Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat WoW and Guild Wars

I would like to see a thoughtful comparative analysis of WoW and Guild Wars. I have played WoW extensively and only played Guild Wars once during the Beta.

One is an apple, the other is a big, orange greyhound bus.

Sorry: those are two different games and should not be compared. If you want, I could delete a character and let you try GW for a week or so.

That is a kind offer Dev, but I am not ready to stop playing WoW right now. I am thinking down the road a bit.

though oranges & apples, cleggie has a great idea for those who may wonder which may be most suitable for them? i for one.

what category(ies) should be used to compare?

I haven't played WoW but saw the videos and saw some information.
From what I've seen, WoW is more for the casual players and a tad more social. People claim it to have a better community, I don't know if it is true.
WoW is MMO before RPG: you can craft items yourself, mine, chop wood and sell those items. I'd rather not go on here and instead leave a blank for a WoW player to fill.

Guild Wars, although it claims to be, is not for the casual players. The balance in the game makes almost every skill useful. Menaging your character takes a lot of time and even after you finished the quests and missions, you will still continue to learn about the limits and possibilities of your character. The skill system, like in Diablo, levels with you. Unlike D&D, your most basic healing spells *will* be useful once you reach the level cap (level 20). There is a misconception about GW's drop system: people believe you are unable to get a weapon with good stats. Whereas you can get a good-looking weapon with some rare attributes, you can't find a weapon which would give you an edge in competitive arenas. Frankly, the balance is a little bit annoying sometimes: when you start getting identical attributes for all items you find, it feels wrong. On the other hand, Player-vs-Player would've been impossible without this. Guild Wars is RPG before MMO: you are expected to spend most of your time outside slaying monsters, getting loot and enter towns only to sell everything. The game economy, at the moment, is somehow lacking: unlike WoW, you don't have auction houses so you have to either spam the chat to sell your item or use a website such as RPG Traders. Finally, since the game isn't easy, you cannot adventure alone (unless you are a Paladin[Warrior/Monk class]). Often you will get clueless players who ignore everyone and blindly charge an enemy group to get the party killed. Nevertheless, there are Leeroys everywhere, as the WoW video proves it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

I hope that helps.

Dev: For being more RPG than MMO, there isn't much roleplaying in the game. That and the fact that it takes ages to kill even the weakest monster (ok, not the very weakest, but weak monsters), and you have to kill them all, otherweise they'll pile up on you, was the reasons I stopped playing it.

Übereil

Because the game is too hard for you it should not by any means globally considered as RPG? I fail to follow your logic.

RPG means Role Playing Game. I don't think a game where there's no roleplaying can be called a Role Playing Game. That's what I'm saying. And this PLUS the fact that killing a monster takes about half a minute (where you push the 1, 2, and 3 button once every tenth second. That's basiclly all you do), and you have to kill every monster that comes in your way (which makes traveling pretty slow, and not very funny) was the reason I stopped playing Guild Wars.

Übereil

Monks are the only decent traveling characters as you can cast mending (health regen) and the shielding hands spell or whatever its called to cut dmg by up to ten. Then just run and hope none of the mobs have shatter enchantment

I've got a monk!

And I've seen the lerroy video too many times. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

I've beat the game twice now, monk and mesmer, and so now I'm going into Player vrs. Player. I have 130 fame, and 2000 faction, and have joined a guild with some good people where we are trying out new strategies. For example today, our strategy ( I made it up. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) let us destroy every single team we ran into, until we got to the Hall of Heroes and 2 of our monks had to go. =( But its a very fun game, and I dont know how to compare it to WoW though. Try it out <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> I have no room for anyone to use a slot ( sadly ) but if you get someone who can, I'll show you around some time.

Lews how did you build your monk mesmer? Pure healer? I have one and am having issues deciding on which way to go...

I meant I had a monk. And a mesmer. But my mesmer was Me/Mo. I made him mostly fast cast healing, but eventually went to just a kill ze monk build.

played both

wow is far better pve game imho... well not really difficult. Pve in GW is near unexistant.

GW is a far better pvp game imho... PvP in wow is err... well ...

I played both, and tell you the truth, I disliked both of them. Guild Wars IMHO needed proper loot drops like in Diablo II, and WoW needed to be like the Betas and get rid of the honor system. Either way, they're really not my type of games. I much more interested in proper single-player CRPGs (Fallout, Arcanum, DD [duh]).

Have you played Planescape:Torment? Great game, if you liked the interaction in Fallout and Arcanum (I did), you're bound to love the interaction in Torment. And if you like reading, it's just the game for you <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />! If you don't, then at least try it...

Übereil

Yes indeed, I've played (and beaten) Torment. The dialouges and writing and pretty much everything is excellent, the only thing that lacks is the character advancement system. Oh if only it wasn't restricted by the crap-tastic 2nd edition!

Ah, the second edition. Whorst ever... But then again, Torment isn't about characterbuilding.

Übereil

True, but it just kinda gets in the way. Like a scratch on an otherwise flawless car. It's not big, but it sticks out more.

Well, I've been playing with Bernhard at night, and its alot of fun :P So its a fun game ( Guild Wars ) IMHO.

If anyone is looking for a guild in WoW, let me know, we are on Blackhand.

look for Jask, Skyborn, or Laureli