I would argue that EVE: Online is currently the best value for money. It's in my opinion the best sandbox title on the market at the moment, and as such, has pretty much unlimited content. However, it isn't for everyone, and I personally couldn't get into it, and never found it fun, even though I know many others did, and continue to. It doesn't have old looking, or cartoon graphics, it's got plenty of content and a great community and some very, very interesting ideas.
Except he said he just quit playing EVE, so I assumed that was not an option. EVE is currently the only mmorpg that I am paying for, but ruled it out.
Yeh, I've been playing Eve since '03 and I've pretty much done everything there is to do. Sure I could lead a corp or join in some war but i've been there, done that, and I need something new now. I still come back to eve once a month or so to fly around a bit and try different fittings, maybe kill the occasional low sec pirate
Right now I can't recommend anything.... we really need something fresh and "good". But there are many new games on the near horizon, and I'm hoping one of them is a winner.
Hoping for AOC and WAR to turn out good atm. So far few MMOs have lived up to their hype.
Pirates of the burning sea also looks like a nice title, and i've been waiting for it a few years now, but it doesn't seem to me like something exceptional or very interesting, if you see what I mean.
Yes, folks you can craft, earn money, own a house, choose any mount you like from horses to cars (no dragons though perhaps implimented in a future patch) even PERMA DEATH PVP OPTIONAL!
I love the way I can customize my character! There are shops all over the towns where you can dye your hair and even get a tan! This alone has made me want to play!
And it's 100% free
Actually it's not free.
You get taxed by the evil government, and you gotta eat and sleep, which is seriously annoying sometimes. Good thing in games is you don't have to sleep
Originally posted by Shoal
* Buy the Box - Pay the Sub - Fast & Fun = World of Warcraft * Buy the Box - Pay the Sub - More Serious = EverQuest 2 Echos of Faydwer (Retail) * Buy the Box(s) - No Sub = Guild Wars * No Box to Buy - No Sub To Pay = Anarchy Online * Buy the Download - Pay the Sub - Hardcore PvP = EVE Online Good Luck and Have Fun with Whatever you Choose
That quite nicely sums it up actually, thanks. I'm thinking trying out WoW, EQ2 and GW (yeh all of them). I got friends that play WoW and GW so I can just play on their PCs and get a feel for their game, and i'm sure someone I know plays EQ2 as well. What's also important for me is that if I get addicted it lasts. I mean I played Eve for over 3 years, and I want at least a year worth of fun from whichever MMO I choose.
Thanks to everyone for responses, I read them all and they were very helpful
By the way, you said in your original post that you didn't want F2P, but did you try Anarchy Online? It has a pretty steep learning curve, but the community is (used to be?) great, the game is fun, and it is free. Downside is the graphics and the UI, and that it is on it's last throes. But man it sure was fun to play, and could probably tide you over for about 6 months even if you don't get into the high level grind.
Comparing WoW to GW, its none issue, GW is not an MMO.
Max cap in GW is 20, an average player will reach that in 2-3 weeks and then its just PvP (instanced) cus thats all there is to do, because GW is F2P its laggy (player warps alot) and everything is instanced, the only place you will find other players are in towns and even then you are sperated into districts that hold about 100 players. You can go out of town with upto 4 friends but thats it. No Auction house or any realy kind of community tools for finding groups etc. Feels like a single player game IMHO. But its good for a month or so thats how much time i got out of it.
Max cap in WoW is 60 (we'll forget about the expansion for this), average player will take a good 3-5 months to get to 60, all the while your questing next to and grouping with people in the world, no instanced world, just instanced dungeons and PvP battle grounds, sell your crafted or gather items on the aution house, pop into the battle ground for some PvP or form a group and do some world PvP. Flag your self as LFG on the LFG User interface tool. Been playing 14 months still things to do.
Innovation - For me this is a very important factor at play. If i'm going to subscribe to an MMO long-term, I want to know that I get to play a world with interesting new features, and not just a re-make of another game with a new name.
WoW is 2 years old now and its sub base it increasing, so no chance WoW will die any time soon, Blizz release free content patches every 2-3 months or so, these normaly include new dungeons and events check out all the free content added to WoW since release here: www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/implemented/ (12 content pacthes in the last 2 years). Blizz have said they will release a new expansion every year from now on.
Innovation or re-invention, id have to say WoW did not innovate but it re-invented, it took all the good parts of MMO's and made then 1000% better, took out the fluff and steamlined the whole deal. I think the in-game mail boxes were an inovation but I could be wrong.
Graphics - These have to be between good and very good. Ideally the game should allow you to set them to high, in which case it should be a beauty, yet also allow slower computers (mine is mid-range) to play them at a good performance woth lowered settings. Most MMOs have a cartoony feel to them or the graphics are simply old. It would be nice to see FPS standard graphics in a game.
WoW might not be next gen or trying to burn up your gfx card, but what it does produce are stunning graphics, with great detail and design, smooth animations and a living world.... no blandness or emptyness here. I play on my 9800pro 1.5gig with it max out at 1200x1600 at 40-60fps.
Gameplay - One of, if not the, most important factor at play here, If a game has stunning and incredibly addictive gameplay (read: minimum repetitive grind) then I could endure terrible graphics and still play it.
I hate to say it but 8 million subs (3.5 million in the west), most will say that mean nothing, but how about the rave reviews 9/10+ from almost all reviews, and numberous GOTY awards.
Grinding is what you make it, if you grind for level or money yes it boring, The only time I grind is for my 2 choosen professions (out of 11 in total) "skinning" and "leather working" so I go out and kill some beast for materials I will need in my crafting, i dont consider that griding, i have a goal to reach for an out come I want.
Running dungeons is always repetitive but WoW does not force you to run dungeons, you can solo to max level if you choose but if you dont theres never a shortage of players online to group with and to run that dungeon.
You can take some time out and level up your fishing, catch some fish to increase you fishing skill, then cook them to increase your cooking skill then use them your self, or sell them.
Pleanty of story based quests and long quest chains in WoW, yes theres the typical "kill 10 rats" but theres also many story quests that can lead you from 1 zone to another then to a dungeon before you can complete it. Such as this 9 step story arc quest www.thottbot.com/ that has you amoung other things killing some dragons at the start, delivering some documents, uncovering a plot and finaly rescuing an NPC from a dungeon, completing this will also grand you access to a 40man dungeon.
If you want a serious MMO where you want to pretend to be "jim the dragon slayer" and to live a 2nd life WoW is not for you, WoW is very much a game full of in game jokes and comical characters such as "Harris Pilton" here www.blizzplanet.com/content/91/ a link to a site that lists some of these references this might break immersion for some but Wow is a game not a life.
Community - Is very important to me. I tend to talk a lot on the forums of any particular game I am drawn in to, and would like the majority of the community to be mature. Mature doesn't necessarily mean older players, it just means less flaming/insolence. I want to be able to talk intelligently with people on both aspects of the game, and discuss news from RL.
A lot of miss information floats around about WoW's commuity, its not full of kids, yes you get idots just as you do in all MMO's but my guild of 80 player are aged 18+, I've never had issue with the community, its a big very active community and you will get idiots but thats the minority. If you can handle "barrens chat" you'll do fine
For the most part they are friendly but as will all MMO if you dont try to help yourself and just spam chat on where to find a quest guy you wont get many replies.
Lag - Is a game breaker for any MMO, so how the company manages lag is very important to me.
Had issues the first year mainly due to the surprise success, since then blizz have put loads of money into new server farms and moving exisiting servers to better farms. WoW now has around 230 servers in the west, I've not been in a que for 8 months now and lag.. not worth talking about, you wont have any issue with lag.... 50-90ms all the time for me.
I am sorry this is not meant to be rude. When it comes to Guild Wars you simply do not know what you are talking about. Group size goes up to 8 fairly quickly. I never lag in Guild Wars. There is a search feature that can be used for both grouping and selling. At least half of the content is done after level cap and levels are not the main source of advancement skil lacquisition is, so comparing WoW or EQ level capped style games to Guild Wars is pointless and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding. Even if being completely wrong about simple things like group max wasn't an obvious tip off.
You can't possibly believe that WoW has more innovative features than Guild Wars. That is preposterous. If you think it has more content that lasts longer that is fine, although you have clearly done no content past level 15 (whihc would mean you have only done 1/10 of it) in GW so your views are quite suspect.
-Guild wars has better and more vaired version of battlegrounds.
-Its has a simlar LFG interface that came out at a similar time. And for a point of reference both interfaces are inferior to CoX who has had theirs for years.
-Guild Wars has an Observer mode for PvP matches which kicks the ass of enything in WoW.
-Guild Wars is serverless anyone can play with anyone at any time.
-Guild Wars is patchless. Its updating tech is far and away superior to and more inoovative than all other online games currently in existence. That is fact not opinion.
The only feature WoW has that GW does not is the auction house/mail system and that is simply not a possibility since an auction house in GW would have to be universal and there are too many people. And GW has a number of other features that WoW simply does not have many of which were added completely for free.
In general WoW is extremely non-innovative except for the auction house, their only major strength is smoothness and completenss. Which is very important and I give them all the credit they deserve there. The is no innovative, neither in RPG design or features (except for the LUA UI). I can literally list 10 games with various more innovative and better features. From the CoX LFg tools to EQ2 and CoX guild/supergroup extras. To Guild Wars Observer mode. To Auto Assault physics. To Cox flight and travel powers. To SWG housing. The list can go on on on.
And trying to say that WoW does not or hasn't had major lag issues is an outright falsehood. I mean just plain wow. Server queues. Raids crashing. World PvP caused servers to crash. I mean seriously this ridiculously untenable.
As to whether or not GW is an MMORPG, it simply is not material. As I said in my first post I could extrapolate the same analysis to Oblivion content additions and almost all MMORPGs will still come out sorely lacking. They are not a good value when compared to other games. They are possibly the least cost effective games around by a margin of 2 to1. Anyone who is looking for a bargain in a sub game is looking in the wrong place.
All in all WoW is one of the better deals for an MMORPG. It is not a good deal, its a complete racket like all monthly sub MMORPGs.
Comparing WoW to GW, its none issue, GW is not an MMO.
Max cap in GW is 20, an average player will reach that in 2-3 weeks and then its just PvP (instanced) cus thats all there is to do, because GW is F2P its laggy (player warps alot) and everything is instanced, the only place you will find other players are in towns and even then you are sperated into districts that hold about 100 players. You can go out of town with upto 4 friends but thats it. No Auction house or any realy kind of community tools for finding groups etc. Feels like a single player game IMHO. But its good for a month or so thats how much time i got out of it.
Max cap in WoW is 60 (we'll forget about the expansion for this), average player will take a good 3-5 months to get to 60, all the while your questing next to and grouping with people in the world, no instanced world, just instanced dungeons and PvP battle grounds, sell your crafted or gather items on the aution house, pop into the battle ground for some PvP or form a group and do some world PvP. Flag your self as LFG on the LFG User interface tool. Been playing 14 months still things to do.
Innovation - For me this is a very important factor at play. If i'm going to subscribe to an MMO long-term, I want to know that I get to play a world with interesting new features, and not just a re-make of another game with a new name.
WoW is 2 years old now and its sub base it increasing, so no chance WoW will die any time soon, Blizz release free content patches every 2-3 months or so, these normaly include new dungeons and events check out all the free content added to WoW since release here: www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/implemented/ (12 content pacthes in the last 2 years). Blizz have said they will release a new expansion every year from now on.
Innovation or re-invention, id have to say WoW did not innovate but it re-invented, it took all the good parts of MMO's and made then 1000% better, took out the fluff and steamlined the whole deal. I think the in-game mail boxes were an inovation but I could be wrong.
Graphics - These have to be between good and very good. Ideally the game should allow you to set them to high, in which case it should be a beauty, yet also allow slower computers (mine is mid-range) to play them at a good performance woth lowered settings. Most MMOs have a cartoony feel to them or the graphics are simply old. It would be nice to see FPS standard graphics in a game.
WoW might not be next gen or trying to burn up your gfx card, but what it does produce are stunning graphics, with great detail and design, smooth animations and a living world.... no blandness or emptyness here. I play on my 9800pro 1.5gig with it max out at 1200x1600 at 40-60fps.
Gameplay - One of, if not the, most important factor at play here, If a game has stunning and incredibly addictive gameplay (read: minimum repetitive grind) then I could endure terrible graphics and still play it.
I hate to say it but 8 million subs (3.5 million in the west), most will say that mean nothing, but how about the rave reviews 9/10+ from almost all reviews, and numberous GOTY awards.
Grinding is what you make it, if you grind for level or money yes it boring, The only time I grind is for my 2 choosen professions (out of 11 in total) "skinning" and "leather working" so I go out and kill some beast for materials I will need in my crafting, i dont consider that griding, i have a goal to reach for an out come I want.
Running dungeons is always repetitive but WoW does not force you to run dungeons, you can solo to max level if you choose but if you dont theres never a shortage of players online to group with and to run that dungeon.
You can take some time out and level up your fishing, catch some fish to increase you fishing skill, then cook them to increase your cooking skill then use them your self, or sell them.
Pleanty of story based quests and long quest chains in WoW, yes theres the typical "kill 10 rats" but theres also many story quests that can lead you from 1 zone to another then to a dungeon before you can complete it. Such as this 9 step story arc quest www.thottbot.com/ that has you amoung other things killing some dragons at the start, delivering some documents, uncovering a plot and finaly rescuing an NPC from a dungeon, completing this will also grand you access to a 40man dungeon.
If you want a serious MMO where you want to pretend to be "jim the dragon slayer" and to live a 2nd life WoW is not for you, WoW is very much a game full of in game jokes and comical characters such as "Harris Pilton" here www.blizzplanet.com/content/91/ a link to a site that lists some of these references this might break immersion for some but Wow is a game not a life.
Community - Is very important to me. I tend to talk a lot on the forums of any particular game I am drawn in to, and would like the majority of the community to be mature. Mature doesn't necessarily mean older players, it just means less flaming/insolence. I want to be able to talk intelligently with people on both aspects of the game, and discuss news from RL.
A lot of miss information floats around about WoW's commuity, its not full of kids, yes you get idots just as you do in all MMO's but my guild of 80 player are aged 18+, I've never had issue with the community, its a big very active community and you will get idiots but thats the minority. If you can handle "barrens chat" you'll do fine
For the most part they are friendly but as will all MMO if you dont try to help yourself and just spam chat on where to find a quest guy you wont get many replies.
Lag - Is a game breaker for any MMO, so how the company manages lag is very important to me.
Had issues the first year mainly due to the surprise success, since then blizz have put loads of money into new server farms and moving exisiting servers to better farms. WoW now has around 230 servers in the west, I've not been in a que for 8 months now and lag.. not worth talking about, you wont have any issue with lag.... 50-90ms all the time for me.
Seems I upset a GW player.. oh noes. AFAIK I did not slag off GW or compare WoW to GW in terms of innovation just game mechinics so i dont know why I made you cry so much... but i love a good flame war so...
I am sorry this is not meant to be rude. When it comes to Guild Wars you simply do not know what you are talking about. Group size goes up to 8 fairly quickly. I never lag in Guild Wars. There is a search feature that can be used for both grouping and selling. At least half of the content is done after level cap and levels are not the main source of advancement skil lacquisition is, so comparing WoW or EQ level capped style games to Guild Wars is pointless and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding. Even if being completely wrong about simple things like group max wasn't an obvious tip off.
I have not played GW since factions BTW.... AFAIK PvE was 5 players max and 8v8 PvP, WoW has upto 40v40 PvP, You might not lag but you Warp FACT.. you know you move forward then suddenly your warped back a few steps thats very common.
You can't possibly believe that WoW has more innovative features than Guild Wars. That is preposterous. If you think it has more content that lasts longer that is fine, although you have clearly done no content past level 15 (whihc would mean you have only done 1/10 of it) in GW so your views are quite suspect.
What did GW innovate in? i played to lvl 17 some ranger combo. Tried PvP but coming from WoW it just seems cheap, glued to the floor, stuck to set routes, small scale.... the only good thing was picking your skills to take into the fight.
-Guild wars has better and more vaired version of battlegrounds. smaller form of battle grounds 8v8 vs 40v40, dont recall Gw having a battle gorund like Alteric valley, with 2 bases and each faction need to kill NPC leaders as well as each other.
-Its has a simlar LFG interface that came out at a similar time. And for a point of reference both interfaces are inferior to CoX who has had theirs for years. no comment was not in game when i played.
-Guild Wars has an Observer mode for PvP matches which kicks the ass of enything in WoW. I cant see any reason for observer mode in WoW, PvP is a tiny part of WoW, PvP is the main focus of GW.
-Guild Wars is serverless anyone can play with anyone at any time. GW does use a centrel server but leeches most bandwidth from player which leads to the lag and the reason for small groups and why its F2P.
-Guild Wars is patchless. Its updating tech is far and away superior to and more inoovative than all other online games currently in existence. That is fact not opinion. I seem to remember download patches for GW on occasions, and big deal having to downlaod FREE content patches ever few month on WoW.
The only feature WoW has that GW does not is the auction house/mail system and that is simply not a possibility since an auction house in GW would have to be universal and there are too many people. And GW has a number of other features that WoW simply does not have many of which were added completely for free.
WoW has so much more than GW, mounts, open world and large scale PvP to name a few. What does GW have that WoW does not (accept that all important observer mode)? BTW 12 FREE content expanision have been released for WOW so far.
In general WoW is extremely non-innovative except for the auction house, their only major strength is smoothness and completenss. Which is very important and I give them all the credit they deserve there. The is no innovative, neither in RPG design or features (except for the LUA UI). I can literally list 10 games with various more innovative and better features. From the CoX LFg tools to EQ2 and CoX guild/supergroup extras. To Guild Wars Observer mode. To Auto Assault physics. To Cox flight and travel powers. To SWG housing. The list can go on on on.
Wow also does not have lazer guns. WoW is also not a superhero game, a PvP focus game, a driving game. It has the things it needs and nothing more, and 8 million people, reviewers and awad givers seem to think that fine.
And trying to say that WoW does not or hasn't had major lag issues is an outright falsehood. I mean just plain wow. Server queues. Raids crashing. World PvP caused servers to crash. I mean seriously this ridiculously untenable.
Never said it never had problems, for the last year I have never been in a queue (hi pop server), raid crashing when did that ever happen? PvP crash happened about a year ago when they started, i standbay the 95% Zero lag.
As to whether or not GW is an MMORPG, it simply is not material. As I said in my first post I could extrapolate the same analysis to Oblivion content additions and almost all MMORPGs will still come out sorely lacking. They are not a good value when compared to other games. They are possibly the least cost effective games around by a margin of 2 to1. Anyone who is looking for a bargain in a sub game is looking in the wrong place.
GW is not an MMO even the devs say so.
All in all WoW is one of the better deals for an MMORPG. It is not a good deal, its a complete racket like all monthly sub MMORPGs.
Id love MMO's to be free but they are not. But you dont get the scope of WoW in a F2P game.
Even after reading your response cupertino, you don't know very much about GW. If you didn't even get to level 20 in Factions, the smallest expansion with fastest levelling, you haven't seen but about 15% of what GW has to offer. I've played both in beta and to "max level" and don't play either anymore. I still think GW was more of what the OP was looking for over WoW. Some of your counter-points about GW like lag, player limitations, etc, I just have never seen the problems you list as badly as you portray. Personally, I'm fine with you not liking GW, just don't attempt to portray the game worse than it is.
Even after reading your response cupertino, you don't know very much about GW. If you didn't even get to level 20 in Factions, the smallest expansion with fastest levelling, you haven't seen but about 15% of what GW has to offer. I've played both in beta and to "max level" and don't play either anymore. I still think GW was more of what the OP was looking for over WoW. Some of your counter-points about GW like lag, player limitations, etc, I just have never seen the problems you list as badly as you portray. Personally, I'm fine with you not liking GW, just don't attempt to portray the game worse than it is.
Still not sure what I said was incorrect about GW, Player number limitation is correct, lag/warpping is correct (from my experience). i never once said I dont like GW, I enjoyed my month but there was not enough in GW to keep a MMO'er happy, GW is 90% about PvP and I dont think the OP wants a PvP focus game.
Lets go over the OP's points;
Innovation - Maybe the skills. Only letting a player have 8 skills at 1 time, but not sure, and these become cookie cutter after a while.
Graphics - GW has great gfx.
Gamplay - A few weeks of Instanced PvE (feels like a single player game) then full on Instanced PvP with the odd Instanced PvE run for skills and loot. Max party lmit is 8, so gather just 7 friends or NPC and enter an instanced world where you will meet no other players.
Community - Same as any multiplayer game, idiots, kids and the good guys.
Lag - lagger than P2P games, because it uses far less bandwidth and you will experience warpping, not a huge issue but if you come from EQ2 or WoW you will notice it.
But again, in my original post I did not compare WoW and GW, I compared WoW to the OP's requirements and gave my views on why GW is not an MMO and should not be compared to an MMO.
Cupertino let us be honest, you don't know jack about Guild Wars and you can admit it no one will diss you on that. Seriously, there was never a 5 man instanced environment in the game in Factions. It's a minimum of 4 in the really early stages of the game and rapidly increases to 6 and more rapidly to 8. The elite areas have a player cap of 12 also in Factions.
Now, as far as other thing goes, it' s just funny when you say that GW leeches bandwidth of a player. The last time I looked all MMORPG games were two way communication and the connection will be as fast as the the slowest component. If you cite 8 million player base then kudos to WoW but GW is no push over because it too has a 3 million subscriber base. Now, when you say the game is 90% PvP again you don' know the hell as to what you are talking about.
PvP is no doubt one aspect of the game and a much more strong and integral part of GW universe than it is for WoW but then it is also more refined more clean, more strategic and not a war of attrition like in many other MMORPGs.
That is another fact of GW that it is highly strategic in it's playing style and that carrying any skill you feel like to the battlefield is a sure way of dying. The combos of skills are an integral part of the game which keeps me on my toes. The interface is one of the cleanest and neatest you can get in any MMORPG. In fact, that's one of the things I hate the most about WoW the huge number of icons on your screen. Now, if you are one of the players who likes the grind of leveling up then you are playing the right game, but a lot of people I know hate that even in WoW. If that were not the case then there wouldn't be a multi-million dollar industry for leveling up characters in your game. I would rather level up and fight the rest of the game with different skill combos than stand around and kill 10 rats in an area.
Again, that is a playing style one likes and not a fault of the game they are playing.
Now, coming to the main point of the topic which is value for money. Now the reason I say it is Guild Wars is not because of the pricing structure which equates to free game and 10$ pm provided they release an expansion pack every 6 months but for the simple fact that I can stop playing the game for any period of time and come back to it after a month or two.Unlike WoW which gives me a very limited time to come back after which my character and all the work I put into it which because of the high level cap is tremendous I tend to loose all that.
Now, also someone mentioned that people have lives and from time to time you have to do certain things which enhance and also in some cases prolong that life! Now, if I were in WoW my account would be kaput!! but in GW I could come back and voila everything is the same just like the way I left it. That feature alone makes GuildWars the best value for money. Also, 15$ a month is ridiculously expensive considering that from time to time I like playing different games and thus have to invest in them as well.
Sorry to tell you but value for money does not derive from what you think is a superior game but how much money you put in to how much enjoyment you get from the game. WoW might be a good game and I emphasize the word might but lets face it and stick to the topic which is Value For Money and nothing can beat Guild Wars in that unless someone comes out with a similar structure.
P.S--:You don't know anything about Guild Wars so please do not pass judgment on that game which by the way is made by the same people who made WoW. I would suggest that you stick to praising WoW and not compare it to something which very obviously you have no idea about! Your ignorance and lack of knowledge is unfortunately very apparent and I implore you not to make it more obvious!
Also, when it comes to lag please note that my guild members connect from Australia on a dial up connection and they run Ventrilo also without any lags whatsoever. So your point about GW being laggy is just plain false. Almost, 1/3 of my guild is on dial-up and we have finished a lot of missions without anybody complaining about lags.
Now, another point you mentioned was mounts and sorry to say it just cracks me up. The only reason why WoW players need mounts is because of the huge areas they have to cover just running from one place to another. My friend and I have no clue where he was mind you would spend a good 5-7 minutes riding his mounts to get from one place to another which is just plain silly cause I like to do something in my game not just stare at a screen with something moving about in it. In GW we have maptravel which might break the illusion somewhat but is so much more convenient I can't tell you enough about it. However, again it could be a player thing and you might like staring at the screen watching your horse take you somewhere or your bird or whatever but I sure dont.
Well, I'm not going to get into a pissing contest over semantics cupertino. You lightened up on your last post, so I will leave it at that. I would like to add that in GW you can change your secondary profession, which is a huge bonus if you are willing to invest your time into it. It gives you the ability to not be cookie cutter if you choose not to be. Yeah, most people start out cookie cutter, but in the end, once you start getting decent elite skills for all the professions, you can add a lot more to a group than cookie cutter. WoW does not have nearly the customability of characters abilities, actually, it's not even close. In fact, I'd say that the ability to switch secondary professions led me to play for quite some time. Of course, just like any "endgame," it does become a grind.
Note also that there is a point that you have to play GW until for it to meet the "value" of WoW. Right now, you need about 2-3 months of GW play to start moving ahead of WoW in monetary value, *if* you don't buy all of the GW expansions.
I played factions for a month so I think im entitled to my views based on MY impressions on that time, I only every had a party of 5 or 4 what ever the min was (it was about 6 months ago ya know), and I did warp from time to time even on my 1mbit connection.
So i got party size numbers wrong but everything else is true from MY experince and my experience is what matters to me.
Anyway Im out of here, I never asked for this war and it was not called for, sorry if I upset you guys.
Sorry Cupertino if that sounded like a war to you but we were just letting the original poster of this thread know the current state of the game. I am aware that this was something which might have happened and am not calling you a liar or anything but was just letting the original poster make an informed decision. Now I am in no way saying that mine is not a biased decision but I think it would be better that players post what they feel are the most positive aspects of their game and not try to criticize other games of which they have limited experience. This allows new players to understand what kind of game play they will experience if they pick up a copy of the game and pick something up which suits their budget and playing style.
Again my apologies if this might seem like a flaming thread!
Comments
* Buy the Box - Pay the Sub - Fast & Fun = World of Warcraft
* Buy the Box - Pay the Sub - More Serious = EverQuest 2 Echos of Faydwer (Retail)
* Buy the Box(s) - No Sub = Guild Wars
* No Box to Buy - No Sub To Pay = Anarchy Online
* Buy the Download - Pay the Sub - Hardcore PvP = EVE Online
Good Luck and Have Fun with Whatever you Choose
Yeh, I've been playing Eve since '03 and I've pretty much done everything there is to do. Sure I could lead a corp or join in some war but i've been there, done that, and I need something new now. I still come back to eve once a month or so to fly around a bit and try different fittings, maybe kill the occasional low sec pirate
Hoping for AOC and WAR to turn out good atm. So far few MMOs have lived up to their hype.
Pirates of the burning sea also looks like a nice title, and i've been waiting for it a few years now, but it doesn't seem to me like something exceptional or very interesting, if you see what I mean.
Actually it's not free.
You get taxed by the evil government, and you gotta eat and sleep, which is seriously annoying sometimes. Good thing in games is you don't have to sleep
That quite nicely sums it up actually, thanks. I'm thinking trying out WoW, EQ2 and GW (yeh all of them). I got friends that play WoW and GW so I can just play on their PCs and get a feel for their game, and i'm sure someone I know plays EQ2 as well. What's also important for me is that if I get addicted it lasts. I mean I played Eve for over 3 years, and I want at least a year worth of fun from whichever MMO I choose.
Thanks to everyone for responses, I read them all and they were very helpful
You can't possibly believe that WoW has more innovative features than Guild Wars. That is preposterous. If you think it has more content that lasts longer that is fine, although you have clearly done no content past level 15 (whihc would mean you have only done 1/10 of it) in GW so your views are quite suspect.
-Guild wars has better and more vaired version of battlegrounds.
-Its has a simlar LFG interface that came out at a similar time. And for a point of reference both interfaces are inferior to CoX who has had theirs for years.
-Guild Wars has an Observer mode for PvP matches which kicks the ass of enything in WoW.
-Guild Wars is serverless anyone can play with anyone at any time.
-Guild Wars is patchless. Its updating tech is far and away superior to and more inoovative than all other online games currently in existence. That is fact not opinion.
The only feature WoW has that GW does not is the auction house/mail system and that is simply not a possibility since an auction house in GW would have to be universal and there are too many people. And GW has a number of other features that WoW simply does not have many of which were added completely for free.
In general WoW is extremely non-innovative except for the auction house, their only major strength is smoothness and completenss. Which is very important and I give them all the credit they deserve there. The is no innovative, neither in RPG design or features (except for the LUA UI). I can literally list 10 games with various more innovative and better features. From the CoX LFg tools to EQ2 and CoX guild/supergroup extras. To Guild Wars Observer mode. To Auto Assault physics. To Cox flight and travel powers. To SWG housing. The list can go on on on.
And trying to say that WoW does not or hasn't had major lag issues is an outright falsehood. I mean just plain wow. Server queues. Raids crashing. World PvP caused servers to crash. I mean seriously this ridiculously untenable.
As to whether or not GW is an MMORPG, it simply is not material. As I said in my first post I could extrapolate the same analysis to Oblivion content additions and almost all MMORPGs will still come out sorely lacking. They are not a good value when compared to other games. They are possibly the least cost effective games around by a margin of 2 to1. Anyone who is looking for a bargain in a sub game is looking in the wrong place.
All in all WoW is one of the better deals for an MMORPG. It is not a good deal, its a complete racket like all monthly sub MMORPGs.
I am sorry this is not meant to be rude. When it comes to Guild Wars you simply do not know what you are talking about. Group size goes up to 8 fairly quickly. I never lag in Guild Wars. There is a search feature that can be used for both grouping and selling. At least half of the content is done after level cap and levels are not the main source of advancement skil lacquisition is, so comparing WoW or EQ level capped style games to Guild Wars is pointless and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding. Even if being completely wrong about simple things like group max wasn't an obvious tip off.
I have not played GW since factions BTW.... AFAIK PvE was 5 players max and 8v8 PvP, WoW has upto 40v40 PvP, You might not lag but you Warp FACT.. you know you move forward then suddenly your warped back a few steps thats very common.
You can't possibly believe that WoW has more innovative features than Guild Wars. That is preposterous. If you think it has more content that lasts longer that is fine, although you have clearly done no content past level 15 (whihc would mean you have only done 1/10 of it) in GW so your views are quite suspect.
What did GW innovate in? i played to lvl 17 some ranger combo. Tried PvP but coming from WoW it just seems cheap, glued to the floor, stuck to set routes, small scale.... the only good thing was picking your skills to take into the fight.
-Guild wars has better and more vaired version of battlegrounds. smaller form of battle grounds 8v8 vs 40v40, dont recall Gw having a battle gorund like Alteric valley, with 2 bases and each faction need to kill NPC leaders as well as each other.
-Its has a simlar LFG interface that came out at a similar time. And for a point of reference both interfaces are inferior to CoX who has had theirs for years. no comment was not in game when i played.
-Guild Wars has an Observer mode for PvP matches which kicks the ass of enything in WoW. I cant see any reason for observer mode in WoW, PvP is a tiny part of WoW, PvP is the main focus of GW.
-Guild Wars is serverless anyone can play with anyone at any time. GW does use a centrel server but leeches most bandwidth from player which leads to the lag and the reason for small groups and why its F2P.
-Guild Wars is patchless. Its updating tech is far and away superior to and more inoovative than all other online games currently in existence. That is fact not opinion. I seem to remember download patches for GW on occasions, and big deal having to downlaod FREE content patches ever few month on WoW.
The only feature WoW has that GW does not is the auction house/mail system and that is simply not a possibility since an auction house in GW would have to be universal and there are too many people. And GW has a number of other features that WoW simply does not have many of which were added completely for free.
WoW has so much more than GW, mounts, open world and large scale PvP to name a few. What does GW have that WoW does not (accept that all important observer mode)? BTW 12 FREE content expanision have been released for WOW so far.
In general WoW is extremely non-innovative except for the auction house, their only major strength is smoothness and completenss. Which is very important and I give them all the credit they deserve there. The is no innovative, neither in RPG design or features (except for the LUA UI). I can literally list 10 games with various more innovative and better features. From the CoX LFg tools to EQ2 and CoX guild/supergroup extras. To Guild Wars Observer mode. To Auto Assault physics. To Cox flight and travel powers. To SWG housing. The list can go on on on.
Wow also does not have lazer guns. WoW is also not a superhero game, a PvP focus game, a driving game. It has the things it needs and nothing more, and 8 million people, reviewers and awad givers seem to think that fine.
And trying to say that WoW does not or hasn't had major lag issues is an outright falsehood. I mean just plain wow. Server queues. Raids crashing. World PvP caused servers to crash. I mean seriously this ridiculously untenable.
Never said it never had problems, for the last year I have never been in a queue (hi pop server), raid crashing when did that ever happen? PvP crash happened about a year ago when they started, i standbay the 95% Zero lag.
As to whether or not GW is an MMORPG, it simply is not material. As I said in my first post I could extrapolate the same analysis to Oblivion content additions and almost all MMORPGs will still come out sorely lacking. They are not a good value when compared to other games. They are possibly the least cost effective games around by a margin of 2 to1. Anyone who is looking for a bargain in a sub game is looking in the wrong place.
GW is not an MMO even the devs say so.
All in all WoW is one of the better deals for an MMORPG. It is not a good deal, its a complete racket like all monthly sub MMORPGs.
Id love MMO's to be free but they are not. But you dont get the scope of WoW in a F2P game.
Lets go over the OP's points;
Innovation - Maybe the skills. Only letting a player have 8 skills at 1 time, but not sure, and these become cookie cutter after a while.
Graphics - GW has great gfx.
Gamplay - A few weeks of Instanced PvE (feels like a single player game) then full on Instanced PvP with the odd Instanced PvE run for skills and loot. Max party lmit is 8, so gather just 7 friends or NPC and enter an instanced world where you will meet no other players.
Community - Same as any multiplayer game, idiots, kids and the good guys.
Lag - lagger than P2P games, because it uses far less bandwidth and you will experience warpping, not a huge issue but if you come from EQ2 or WoW you will notice it.
But again, in my original post I did not compare WoW and GW, I compared WoW to the OP's requirements and gave my views on why GW is not an MMO and should not be compared to an MMO.
Now, as far as other thing goes, it' s just funny when you say that GW leeches bandwidth of a player. The last time I looked all MMORPG games were two way communication and the connection will be as fast as the the slowest component. If you cite 8 million player base then kudos to WoW but GW is no push over because it too has a 3 million subscriber base. Now, when you say the game is 90% PvP again you don' know the hell as to what you are talking about.
PvP is no doubt one aspect of the game and a much more strong and integral part of GW universe than it is for WoW but then it is also more refined more clean, more strategic and not a war of attrition like in many other MMORPGs.
That is another fact of GW that it is highly strategic in it's playing style and that carrying any skill you feel like to the battlefield is a sure way of dying. The combos of skills are an integral part of the game which keeps me on my toes. The interface is one of the cleanest and neatest you can get in any MMORPG. In fact, that's one of the things I hate the most about WoW the huge number of icons on your screen. Now, if you are one of the players who likes the grind of leveling up then you are playing the right game, but a lot of people I know hate that even in WoW. If that were not the case then there wouldn't be a multi-million dollar industry for leveling up characters in your game. I would rather level up and fight the rest of the game with different skill combos than stand around and kill 10 rats in an area.
Again, that is a playing style one likes and not a fault of the game they are playing.
Now, coming to the main point of the topic which is value for money. Now the reason I say it is Guild Wars is not because of the pricing structure which equates to free game and 10$ pm provided they release an expansion pack every 6 months but for the simple fact that I can stop playing the game for any period of time and come back to it after a month or two.Unlike WoW which gives me a very limited time to come back after which my character and all the work I put into it which because of the high level cap is tremendous I tend to loose all that.
Now, also someone mentioned that people have lives and from time to time you have to do certain things which enhance and also in some cases prolong that life! Now, if I were in WoW my account would be kaput!! but in GW I could come back and voila everything is the same just like the way I left it. That feature alone makes GuildWars the best value for money. Also, 15$ a month is ridiculously expensive considering that from time to time I like playing different games and thus have to invest in them as well.
Sorry to tell you but value for money does not derive from what you think is a superior game but how much money you put in to how much enjoyment you get from the game. WoW might be a good game and I emphasize the word might but lets face it and stick to the topic which is Value For Money and nothing can beat Guild Wars in that unless someone comes out with a similar structure.
P.S--:You don't know anything about Guild Wars so please do not pass judgment on that game which by the way is made by the same people who made WoW. I would suggest that you stick to praising WoW and not compare it to something which very obviously you have no idea about! Your ignorance and lack of knowledge is unfortunately very apparent and I implore you not to make it more obvious!
Now, another point you mentioned was mounts and sorry to say it just cracks me up. The only reason why WoW players need mounts is because of the huge areas they have to cover just running from one place to another. My friend and I have no clue where he was mind you would spend a good 5-7 minutes riding his mounts to get from one place to another which is just plain silly cause I like to do something in my game not just stare at a screen with something moving about in it. In GW we have maptravel which might break the illusion somewhat but is so much more convenient I can't tell you enough about it. However, again it could be a player thing and you might like staring at the screen watching your horse take you somewhere or your bird or whatever but I sure dont.
Note also that there is a point that you have to play GW until for it to meet the "value" of WoW. Right now, you need about 2-3 months of GW play to start moving ahead of WoW in monetary value, *if* you don't buy all of the GW expansions.
I played factions for a month so I think im entitled to my views based on MY impressions on that time, I only every had a party of 5 or 4 what ever the min was (it was about 6 months ago ya know), and I did warp from time to time even on my 1mbit connection.
So i got party size numbers wrong but everything else is true from MY experince and my experience is what matters to me.
Anyway Im out of here, I never asked for this war and it was not called for, sorry if I upset you guys.
Again my apologies if this might seem like a flaming thread!