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Is it possible to combine GW and WoW?
Cochize
Member Posts: 211
I'm a believer in the philosophy if one things pretty good and something similar is pretty good we should combine the good parts to lower the bad......I hope you followed that
I wonder if it would be possible to take many of the good qualities of WoW and combine them into GW they both have pros and cons
In my personal opinion GW pros:
-Entertaining storyline
-Fun quests
-Great Community
-PvP
-Good Graphics
-No worries of campers
GW cons:
-Non-persistant world
-Low level cap
-Small world
-Once you beat PvE not an incredibly big reason to go back (for me)
-Can run into incredibly immature players
-Required teaming for every single mission and even most side quests
-Not being able to find High Class armor in the wild
-Not being able to show off new weapons in town (unless trade window is used
WoW pros:
-Persistant and very large world
-High lvl cap
-Auction House
-Soloing
-Teaming is fairly easy
-Mature (I'm not talking about age I'm talking about attitude) players
-World PvP
-More Rewarding PvP system
-Mounts
-Very re-playable
-Has a good sense of humor
WoW cons:
-Weaker community*
-Traveling is time consuming
-End game requires lack of social life
-Getting killed by high lvl jackasses of opposing factions
-Campers
-Monthly Fee
-WoW players tend to look down on GW players (srry that was a personal shot i had to do it)
-Boring Quests
-Very unentertaining storyline
-Instances are long and monotonus
-Fighting ability is completely equipment based
*Compared to GW
And the both lists continue for both games. I was wondering if would be even close to possible to combine at least a few of the good aspects of both games into a super-mega beast of a game that would destroy all other MMO's? Also it would end the ridiculous arguements of if GW is better than WoW. I'm sure if they were combined it would be a bonus for everyone if they put their heads together. I would like educated responses to this not crazy flames like I tend to see on this subject
Comments
Well, while I do agree that if thing A is good and thing B is good that it's a good idea to try and combine them to make thing C, I'm not so sure if the things that you've mentioned are the best choices. I know you stated that it's your oppinion, so allow me to share my oppinion on the subject.
Let me pick out a couple specific points:
I tend to agree with you on this. These are all good things about GW in general. But allow me to break them down a bit. Story is pretty broad, so it's hard to pin down what specifically makes it good. A quality writer is a quality writer no matter what. Same thing with the graphics and the quests. Those can be basically picked up and moved at will, so to speak. So, let's pick out the other parts:-Great Community
-PvP
Many would argue the first point bitterly. I think the community in GW is great, but I've also come to realize why that is. It has to do with the need for a party almost everywhere you go. You eventually come to a point where you're either polite or you're taking henchmen. The virtual need for a party is the single strongest community builder I've ever seen.
As for PvP, the reason here is, mainly, the ease of which a new player can get the equipment that everyone else already has. This gives new players enough wiggle room that they can compete very early. The constant rebalancing is also a huge modifier here.
Alright, next:
These, I'll break down one at a time.
The non-persistant world is part of the fully instanced system, or at least how the A.Net dev team dreamed it up. Concider this when you make this particular argument: what would you like to change within the world? If you've completed Sanctum Cay, should you not be allowed to return to Henge of Denravi? Or, do you not want monsters to respawn in places that you've cleared? With a fully instanced world, this particular problem presents difficulties for those that want to show their in game achievements to a broad audience.
The low level cap is one of the specific selling points of GW. To complain about it is almost silly, as it's a major basis of the "limited grind" selling point of the game. The whole point of a low level cap is to help the casual gamer become competative and productive much sooner. As the game has no monthly fee, there is no point in making the player spend months and months before they can play with their friends.
The small world argument is also a little strange. While each individual chapter may be small in comparison to other ORPG titles (such as WoW), there are also the additional chapters to consider. Each one, when linked to a single account, adds to the overall map. Currently the GW world is quite impressive, when Tyria, Kryta, Cantha, and Elona are combined into a single map. To me, this feels to be purely oppinion (as you stated it was) and is dificult to gauge. It would be more fair to say "The map should be X by Y before it can be concidered 'large'", but this would be exsesively difficult to gauge.
Replayability is always a major concern for game developers. With a game like GW, where the story is quite linear, many would only play through a single time and have no desire to play through again. In order to give a game true replayability, the game must have more than one story to play through. To me, this is the only real way of encouraging replay value. But, at this point you must realize that each story will take a huge ammount of time to script and code, and each must be balanced against the other(s). You must also take into account how the multiple stories will interact with each other and how players will be able to interact with each other if they are playing through different stories themselves. This is why game developers generally do not include more than a single story per game, as it would bog down development to the point of killing the game.
Immature players are a thing that can not be avoided, no matter how hard you try. Because the game will be sold to the general public, you will always have less than mature players. It is foolish to complain about this, as there is quite literally nothing that can be done about it.
The required teaming portion I covered above already, so I won't cover it again here.
This argument is a little strange. You say that you can not find high level armor "in the wild", which I take to mean from loot. To me, I found it quite strange in WoW when I could just take all my armor from whatever I just killed, even if that creature shouldn't have been wearing any armor. And how did it fit my character? The whole thing just felt strange to me. GW came up with a way of offering similar things but in a way that is a bit more realistic. There are collectors that will craft armor for your character if you give them a certain amount of items that monsters drop. For instance, the Minotaur Horns in the Crystal Desert will award your character with maximum level armor. But, the main reason why monsters do not drop armor that can be worn by a character is because of the customizing system within the game. Since all armor is customized, you can't sell it to another player (with a clear concience, of course). There really isn't a way to make customized armor that drops from a random monster. That would make even less sence than the way WoW does it.
Weapons in town is an odd one. They *could* have an option that would allow players to show what a weapon looks like in town, but the reason for A.Net not doing so is actually fairly simple: latency. GW was designed with lower connection speeds in mind, and one of the ways they reduce loading times is by lowering the render quality in cities. That includes not showing equiped weapons, not showing pets/mini pets, lowering the graphical quality of other players' armor, and other subtle things. They do not include the option to show weapons as a matter of choice for low speed players.
Well, now that I've gone through that part, let's take a look at the WoW side (a game that I've also played):
Firstly, I'd like to point out my favorite part of WoW, which is the Auction House. I wish, I wish, I wish A.Net would get off their laurels and implement the AH they promised months ago. It would greatly aide in the trade system.
Now that that's out of my system, I need to kill off a few points:
-Persistant and very large world
-Mature Players
-Very re-playable
-Has a good sense of humor
I picked these out because they are either beyond developer control, is interchangable between any game, or are too oppinion based. Nothing wrong with having an oppinion, but it has little basis in the discusion. Except for that last point. I think their sense of humor is just fine.
Now, for your remaining points:
The high level cap was, in my opinion, developed to keep monthly paying players online for longer periods of time. When you really get down to it, what is the difference of being level 100 and fighting level 100 monsters and being level 10 and fighting level 10 monsters? A bigger number? The monster isn't really stronger, since you are stronger as well. Comparatively speaking, there is no difference. It's just the same number with a 0 at the end of it. And I fully blame Final Fantasy for this mentality, but that's even more opinion based.
Soloing. This one bugs me a lot. I don't understand the need for this at all in a game that is supposed to be based around a community. When I played WoW, almost all of the players I met were just playing by themselves, to the point where they would NOT interact with anyone around them unless through the AH. To me, this is a fundamental breakdown of the community in general. However, I don't mind if a player decides to play by themselves (I know many that only play with henchmen in GW), but it should be difficult enough to play this way as to be a point of pride in your own skill.
"Teaming is fairly easy". This should be universal in ANY online game. GW only just recently added the party search function, which allows players to join parties in a city regardless of district. I believe this is a major concern for any Online game, since the whole point is playing with others. Although, now that the party search function is implemented, I'd have to say that GW is now superior in this catagory, but I digress. It is VERY important.
World PvP and More Rewarding PvP System I'm linking into a single argument. I greatly appreciate Blizzard for their use of the duel system in WoW, which removes the gankers from the picture. Not everyone wants to PvP. But, having the option available to those that DO want it is admirable. But, when most players mention "Rewards" and "World PvP", I start to smell something funny. I won't make a baseless acusation towards you particularly, but many seem to forget that in many cases the "rewards" in PvP are items or gold that are stripped from the losing player. I find that system generally revolting, as it adds up to little more than mugging someone. However, with the flag system that WoW uses I can be more forgiving since both players need to accept the challenge. As such, I have very mixed views on both World PvP and PvP Rewards that are more than just points. I rather like the rewards available to characters in GW for PvP, but those are quite limited as well (I'm refering to the Balthazar Faction point system).
Mounts are one thing that should be more based on the style of the game. There is a very good reason why Mounts are not used at all in GW. There's simply no need. Why would you want a mount when you can just open your map, click on the city you want to go to, and BAM there you are? But, that's because of the massive instancing of GW. WoW has very limited Instanced areas, so you quite literally have to walk from one town to another, no matter how many times you've been there. With a non-instanced system like WoW, mounts are not just nice to have but needed to keep your sanity.
And now, for your bad points:
And again, many of these points can be removed from concideration.-Weaker community
-Boring Quests
-Unentertaining Storyline
-Instances are long and monotonus
And now for the meat and potatoes:
Travel time being excessive is one point I can agree with. For me, this point was magnified since I decided to play a Night Elf while my friend that I wanted to play with chose a gnome. I had another friend that helped me cross the continent so that I could play with my other friend, but if I wanted to continue what I was doing, it became one VERY long ride on a griphon (between around 3 outposts) followed by a boat ride to the other continent. MAN that sucked. And it was expensive. On the one hand, it does aid in immersion, letting you get more in touch with your character, but ffs they could have had an option to SKIP that junk after you've seen it once.
The End Game requires you to not give up your social life, but to transfer it to the ready and waiting Blizzard executives and any online friends you may have. I feel that this is a pretty horrible concept, as the more casual players are now barred from a good deal of the game because they don't play the game constantly. Granted, it shouldn't be instant either, but it certainly shouldn't be life consuming.
Getting Killed by Opposing Faction and Campers are really one and the same, and both are a byproduct of the same thing: non-instanced world. So long as a player can attack another player without warning, these will happen. The duel system does make for a nice workaround, but as evidenced here it is not fool proof.
Monthly Fee. This has been a sticking point for some time. A.Net and NCSoft have one potential solution to that problem, but it presents problems of its own. When you get down to the underlying reason, there really is no way to make bandwidth cheap. And all online games use a LOT of bandwidth. Not to mention salary costs for their employees, equipment maintinence costs, retrofits, upgrades, service representatives, GMs in game, copywrites, and so on, and so forth. One figure I've heard about states that the startup cost of an MMO exceedes 2 million US dolars. This cost must be made up in sales of units, and in many cases the company decides that it should also be supplemented by recurring fees. There really isn't a way to get away from it, but if A.Net and Guild Wars succeeds with their concept, then other companies may follow suit, although I doubt we'll ever see an end to the dreaded Monthly Fee.
"WoW players tend to look down on GW players (srry that was a personal shot i had to do it)". Well, they're Aliance care bears and don't have the stomache for real PvP. Heh, ok, I had to do it. :P This one is actually pretty oppinionated, since everyone will favor their own Online Game of choice and will likely look down on those that don't play thier game.
And now, the crown jewel of the difference between WoW and GW: WoW is equipment based, GW is player skill based. Plain and simple, this is the single biggest difference between the two games. With WoW, you may never have the equipment you need to do what you want to do. In GW, all you have to do is keep playing and practicing. Making the game have a near REQUIREMENT based around the equipment you find in game is absured. This is a slap in the face to casual players, all but baring them from much of the content. It's also a cheap gimic to make the game harder, where they could have a more robust AI system in its place.
Well, that's my rant on your ideas as to what's good and bad about each game. And honestly, I'm sure that any game dev would study both games in great detail if they truely want to make a superior game.
--~~--
Play Guild Wars? Go here - http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page
And go here for the new official Guild Wars Wiki! http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
Doh!
If you take a look at how they were made however, you'll probably realize that the scripted events and cut-scenes are really only possible because GW is all instanced. Part of the reason I like this system so much is that the game makes you feel like the game actually resolves around you. A small example: After having finished one of the Prophecies missions I went out of town to see Prince Rurik and the king with a number of guards outside, arguing about whether the the emissary of the neighbouring kingdom should or shouldn't be arrested.
Little touches like that make the game alive for me but wouldn't really have been possible in a truly persistant world.
It's similar with the mission objectives. You probably know that most quests in persistant world resolve around killing an x-number of a certain mob. These mobs usually linger around in herds at some specific location. The fact that quests need to be dumbed down like this isn't just a lack of creativity on the developer's part but actually a necessary evil. In a persistant world you can never be sure how many players will take one particular quest at the same time and will thus be forced to complete the quest in the same area so any objective more complex than killing x-number of mobs would inevitably cause massive bottlenecks which is already evident with any boss-monster quest where often you end up waiting your turn which most of the time proves to be more of a challenge than actually kiling the boss himself.
With the instancing the devs could pretty much start messing around with the quests since then umber of people being in the same instances is at all times controlled. They didn't even need to make passive mob herds (which was necessary so there are even enough mobs for the players) but instead made monster groups that are actually able to work in a team to some degree which in MMoRPGs normally turns out to be fatal. Imagine a large herd of mobs in a normal MMoRPG designed to be "shared" by many players suddenly turning out to be all aggro and working in a team and you get why this would normally be impossible except maybe for endgame PvE. Remember when you played good old Neverwinter Nights online with friends and you pretty much get what Guild Wars felt to me like most of the time.
In my opinion you can't turn Guild Wars into an MMoRPG in the classic persistant world sense because this would require large amounts of Guild Wars's positive points to be sacrificed. To me this wouldn't really be worth getting the chance that I might run into some random person in the field.
Doh!
sorry for going off topic...couldn't help it.
I'm not so sure that GW / WOW hybrid game would go over very well. Look at the newest version of SWG which decided to hybrid itself as a wow clone. Complete failure. The problem with hybrid games come down to the people, the type of people that play these games are completely different and it quite frankly could make for a very small community that would last past launch or even open beta.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
You all have rally good points and opened my eyes to lots of things, but I'm not entirely sure you understand what im saying. I'm not saying turn either game into a clone of either one and I'm not saying combine all the good features because that wouldn't work at all.
What I am saying is that you could take which of the good qualities of each games are the best and would still work when put together. I have an idea of how you could combine the free roam of WoW and cinematic feel of GW is that most areas of the game would be instanced and the mojority of the quests would be in these areas, but there are also much more open place where many players can hunt at the same time with each other and the world PvP could take place in here
Also about the lvl cap I wasn't saying raise it all the way to 60 I was saying raise it a little bit more to 30-35 somewhere around there. We all know deep down we love the reward we get when we go up and are able to contend with a whole other group of enemies.
Also (I know there's an arena in Ascalon) but making PvP available to all lvl players, even the noobiest of noobs would be nice for both games. All of you experienced pros who hate to work with noobs where it matters think about how much more experienced they would be if they got their practice before it counted.
About the Mature Players thing, I'm guessing you guys haven't spent too much time in Pre-Searing Ascalon of Prophecies
So it's not really a matter of putting the two together, its more a matter of finding the game that's coming out that uses the best elements from both - things like Hellgate London for example (not that it's the best example, but it does take things from both games).
</twocents>
8 months later.... A twins are borned
World of Guildwars (True MMORPG in the fantasy world of GuildWars)
GuildCraft of Wars (True FPS Guild vs Guild)
Doh!