GW v. WOW

[Mr. Mopery]

Just out of curiousity, how do Guild Wars and World of Warcraft compare? I've only played the former, but most things I've read about WoW have been really interesting.

Anyway, what do you think?

[Ivelliis]

Personally I like WoW. I haven't played GW so I'm not the best person to compare the two.

Some people think WoW gets pretty repetitive and boring, but I disagree. I haven't hit end game content yet, but as it's getting improved all the time through patches there is always something to do. Worst comes to worst you can roll a new character and play the game as a new class/race/faction.

A few things are lacking, but no one could make a 100% perfect MMORPG straight away, things take time. Certain servers are either overflowing/full of "1337 h4x0r5", but my server is not too bad.

The first character you have is nearly always the funnest. I remember going through the Night Elf starting area in awe, it rocked. Then I had to reroll on a different account, so the night elf area wasn't as appealing since I had already done it once before.

Then I made an undead rouge, among other characters, and they are so good! Personally I think, what with the new content and totally different character/race combinations, you can never get bored.

Not sure what else to post about, but any more questions or queries just ask [img]smile.gif[/img]

[SecretMaster]

WoW can get repetive, as it has for me. Well, the main reason why I stopped playing WoW is because I lost interest. There really is no reason other than that. I just woke up one day and I just didn't have the WoW "mood" if you will.
It is slightly repetitive up until you get to the end game content.
Pretty much lvls 1-50 its the same crap in a different region plus or minus a few instances.

50+ however, you can choose to do some nice instances (Upper&Lower Blackrock Spire, Onyxia, Molten Core, Stratholme etc)

Along with instances you can really start to excel in PvP and do some fun raids.

Or you can solo around which is quite harder to do.,

But especially with the release of Battlegrounds, WoW has increased in enjoyable activities. Warsong Gulch is pretty much available to anyone, provided they have enough people on both sides.

For the epic battles, Alterac Valley is available for the higher level characters. And with the addition of Honor, the game is even more enjoyable for the PvPers. Basically, WoW is tremendously great for high-end content. For most of the game however, it will seem repetitive.

[Luvian]

You can't really compare them, as they are very different.

WoW is a massive world where you are always with eveyone else with the exception of about 7 instance(private) dungeons. While in guild wars, most of the game is instanced(private) for your group, while the cities are public.

Wow put lots of importance on levels and items, while in guild wars there is only 20 level, and you can even start directly at leel 20 if all you want is pvp. Wow has tons of skills while guild wars has a limited selection of skills.

They're two different kind of games, I'd say they are opposite to each others. Both are interesting in their own way.

[T-D-C]

Guildwars is very team based and strategy based. if you just go rushing into a fight with out a plan you can be killed easily.

Guild wars has HEAPS of skills though you can only have 8 equiped at any one time. You can combine skills to make very unique builds that can take an oppenent by surprise.

The two games are quite different in the way they are played.

[SpiritWarrior]

Is GW primarily PVP? I do plan to check it out, a matter of actually buying it is all.

[T-D-C]

It has a good PvE storyline to follow or you can jump straight into PvP if you like with a level 20 character.

A lot of people like to do PvE first to unlock many special runes and weapon upgrades that are hard to get in PvP.

Example. In PvE i can find a suit of armour and salvage a rune from it.

In PvP I have to fight and win a certian number of battles to get faction. You can then use faction to buy these rune/weapon upgrades.

A PvE character can do both PvE and PvP. A straight PvP character can not do the PvE storyline missions.

[SpiritWarrior]

Sounds interesting. I have a few questions if anyone can answer 'em. Or if there is a good FAQ out there please link me up.

Does it come to a point where all one does is PVP and if so doesn't that become boring? Or do they have a large amount of pvp-specific content to cater for this?

Does one still level up while PVPing also?

What is the whole 'point'? Same ole level grind or end-game pvp rewards?

I play with 2 systems, one used by my other half and the other by me. I know my 6800 gt would burn thru it but would the geforce ti 4600 be able to cope with it, and properly I mean to the point where it is playable?

[T-D-C]

There is a good forum for Guild wars that should answer most of your questions.

It can be found here

There are people that rush the game and get to all the end game content in like a week (mainly because they have friends that can run them through the harder areas)

I am only level 13 and I have been playing for over a month. That is only 1 character. I'm not even halfway through the game. There are so many quests you can do to follow the storyline. Bonus areas to missions. Collectors who send you on missions to find things and reward you with cool weapons/armour.

The classes are so different that you can eaisly replay the game as a differnt character. Plus there is no monthly fee.

PVP gets you faction not XP. What faction allows you to do is unlock weapon components and runes that you can add to your existing weapons and armours to boost your damage, your spells, your energy, your skills.

XP can only be gained through the PvE part of the game.

[NobleNick]

SpiritWarrior,

It is as T-D-C said, and the link he gave you is an excellent one. Let me add a bit:

Does it come to a point where all one does is PVP and if so doesn't that become boring? Or do they have a large amount of pvp-specific content to cater for this?

I don't know. My experience is similar to T-D-C's: I have put in about 50 hours of gameplay over the last 6 weeks that I have owned the game. I have one character to LVL 16, another to LVL 9 and a third to LVL 7. I am planning my fourth character. All are PvE. PvE is a blast! At $50 for the game, it has already paid for itself, and there is SOOOOO much left to do! My most senior character is about 1/2 way through the missions (not to mention quests), and has seen maybe 1/4 of the map; so I estimate that I have at least another 150 hours of play before I am even tempted to step into a PvP arena.

Does one still level up while PVPing also?

No. A PvP is instanced as a LVL 20 character, which is the max level. Your PvP character gets runes and goodies by winning battles. Goodies can also be unlocked *FOR* your PvP character *BY* your PvE character(s). I believe a PvE character can be a full PvP participant; but I have not even thought of trying it yet.

What is the whole 'point'? Same ole level grind or end-game pvp rewards?

Whatever the answer, it is NOT level grinding: the game was specifically designed to make power-leveling and, to a lesser extent farming, obsolete. That is why all PvPs start at the max level = 20. You get modest points for killing hard critters and no points for killing easy (relative to your character's level). You get moderate to huge experience for doing missions and quests. The quickest and easiest way to level PvE (other than getting rushed) is to follow the storyline, doing missions and quests.

For instance, at level 15 it might take me about 10,000 points to get to level 16. I might get 12 points as my share of expo for my team taking out a average monster. Yes, that is only 12 points, and these monsters are typically no pushover. I would expect 200 to 400 points for completing a modest quest (say 10 minutes of play time.) The missions I have been on lately give 1,000 points plus another 1,000 if the bonus (typically harder) is also clompleted. Then there is the quest I just completed a few weeks ago, that took 4 tries and a total game time of 2 hours, but netted a quest reward of 4,000 PLUS the points for the many sub-quests along the way. This is why you might see teams RUNNING past monsters instead of seeking them out: the big money (expo) is in finishing the quests.

It appears that PvP might be the ultimate reward (I do not know what the PvE end-game is like); but if you go PvE, it is a long, delicious road getting there.

I play with 2 systems, one used by my other half and the other by me. I know my 6800 gt would burn thru it but would the geforce ti 4600 be able to cope with it, and properly I mean to the point where it is playable?

I have my doubts about the 4600, my 9600xt hiccups every once and a great while. However, the graphics demand is manually scalable via an options menu. (By the way, the 3-D graphics, with fully controllable camera, auto-fading obstructions, and PERSONALIZED cutscenes {YOUR party and YOUR character interact with NPCs in the cutscenes}, are beyond AWESOME.)

The thing that I did not get from the FAQs, reviews and etc., that I think are important, is the explanation of gameplay: The best way I can think of to explain it is to use Diablo 2 as the starting point. Gameplay, initially, sort of APPEARS to be like Diablo 2 (which I enjoyed). But there are major differences.

1. GRAPHICS: Fully 3-D, with controllable camera; instead of D2's 2-D with fixed camera. Terrain and 3-D world remind me of some of the outdoor Halo scenes. Did I mention that GW's graphics leave D2 in the dust, and are definitely on par with Halo, or even beyond?

2.) WORLD: The adventuring area is HUGE, certainly well beyond Halo or D2.

3.) GAMEPLAY (CLASSES, SPECIALTIES (attributes) and SKILLS) (O.K., so I degressed in 1 and 2.): Each class has advantages and weaknesses. Think of it as rock-paper-scissors on a grand scale. There are 6 classes, but your character can have a primary and a secondary class. This means that there are 30 class combinations available. Each class has literally scores of skills available. Because of the constraints (which I won't go into) each and every class combo can specialize in any of a number of different skill sets and specialties. Your character can not change classes. He (or she) can change specialties (called attributes in GW) slowly. He can change skills instantly. But no matter how good you are at your specialty, and what skills you have, there exists at least one other specialist that can easily do you in.

4.) GAMEPLAY (STRATEGY): Your available skills (which you acquire via quests for the most part) can be arranged on an 8-icon skill bar. You can change skills all you want and may have any mix of skills you want; but you can only change the arrangement in the safe haven of town, so think ahead.

5.) GAMEPLAY (TACTICS): The game is designed to present you with a wide variety of tactically challenging encounters. You and/or your team will face a plethora of combinations of enemy types, enemy numbers, terrain, and time constraints. Starting fairly early in the game, if you just do the Diablo-thing and just wade in swinging ---> you are dead; and you can easily get your team killed, too. In the mid-game (and the late game, I presume) you will find teams talking to each other about tactics and searching for that right class with the right skill set to fill out the party. MOST of the missions (which advance you to new areas of the game) and quests take team play. And the harder missions and quests (and there are LOTS of them!) take COORDINATED and THOUGHT OUT team play. This *IS* fun!!

6.) GAMEPLAY (SKILL SYNERGY): Many, many, MANY skills and weapons can be combined to be much more effective than twice the dosage of either. For instance, the Necromancer's skill Raise Bone Horror creates undead soldiers which eventually die. There is another skill, "Well of Blood," thatheals all team members in an area around a corpse. This skill is meant to give team members more health; but the Necro can leverage it to IN ADDITION, keep his minions alive to fight. Thus the combo is more powerful than using either skill singly This is just one example of literally hundreds (thousands?) of combinations.

7.) GAMEPLAY (TEAM SKILL SYNERGY): Teams rule in GW. This is because well designed characters are excellent at contributing in at least several ways; but will have AT LEAST one area in which they are weak. Team members complement each other, just like a well designed D&D team, to compensate for each others' weaknesses.

For instance: A Warrior can dish out TONS of damage, but isn't nearly as effective if he has to keep healing himself. The healing Monk, on the other hand, can dish out lots of healing, but can not defend himself well. As a team, with the Monk healing full-time and the Warrior killing full time, the pair can dish out more damage, and survive much longer in trying circumstances, than could a pair of Warriors or a pair of Monks.

Another: The "Pin down" Ranger skill complements the Warrior very well, since the Ranger can keep the enemy from retreating from the Warrior, increasing the effectiveness of the latter greatly.

Finally: A Monk a Ranger and aWarrior, with the right skills loaded could easily outfight 3 Warriors or 3 Monks; but would likely be in big trouble against a group with a Warrior and a Mesmer and a Necro. And the Wa-Me-Ne team would likely not fair well against the 3 Warrior team. Rock-paper-scissors; but at a TEAM level. When you start thinking about how your skills can complement your team members' skills (and many of the quests will have you doing just that), and loading your skill bar accordingly, you will be enjoying something that no other game can quite match.

8.) GAMEPLAY (LOOT): Non-money loot from fallen enemies is automatically assigned to a team member when it drops: No one else can pick it up. Money may be picked up by anyone, but is automatically divided amongst the team.

9.) GAMEPLAY (Silly adolescent stuff): Another thing I enjoy. The game has a profanity filter; and those who try to get around it by slightly misspelling foul words get ALL their accounts blocked. Heh, heh, heh. Nice. And evidently they have been effectively enforcing the rule. Yes, you CAN make characters from certain classes do provocative dances in their underwear; but the frequency and blatancy of crudity are both much, much lower than on other on-line games I've played.



[ 07-11-2005, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]