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Guild Wars - Why it's better than WoW
jonsnow13
Member Posts: 67
I played Guild Wars during the world preview...
At first I was completely turned off. Combat was less interactive then diablo 2, and less skillful at first glance. I couldn't help thinking... "They need to make a jedi outcast mmo, that'd kick ass."
However, as you progress through the game and play more and more of it and get more skills... you start to realize just how complex the world is. The strategy is on a completely different level. No longer are you restricted to the same generic skill sets of every other player. In WoW you are identical in terms of skills to every other player of your class. In guild wars, you choose up to 8 skills and 8 skills only before entering something like an arena or quest... and you can't swap them out during the quest. However, there are over 100's of skills to choose from... so it's like picking your cards right to match the strategic level of your entire squad of groupies. I liked this aspect, because it makes the name come to me much clearer. The greatness of this game is not on an individual level, but the aspect of team play.
At first during the world premiere there wasn't much to do other then do a few quests and pvp one on one, but then they added more and I discovered the big arena. The arena is just brilliant, and once they figured out that pvp is so much more fun for the individual if he gains exp from killing other players... then the game became addictive.
The last time I was addicted to a game as much as I was guild wars in that short preview was with UO. I can't express my excitement for when this game comes out.
Common complaints I hear about this game trouble me, I don't think everyone has done all their research. A lot of comments came up that because it was free it was too good to be true. Nonsense, there will be fee's just in the form of WoW where you're FORCED to pay to play. Instead, Guild Wars presents a game that you pay for it upfront and get to play what you payed for. However, to get the additional content (which is nice because you get to pick and choose) you have to pay an additional fee.
Guild wars has already stated that the expansions will have no less content then the launch of the original game. This is a huge statement, but also means that the expansions are going to cost as MUCH as the original game and that the original games price will not ever drop very much to compensate for the no monthly fee.
Hardly a problem, since I don't mind supporting a game that is trying to appeal to the players, instead of appealing to the market value. They've done nothing less then listen to the gamers plea's and implement them into the game.
Another common complaint from people is the mass "zoning" used by Guild Wars. I think this is brilliant on multiple levels.
It's nice to be emersed in an environment and find things along the way to your destination... but in terms of WoW, it's not so nice. Once you've explored a territory once there's usually is nothing more to find and the landscape although beautiful is usually redundant and consistent. WoW is beautiful don't get me wrong, but the beauty doesn't make up for the literally hours that I've spent running across the landscape to just put items on a auction house, or go to a raid, or even to just meet a friend somewhere. At least they had the decency to add fly routes so you didn't have to actually pay attention while you were going somewhere... just consider it a 30 minute load screen.
This is where instancing becomes brilliant. No longer do you spend hours going somewhere, and they have done their best to eliminate any monotonous activities you might come across, and makes playing friends easy and fun.
I don't think you can even compair the monsters in WoW to the beautiful monsters in guild wars, and WoW has no more playability in terms of game fun factor then guild wars regardless how montonous they might make the combat.
However, I did come across one problem in the world premiere. The quests weren't so balanced. I came across a quest with a boss that I could not kill simply because when I'd get him low life he'd heal quicker then I could deal damage to him. However, he could not kill me. Still, this is a huge no no.
So I think the main problem with this is the chalenge does not scale for group size, it is consistent in that sense and so you either need to grab some of the npc's and take them with you, or not be able to complete a quest.
This wouldn't be a problem if you could control the npc's when playing solo. Then it'd just be like a party you had... It'd be kind of neat to have some sort of system where you can port characters of yours for single missions you do by yourself for your group. That way you could level all of them at the same time and since guild wars isn't going for time sinking... this would be ideal.
You see, this is the beautiful thing about Guild Wars. It's not trying to time sink you. In games like WoW it's REQUIRED that they have as much monotonous things (time consumption things) in the game as possible so that you do not reach the end game and the end content too fast. If you do reach the end game then you might quit, which means one less paying customer. In guild wars you don't have to worry about them wanting to keep you around through monotonous ways since you pay the upfront fee... they've had their way with you, and don't care to see you til next expansion.
Did I mention that guild wars in it's beta was 100x more fun pvp wise?
In WoW each character is identical to players of the same class except for these little very miniscul points they give you... to pick a bonus path which you can change at any given time if you have enough money.
So in this way, if you were to fight someone of the same class, and they were higher level and had better equipment you are 99% chance going to lose unless they are idiots and don't use the same skills you use on them... and instead just shoot or attack you. Also, in WoW there are only 9? possible playable classes, and they FAILED to balance these correctly with such FEW classes. The paladin in the early stages of launch was rediculously over powered compaired to what I played (lvl 42 hunter). I could kite them for an eternity but the time it took me to regain mana, to deal damage, and to gain enough distance between the pally he had already casted immunity... healed himself to full, or some other means to escape death. I've had battles last up to 15-20 minutes of doing this and since death didn't matter I said screw it and let him kill me just so I could go back to PLAYING the game.
in guild wars, everyone starts out on an equal playing field with equipment and level meaning something (to reward those who do support the game and play a lot, gotta appeal to the long term gamers) but also not so much that the game is unbalanced because of it.
With that being said, I support guild wars full heartedly and give a middle finger to blizzard for appealing to the mass market instead of living true to their name and producing a top quality great game like they always have. Instead they turned out a well made game that appeals to everyone but doesn't really satisfy any one particular persons major desires. I supported W3, W2, W... D, and D2... but WoW failed me.
I gave it a month before I got bored of fighting a different named wolf, and spending 4-6 hours trying to level my character when my next level didn't even have anything to offer me in terms of skills or whatever...
Anyways, enough ranting... hope you guys enjoyed the read 
Comments
Well.. its a lot to read, but i completly agree wit what I did. This game is going to rock, it will be the RPG equivalent of CS in my opinion
Now its time for the whiners... "but its not an MMO, Waaaaaa!"
but that's the thing... it is an MMO.
Thousands of people will be playing it at the same time, and the instances you go to such as town or whatever... will keep items around, etc.
The only thing is that it's a completely different MMO, it's not stereotypical. This is why people reject it as an MMO.
MMO stands for massively multiplayer online... that's exactly what guild wars is. Also, for those who have played lineage 2... I think you can rest assured that the way guild wars does things puts lineage 2's ways to shame.
Lineage 2 was by far the worst MMORPG I ever played and I've played 50% of all MMORPG's out there ranging from free to pay to play...
While we're on the page of hate... I HATE EA. Electronic Arts sucks ass. They completely destroyed UO for me, as well as stopping the production of two major future UO Titles that I would have loved and supported whole heartedly... From a business standpoint I'm sure this was ideal for them... but sometimes a company has to do things for players as well in order to gain respect. Respect is important to a company, since if one person doesn't respect you they can screw you over by making POSTS LIKE THIS THAT OTHERS READ and might be influenced by.
I've played - AC, AC2, DAOC, Horizons, Lineage 2, UO, Star wars galaxies, WoW, Neocron, Tale in the desert, and a ton of low budget games like Rubies of Eventide, etc.
I have also been designing a game of my own just to learn how to program, and I must say when you start making your own game you realize all the little details and strategies these big budget companies use to get your money and jack you in terms of gameplay. I saw none of this in Guild Wars. It definately felt like it was made by a bunch of people actually wanting to make a game that was fun and that was the purpose of it.
i like this concept for mainly pvp say a warrior monk is a tank they don't dish out alot of damage but they are a fly that you can't swat at depending on your group. or take a warrior ranger a deadly deadly tank not damage wise but takes awhile longer to kill or a Elementalist/ranger who deal MASSIVE damage but incrediblely weak defence get a warrior up in their face they are gone
Yeah gw involves strategy and it doenst matter how long you can play it a lvl 15 can beat a 20
you have to think abotu what skills you are going to use and what role you play in battle
thats the beauty of this game
also guild wars has pretty much no grind while WoW has alittle to much if you ask me
When do you get to choose your 8 skills? Let's say you have a group of 5 and your ready to go into the arena instance, do you get a preview of your opponents classes and then choose or do you choose your skills blind?
You choose before the battle or quest. You dont know what youre opponents will be, thats why you need to be coordinated with your skills to cover alot of bases. Hence the strategy.
when you play the beta and start out with a lvl 20 character you pick your profession combos and they are already set up for you
if you start fresh you choose which profeessions you want to be and buy your skills from the skill trainer
ignoring for just a moment the over use of the word brilliant... I took most of what you said at face value since I have not so much as seen a demo of guild wars. But how in the world can you call zoning brilliant and go so far as to say that said feature surpases a game with no zoning... I question your credibilty at that point.
I also think it's funny that every game must be compared to wow, as if its some universal standard that is capible of measuring any game no matter the genre:P
I geuss it's a form of a compliment.
I will say that it's nice there is a game that addresses pvp, as its so popular it deserves a game... maybe pvpers will get it out of their system this way LOL and stop lagging me with raid groups everytime i try to play on my poor dial up modem.
i think that everyone uses World Of Warcraft as a parallel because we all know what the game is about and the pros and cons of it...Its just like talking about basketball and comparing someone to Jordan
I'll admit this game sounds very cool. When I think of it though, I picture pvp,record, and ladder(battle.net) is that a fair assessment or is the pve pretty good? Anyways, I'll probably pick it up and stick with WoW as well. The no monthly fee's will make this game really popular.
when I first entered the world of ascalon (aka guildwars) I wasnt really to surpirsed. I havent really played a MMORPG before and this one seemed to work for me. After the first beta I had decided it was the BEST game I have EVER played only in beta. But still I did my research and I didnt really see to much that set guildwars apart from other MMO's. Then a joins a very active guld (Order of Drascir who ranked 40 sumthing in the last beta) And we talked about builds were going to make and they said how the skills worked together and what to do with them. There was some amazing ideas that just blowed me away. In what other MMO relies on such strategy? I couldnt really find one they all replied on time spent playing not skill. This is what sets guild wars apart and appeals to so many. Ontop of this arena net has done everything right. Top Notch graphics A+++++ which dont need a Gforce 10 million to run smoothly on. A good community always fun, they LISTEN to the players and will do anything to satasfy. Instead of paying to play they said were going to make a game so good the masses of people will buy it and that will pay for the servers. I believe if you have a good game people will buy it and that will cover the sever cost. And ontop of this they said they would constantly be releaseing expansions equivelent or bigger then the original game. People said DnL was a huge world but imaging guild wars? Pretty big huh? Infact I cant really think of to much wrong with this game. Anyways enough with my ranting.
Down with all other MMO's!
Guild Wars - Rorick Aurlith E/Mo pumped up with the best armor and weapon, has all his skills, and runes. PvP King!
Dark Age of Camelot - Leaton 50 Vampiir - Lamorak - Guild: Magic and Mayhem!
Guild Wars is not better than WoW, just different. That difference will appeal to a lot of people, possibly making GW a more attractive option. There is no best MMO.
The only concern I have over Guild Wars is longevity, while the beta weekends are 3 days of intense fun it remains to be seen whether it can maintain that for months (though tbh even if it doesn't it's not making a major financial impact to my wallet).
---sig---
PvE in general is pretty lame, if you think long and hard about it. You are spending your time beating a severely gimped AI that would lose to a well trained monkey. Best not to think too long and hard why you are wasting time playing games in general actually...
GW is a MMO but its not a MMORPG.
Although there's nothing wrong with that per se.
It will be good fun with some strategy thrown in - I agree with you- a bit like a more complex CS game.
It's not an MMO waaaa!
Doesn't appeal to me, especially as a soloer who enjoys a persistent world with activity from other real people around me.
As previously stated and fact, GW is not a true MMOG because of the reliance of instancing. Too much instancing negates any feel of being part of a community and a persistent environment.
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
I admit one thing I loved about UO was going around ganking people and looting their bodies... sometimes getting really lucky and getting 3-4 hours of work in one kill.
Of course it took time to find your prey... and sometimes they byte back.
UO was awesome though...
Shadowbane had the coolest ideas, but failed miserably with their coding abilities. Poor shadowbane... such a beautiful idea wasted. I knew it was too good to be true when I read about it
No persistant world means its not better than WOW
The whole point of a MMORPG is to exist in a living, breathing world
Any MMO that FORCES you to walk the same path over and over new roll character (toon) after character over and over agian cannot nor will it ever be as good as WOW...
GW was a good game to be sure, very fun to play... But WOW is head and shoulders above it in almost ever way...
Perhaps if GW allowed you to walk your own path through the game and had more of a actually MMORPG feel to it could it be better then WOW......
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I'll just say that I think neither is better then the other. If GW was a MMO though... I would agree. They are two different genre though. Comparing WoW and GW is like comparing Mario and Zelda. Sure they are both action games, but one is an Action Platformer while the other is an Action RPG.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Many of the GW staff have experience Blizzard ways first hand.
DAoC was awesome for it understanding of EQ flaws.
If GW is awesome for it understanding of WoW flaws, I might turn to enjoy and like it a lot more then I am currently expecting.
As to which will succeed the most, I dont know. But EU folks where not happy with the release of WoW and the market is big, as long as GW dont neglect the others markets but make sure the EU market feel very well treated, it certainly will help them a lot considering WoW is new in EU, this is where they need to strike stronger, NA customers are bored and most of my RL friends have cancel WoW and are doing something else by now.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
It isn't point and click (PnC) is it ? please tell me it isn't...
I just hate that.
nope well u can use wasd and the arrow keys or you can clicke the ground to move to. whover said wow walks a diff path than others mmos that bull level your char up 60 get the most uber armor and soon doing crappy quests. that sounds the only diff than most other mmos the mmo with the worst quest system.