a mob of 60 players at lvl 60.

that being said i've never played WoW so i'll leave my comments at that.

Actually I agree entirly. like for GW nightfall Istan for the most part 9near end was pretty kool) I found it rather boring and pretty easy ( assualt on beknur harbour was fairly tough first time around). but then when you get to kourna it gets pretty kool and interesting, then vabbi just is better than desolation is small but fun (and funny ..joko is hilarious) and then torrment well at least you get a nice challenge almsot everywhere you go ^_^

the problems I had with WoW was the terribly sad graphics and hilarious looking characters...but the fact that if you have troubles just power level and bang you can get through the game on that basis....while guild wars when you pass a quarter of the game...you can't level anymore its just you and skill from then on out...and strategy and coordination and whatnot...makes the game so much more rewarding ^_^ go guild wars ^_^ but thats just my opinion

i just noticed I am getting an awful lot of people who rather play WoW...i wish GW was older than wow lol picking on GW is like picking on a todler Y_Y mean older WoW people lol

[YoshiSlayer]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Watch ouy for triple posting lol

I agree with you though about the max level in GW.
It seemed weird at first that it was only level 20. I mean once i played through the game twice on 2 different characters i was able to get to level 20 on my third guy in under 5 hours of gameplay. It honestly takes no time at all to max your level if you know what you are doing. But that is a good thing to some people, but it works perfectly for GW. It allows you to jump right into the end-game material like instances/dungeons and PvP. It really is all based on skill and how well thought out your builds are.

Not to scare people off by saying its "all skill" you will develope the skill needed to do these things as you play the game. and if you cant think of any builds to use then there are websites that give you a step-by-step on what items are needed, skills to put in the skill bar, how to allocate your points, and when and where to use the skills when fighting.

If anyone is interested in playing GW and has questions about it, feel free to ask me because ive put in over 500 hours of gameplay into it.
The same goes for WoW, if you have any question about it feel free to ask, ive put in over 40 days of gameplay on that too.
So im a seasoned played for both WoW and GW and will only give the facts.

[CrashJet555]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Wow, Tank, this is ridiculous. You are gonna be banned for excessive multiposts.... Haha, a triple post.

[tsugomaru]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Whoever said that Guild Wars had a better "story" than World of Warcraft has a never played bias. As far as I know, the World of Warcraft story line has more depth than Guild Wars. Sure, it has a plot hole or two, but at least some thought has been put into it. Also, a story line concept doesn't make a story.

~Tsugomaru

[Relambrien]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Allow me to offer my own opinions, having played PvE prior to getting involved in PvP and have extensive experience in both areas. Also having played WoW for approximately a month, I believe I am entitled to offer some educated opinions on comparisons between the games. I'll use CrashJet's format as a model.

Player Interaction: World of Warcraft
This goes to WoW, hands down. Prior to the Nightfall campaign, Guild Wars was a primarily multiplayer game. Every quest or mission, because it is all instanced, required human party members gained in town to help you out. Nightfall changed that, with the introduction of AI "Heroes," basically souped-up versions of the "Henchmen" that the previous campaigns had. Heroes are fully customizable, you can set their skills, equipment, and even behavior. With a good set of Heroes and Henchmen, the game is generally easy to tackle solo, and since Nightfall, that's what most have been doing.
In WoW, on the other hand, parties are absolutely required for just about everything past level 20 (at least in my experience, from what I remember), and the game gives enough of a roleplaying "feel" to make towns social areas. Advantage WoW for sure.

Storyline, Lore, History, and so forth: Guild Wars
I will admit, having only played WoW for a month, I do not know much of the lore behind it. However, from what I played, there was no overarching storyline at all; it was basically "Here's your character, go make him powerful and famous." Guild Wars, on the other hand, has a well-defined story in each campaign from the beginning, and the story is advanced through a sequence of specific missions. This does make the game very linear, but provides a much more concrete story than what I saw in WoW.

Player Interest/ Indentification: World of Warcraft
WoW gets the win here. Due to the massive amount of commitment required to reach the endgame, players must identify with a specific race and class combination. In Guild Wars, you only get to choose your class, ("profession"), and most people have one each of most of them. There is no real "identification" with the character.

Character Customization: Guild Wars
GW, GW, GW. 100% GW. The dual-profession system of Guild Wars wins it this category for certain. There are ten main "professions" to choose from for your character, however, each gets to pick a secondary profession to supplement their first, with access to all of the second profession's skills and abilities, though one less character stat. Because of this, there are 90 or so combinations for character classes, unlike in WoW.

Beginning level walkthrough/ Teaching how to play: Guild Wars
Guild Wars's tutorial is one of the best I've seen in a game. In every campaign, there is a tutorial area that shows you exactly how to play and teaches you everything you need to know about the controls and mechanics of the game. After you're done with that, there are also tutorials for "advanced" strategies or features, which aren't really advanced so much as they are essential. In WoW, the tutorial doesn't really explain all that much. I'll admit that in GW, a lot of information is thrown at you all at once, but a lot of information is better than little information.

Map/ Direction: Guild Wars
Guild Wars PvE is ridiculously easy, due in part to the way the compass works. When doing quests, a green arrow appears on your compass, and a green marker appears on your map, denoting the exact spot you must travel to next. There's no guessing, no interpreting clues, nothing. Missions are almost universally linear, though there are a few (The Wilds, for example), which can actually be confusing, like a typical RPG dungeon. In WoW, such indicators of where to go were almost completely absent. GW definitely has the win here, especially considering the "warping" technique that allows you to visit any town you have ever been to instantaneously, regardless of where you are.

Roleplaying Capabilities: World of Warcraft
Due to the things already mentioned about GW (map teleportation, lack of identification with character, etc.), you don't feel like you're roleplaying anything. In WoW, the opposite is true. WoW wins here.

Tech Support: Undecided
All the help I have received from Guild Wars tech support has been wonderful, timely, and accurate. However, I haven't needed much help--only an instance where I reported a bug and when I had a video card issue, both of which were easily resolved. I have never needed tech support from Blizzard, so I cannot say how their tech support department is.

Player Community: World of Warcraft
I'm going to have to give the advantage to WoW here, though arguably both communities are pretty bad. GW is worse because of one thing: no monthly fee. This means 12-year old Johnny can ask his parents for an online game, and they don't have to worry about paying for it every month, whereas Johnny probably couldn't convince his parents to pay for WoW. I would argue that the WoW community is generally more helpful and has a better attitude, but it depends where you go. In Guild Wars, for example, upper-tier PvP guilds are almost exclusively college-age (I was a glaring exception), so everyone is much more mature there than in, say, mid-game PvE. I imagine it would be the same in WoW, though I have to give WoW the advantage because I haven't seen nearly as many "OMG U NOOB" or similar messages in WoW as in GW.

Final Thoughts

In the end, WoW and GW can't really be compared as the same type of game. GW was built from the start to be an instanced game focused on player cooperation to achieve a goal along a linear storlyine; WoW was designed to be a free-roaming roleplaying fantasy. Because of these different philosophies, you cannot say one is definitely better than the other. There are ways to compare different aspects of the two games, but when you consider that the games often put greatly differing amounts of emphasis on these aspects, it becomes impossible to objectively determine which is the better game.

I would say this: If you want an objective-based game without much actual roleplaying, GW PvE is what you want. If you want to immerse yourself in a fantasy world where you can do anything you want, go for WoW.

[CrashJet555]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Player Interaction: World of Warcraft
This goes to WoW, hands down. Prior to the Nightfall campaign, Guild Wars was a primarily multiplayer game. Every quest or mission, because it is all instanced, required human party members gained in town to help you out. Nightfall changed that, with the introduction of AI "Heroes," basically souped-up versions of the "Henchmen" that the previous campaigns had. Heroes are fully customizable, you can set their skills, equipment, and even behavior. With a good set of Heroes and Henchmen, the game is generally easy to tackle solo, and since Nightfall, that's what most have been doing.
In WoW, on the other hand, parties are absolutely required for just about everything past level 20 (at least in my experience, from what I remember), and the game gives enough of a roleplaying "feel" to make towns social areas. Advantage WoW for sure.

-I agree, made some good points I hadn't thought of.

Storyline, Lore, History, and so forth: Guild Wars
I will admit, having only played WoW for a month, I do not know much of the lore behind it. However, from what I played, there was no overarching storyline at all; it was basically "Here's your character, go make him powerful and famous." Guild Wars, on the other hand, has a well-defined story in each campaign from the beginning, and the story is advanced through a sequence of specific missions. This does make the game very linear, but provides a much more concrete story than what I saw in WoW.

-You really have to know a lot more about the Warcraft history than just WoW. The thing about WoW is, you can choose to involve yourself in the side elements, or you can play without focusing on them. As I've said, the world of Azeroth has been developed and enriched for close to 15 years now.

Player Interest/ Indentification: World of Warcraft
WoW gets the win here. Due to the massive amount of commitment required to reach the endgame, players must identify with a specific race and class combination. In Guild Wars, you only get to choose your class, ("profession"), and most people have one each of most of them. There is no real "identification" with the character.

-Agree.

Character Customization: Guild Wars
GW, GW, GW. 100% GW. The dual-profession system of Guild Wars wins it this category for certain. There are ten main "professions" to choose from for your character, however, each gets to pick a secondary profession to supplement their first, with access to all of the second profession's skills and abilities, though one less character stat. Because of this, there are 90 or so combinations for character classes, unlike in WoW.

-This is the point I was trying to make when I gave this to GW. I had forgotten what the dual-class thing was called. That's why they won this. I didn't like that feature though, because it gave me the feeling that I was weakening another attribute in my character.

Beginning level walkthrough/ Teaching how to play: Guild Wars
Guild Wars's tutorial is one of the best I've seen in a game. In every campaign, there is a tutorial area that shows you exactly how to play and teaches you everything you need to know about the controls and mechanics of the game. After you're done with that, there are also tutorials for "advanced" strategies or features, which aren't really advanced so much as they are essential. In WoW, the tutorial doesn't really explain all that much. I'll admit that in GW, a lot of information is thrown at you all at once, but a lot of information is better than little information.

-Yeah, my memories of how helpful GW's were are kind of foggy. I just remember getting lost.

Map/ Direction: Guild Wars
Guild Wars PvE is ridiculously easy, due in part to the way the compass works. When doing quests, a green arrow appears on your compass, and a green marker appears on your map, denoting the exact spot you must travel to next. There's no guessing, no interpreting clues, nothing. Missions are almost universally linear, though there are a few (The Wilds, for example), which can actually be confusing, like a typical RPG dungeon. In WoW, such indicators of where to go were almost completely absent. GW definitely has the win here, especially considering the "warping" technique that allows you to visit any town you have ever been to instantaneously, regardless of where you are.

-I didn't know about the arrow feature. I think that may convince me towards GW then....

Roleplaying Capabilities: World of Warcraft
Due to the things already mentioned about GW (map teleportation, lack of identification with character, etc.), you don't feel like you're roleplaying anything. In WoW, the opposite is true. WoW wins here.
-Okay, cool.

Tech Support: Undecided
All the help I have received from Guild Wars tech support has been wonderful, timely, and accurate. However, I haven't needed much help--only an instance where I reported a bug and when I had a video card issue, both of which were easily resolved. I have never needed tech support from Blizzard, so I cannot say how their tech support department is.
-Sounds like we've both received good Tech Support from the different companies.

Player Community: World of Warcraft
I'm going to have to give the advantage to WoW here, though arguably both communities are pretty bad. GW is worse because of one thing: no monthly fee. This means 12-year old Johnny can ask his parents for an online game, and they don't have to worry about paying for it every month, whereas Johnny probably couldn't convince his parents to pay for WoW. I would argue that the WoW community is generally more helpful and has a better attitude, but it depends where you go. In Guild Wars, for example, upper-tier PvP guilds are almost exclusively college-age (I was a glaring exception), so everyone is much more mature there than in, say, mid-game PvE. I imagine it would be the same in WoW, though I have to give WoW the advantage because I haven't seen nearly as many "OMG U NOOB" or similar messages in WoW as in GW.

-Yeah, there are a number of factors that contribute to the player community on WoW.

Final Thoughts

In the end, WoW and GW can't really be compared as the same type of game. GW was built from the start to be an instanced game focused on player cooperation to achieve a goal along a linear storlyine; WoW was designed to be a free-roaming roleplaying fantasy. Because of these different philosophies, you cannot say one is definitely better than the other. There are ways to compare different aspects of the two games, but when you consider that the games often put greatly differing amounts of emphasis on these aspects, it becomes impossible to objectively determine which is the better game.

I would say this: If you want an objective-based game without much actual roleplaying, GW PvE is what you want. If you want to immerse yourself in a fantasy world where you can do anything you want, go for WoW.

To me, it would seem that WoW would outlast GW. Blizzard is a much more invested company in what they do, and have produced many many high quality games for their time. Blizzard is not solely a MMORPG company; it's just that WoW is probably their main source of income at the moment.

No, I admire Blizzard most for their RTS games. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans kept me entertained at a young age. Then Tides of Darkness and it's expansion, a superior game for it's time. Then Starcraft, which broke free from the medieval realm that Blizzard had previously constrained itself to (Diablo, Warcraft), and expanded many of the earlier games limits. Then finally Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, which shattered all other RTS games that could hope to compete with it. I have no doubts that Starcraft 2 will be the best RTS ever made.

[sjoecool1991]

Re: Guild Wars...any players?

Actually, I do remember GW having some pretty awesome armor.
I don't really like some of the weapons in WoW though, they are oversized.