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Should i buy it?
darkchance
Member Posts: 36
in Guild Wars
Im getting fairly bored with Warcraft atm and am thinking about quitting, and im tired of my wallet feeling lighter every month, and i was wanting to pick up another game and thought about Playing either Guild Wars(its free and looks like its fun), or either WAR or LOTRO even tho they have subscript fees. Got any advice on this matter? Thanks
Comments
Guild Wars is pretty cool. Especially the Nightfall edition and the Eye of the North (for Eye of the North you have to have one of the previous guild wars though).
It's different from WOW in that there is no crafting skills, mounts, and some other mmo conventions. But the graphics are awesome! It is free to play each month. It has a decent storyline. And Eye of the North added some cool mini-games.
But it's not for everyone. I think some stores (GameStop, EB games, etc) still offer a trial cd of it for like $2. You may want to try it out first. I also may have a trial code floating around someplace if you can't find it. Let me know.
Hope that helps. Blessings!
Yes, yes you should lol. I responded in your other thread that you should try GW lol. The game is worth a go but if you have reservations try getting a trial key.
-Almerel
Hello my old friend.
If you've played WoW, then you'll appreciate how Guild Wars fixes most of the things that WoW did glaringly wrong. Here's my list:
WoW problem: PvP is dominated by whoever is higher level and/or has better gear.
Guild Wars fix: In PvP, everyone is at the level cap with perfect (or essentially perfect) gear.
WoW problem: Running from point A to point B and back and forth several times takes too long. Even flying or riding a mount can take quite a while if you have to traverse half a continent.
Guild Wars fix: Map travel lets you instantly warp to any town or outpost you've ever visted on that character, whenever you wish and as often as you wish.
WoW problem: Instances often require setting aside a block of 2-3 hours to get a group and do the instance.
Guild Wars fix: Virtually every single mission in the game is readily doable in under an hour; the main exception is some "elite" areas that you can freely skip if so inclined.
WoW problem: Having to stop to eat and drink after every few battles is tiresome.
Guild Wars fix: Energy recharges at a good rate both in battle and out, so once a battle is nearly won, you're recharging energy faster than you expend it, and apart from particularly difficult battles, pretty much ready to start the next battle when the previous one ends.
WoW problem: Many fights for many classes end up just auto-attacking and spamming a couple skills.
Guild Wars fix: Virtually all skills have lengthy enough cooldowns that you're forced to use several different skills extensively in order to be effective.
WoW problem: Frequently respeccing can get expensive; if you don't, then you'll often have an inferior build for whatever you're doing at the time.
Guild Wars fix: You can respec for free as often as you like in any town or outpost.
WoW problem: You want to do some group content, but are either shorthanded, or can't find some particular class you need (usually a healer).
Guild Wars fix: There aren't separate servers, so you can readily grab people who in WoW would have been on a different server from you. If that's not enough, you can bring a hero or henchmen (AI characters) of whatever class you like.
WoW problem: Patches take an insanely long time to download, often pushing players to get them from other, less secure channels.
Guild Wars fix: Patches are quick and easy to download directly from ArenaNet servers. Even when a patch is first released, it doesn't necessarily download everything, but only what you need in order to play a given area, to avoid bottlenecks.
WoW problem: The game shipped with a non-functional UI, essentially requiring players to get UI mods, which get broken with every single patch.
Guild Wars fix: The game ships with a highly flexible UI by default, so UI mods are neither allowed nor would they be useful.
WoW problem: Frequent server crashes, scheduled maintenance, and emergency maintenance.
Guild Wars fix: Well, nearly every online game managed to do that better than WoW. But without players being assigned to particular servers, I've never seen Guild Wars have any downtime whatsoever--not even for regularly scheduled maintenance. I suspect that at off-peak times, they take down physical servers for maintenance a few at a time, while letting players play freely on other physical servers, but the difference is invisible to players.
WoW problem: It's very hard to get a suitable challenge below the level cap. If you're a few levels too high, an instance is completely trivial. If a few levels too low, it's nearly impossible. Even if you're the right level for an instance, other people you can find to group with usually won't be.
Guild Wars fix: You get to the level cap and essentially perfect gear very quickly, and most of the content is designed assuming you're that far advanced. Switch to hard mode and all of the content is appropriate to your level.
WoW problem: You're on one server. Your friend is on a different server. Therefore, you can't play together.
Guild Wars fix: There is no concept of servers, so it's not possible to be on the "wrong" server from someone else. If you're in a different district from your friend, you can freely switch to his.
WoW problem: Every single Paladin (or warrior, or hunter, etc.) in the game has essentially the same set of skills available, which gets really repetitive.
Guild Wars fix: You can only have eight skills on your skillbar at a time, but out of 100 or so for your class, plus the option to bring skills from other classes, that leaves you a huge variety of options. Different challenges presented by different missions make it highly useful to change your build frequently. It's common for one class to use several different builds with no more than a couple skills common to any two of them, which creates a lot more variety. And even that's assuming you don't use your secondary profession much.
WoW problem: You rolled one class and would like to try another, but it's an awfully long road to get back to level 80 with gear comparable to your main.
Gulid Wars fix: A character gets to full power very quickly, so once you know what you're doing, you could roll a new character and have it essentially as powerful as your main in perhaps 20 hours of gameplay--and that's without going out of your way to powerlevel anything.
WoW problem: The crafting system is stupid, and really nothing more than something else to grind levels in.
Guild Wars fix: Okay, so Guild Wars doesn't have a good crafting system, either. But at least it makes sense and isn't a nuisance like WoW's.
WoW problem: The endgame is completely stupid. You do one instance a zillion times until you have the loot from it, and then go on to the next and repeat.
Guild Wars fix: Once you're ready for the end-game, switch to hard mode and virtually everything in the game will be of a suitable level for you--and a decent challenge, too. And you can do it in whatever order you like, without being to weak for the ones you do first and too strong for the ones you do later.
WoW problem: The armor you have that gives the best stats is ugly, or clashes with other pieces you're wearing. You have another armor that you think looks a lot better, but the stats on it are low enough that wearing it will get you killed.
Guild Wars fix: Armor skins and stats are independent. Any stats that you can have on armor, you can have on whatever armor skin of your class you like. If you change your mind about what stats you wanted on your armor, it's easy and cheap to change them.
WoW problem: There isn't a coherent storyline, but only a bunch of often unrelated fragments. The main reason you kill mobs ends up being not because you care if the mob dies, but only because it drops good loot.
Guild Wars fix: The Prophecies campaign has an excellent storyline, and the Factions and Nightfall campaigns at least have coherent storylines so you understand what you're fighting for. The Eye of the North expansion is less coherent, but no worse than WoW. All have copious cutscenes to present and advance the story.
WoW problem: You kill something and it just respawns in several minutes. And it spawns on top of you when you weren't expecting it, which is a nuisance.
Guild Wars fix: With few exceptions, you kill something and it stays dead, at least until you reset the zone.
WoW problem: A lot of content gets repetitive, with the usual tank/healer/damage dealer setup, and not that much variation.
Guild Wars fix: Many missions have custom game mechanics, to the degree that from a good description, a veteran player of the game could uniquely determine mission (of 58 total in the campaigns) you're talking about from the game mechanics alone (e.g., the mission where you're accompanied by eight healers, or the mission where you place crystals to capture pedestals), without needing any reference to NPC or mob names, geographical regions, or storyline.
WoW problem: Try to group for content that isn't designed for a group (that is, most of the content) and it's completely trivial and stupid.
Guild Wars fix: All content is designed for a group of a particular size; you can bring as many or as few players as you like (usually up to a cap of 8, sometimes 4 or 6) and fill in the rest with AI characters without changing the difficulty very much.
WoW problem: Mobs are really, really stupid. Bob the Really Big Dragon will pound on a warrior for 10 minutes straight and ignore a priest it could kill in three hits, just because the warrior has some super aggro-grabbing skill.
Guild Wars fix: Mobs will attack whoever they can kill the fastest, without any notion of aggro. If the monk doesn't want to die, he'd best keep his distance from a lot of mobs, and have other party members get in the way of mobs so they can't get to him.
WoW problem: I'm fine with buying a box, as well as subsequent boxes for expansions. I'm fine with paying a monthly fee. But requiring both is double-dipping on revenue, and a bit much.
Guild Wars fix: You have to buy a box, but there's no monthly fee. Ever.
WoW problem: Gold farmers kill the mobs you wanted to fight, train mobs to you, beg for food and water from you, and generally harass you.
Guild Wars fix: Gold farmers have separate instances, so while they probably are out there (though buying Guild Wars gold is kind of dumb), they don't bother you.
WoW problem: Passing items between alts is a pain. If on the same faction and the same server, the mailbox works, but it takes an hour. If opposite factions but the same server, either there's a considerable auction house fee, or if you set it at a low price, you have to hope someone else doesn't buy it up. And if you have alts on different servers, well, you're stuck.
Guild Wars fix: All characters on an account share the same storage. To pass something from one to another, put something in storage on one character, switch characters, take it out of storage on the other character. Done.
WoW problem: Ninja-looters can roll on loot that they shouldn't and steal loot that you should have gotten.
Guild Wars fix: Every loot item is assigned to a particular group member when it drops. The chosen group member can pick it up at his leisure, anytime within ten minutes after it drops. The only "bind on pickup" items are quest items, so this doesn't waste any loot.
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After all of that, you might think, but doesn't WoW have advantages over Guild Wars, too? Well yes. WoW has an auction house, and while Guild Wars has some vendors that buy things from players to resell them, it doesn't work as well. Guild Wars also lacks public chat channels outside of towns and outposts, though you can address that by joining a large alliance if you like. And, uhh, that's all that I can think of.
So basically, yes, you should get Guild Wars, unless you really love grinding for levels and gear.
I agree. I played Guild Wars back in 2006 for about 4 months and it is way more fun than WoW. I played WoW in 2008 for only about a month and a half and I got bored of it. With Guild Wars, I was just starting college at that 4 month mark so I stopped playing as much and then it got hard to get back into playing because I've felt unmotivated to look over all the skills for the changes they've made in updates since i last played. Now I am waiting for GW2 to come out. It sounds really good.
Guild Wars does everything the above posters have said and more. One thing that I don't think was mentioned is that there are no different playable races in Guild Wars as opposed to WoW, but this will be changed in GW2. Also, in WoW after awhile all the quests seemed to be more or less the same but in GW this is not so. Every quest is as unique as the areas that you are in (which look quite visually stunning). Also, I MUST add that all the music is composed (that's right, composed) by Jeremy Soule, who is amazing.
Guild Wars is a must see just because of the fact that you buy it once like a regular game and never pay anything more. You should really check it out.
guild wars is an awesome game compared to wow (played wow for 2 months, free server that i made) ive been playing guild wars for 1 and a half years now and im still as addicted as day 1
. i like how it is different in the aspect that you can only lvl up to 20 which makes the game harder cause you cant just get to lvl 80 and pwn the shit out of eveything. 
the game requires you to make a build using 2 types of chars. ie. monk and warrior.
there are a shitload of skills you can learn and the game is free
after you buy it at the store i mean whats better than that???
id say that this game is a 9.5/10 and is deffinatly worth going out and paying 40 dollars for the trilogy its all three campaigns in one big deal i paid 90 for all three i believe plus the 30 for eye of the north which is an expansion to the original game.
Well, in contrast to the last few posters I would say that WoW is the superior game (true GW has some things that are nicer), but in the end that's all just our opinions so doesn't really matter.
Now, whether you should buy it or not? I would say absolutely! I imagine it's fairly cheap now (especially the original game, I would guess) so there's really not much to lose. Just like buying any game that you go into not knowing whether you'd like it or not. However, like others have said, if you can get a trial that would be the best option. It's a fun game and I'm enjoying running through it again after having been away for several years.
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You can't win - if you strike me down I shall respawn more powerful than you could possibly imagine!
totally agree! i think you should play WoW and you will enjoy it(actually, i really like it).
it's cheaper and fantastic compared with other games,you know. less game like WoW,really good.
totally agree! i think you should play WoW and you will enjoy it(actually, i really like it).
it's cheaper and fantastic compared with other games,you know. less game like WoW,really good.
Although I agree that WoW is a great game imo. I'm not sure what your saying?
-Almerel
Hello my old friend.
First of all, the OP asked for a game without monthly fees, ok. I get the feeling he already played Wow.
Secondly I have a little hard to understand what you are saying? Less game like Wow????
To the OP: Go ahead, GW is pretty neat and you won't find a better online game for that price or even close...
Yes i have been playing a trial and am loving it so far, the graphics imho are way superior, and for the price i dont see how i can beat this deal. Thanks
I'm glad your having fun with the game
Are you gonna get the Trilogy or just buy them seprate as you go? I would personally just get the Trilogy since it's fairly cheap at this time.
-Almerel
Hello my old friend.
Virtually all of what you say GW is superior to WoW is really just your opinion.
I too am bored with WoW having played it for years, but WoW did not make glaring mistakes. They were design decisions that you can like or dislike.
Frankly, the instancing in GW turns me off, but I'll likely give it another "go" as well, only because I've quit WoW and got bored fairly quickly with games like LotRO, DDO, Vanguard, AoC, etc.
GW will likely evoke the same thing, but at least it's F2P.
As many have posted; it all comes down to opinions.
Personally I like both Guild Wars and WoW; both great games in their own rights. Each has plusses, each have minueses - again, all based on my opinions.
But, to say WoW has a "problem" cause it takes so long to level to max level is kinda dumb. Personaly; I wouldn't like a game where u could play for liek 2 hours and be almost max lvl.
One thing I kinda don't like bout Guild Wars - not too huge of a deal though - is the fact you cn only carry 8 abilities at a time on the skill/action bar. I wonder if they will keep it like that in Guild Wars 2 of maybe allow atleast two bars.
One real neat thing I do like about Guild Wars over WoW is the fact that any class can use anyt weapons/sheilds no matter what you lvl or abilities are. Of course if you have points in that weapon you'll do better at it.
But as other have stated it certainly is a game worth trying. Especialy if you can find the trilogy trail dvd.
I agree with you guys that it is all opinions. I also like WoW but GW does have my heart lol. I hope they do not change the way skills are used. If they would add the entire number bar to bring the skills to 10 instead of 8 that'd be cool, but the skill bar is what makes GW unique. I would like it if they added some clickies and maybe a bar for those. I love me some clickies
-Almerel
Hello my old friend.
considering your on the guild wars forums your gonna get alot of replies to play this game. If your looking to pvp and not pve then you should play this game it has very good pvp but bad pve.
Playing: WoW and Guild wars faction.
waiting on: GW2 and next WoW expansion
played: flyff, diablo2, maplestory, dungeon runners, eudemons online, conquer online, runescape, decide online, perfect world, and atlantica.
My favorite thing about Guild Wars IS that you can only carry 8 skills. If you play WOW all you really need is somebody who is a warrior, or somebody who is a mage, because everybody has the same skills equipped. You have 100 skills plastered all over your screen, same classes, spamming same skills.
But in GW you might be an elementalist like me, but there are different types of elementalists. You choose all the skills that you have available between your 2 classes. So while being a certain class, you are actually a class within that class. I like how that at one mission, you may be worthless, than at the very next mission you might be golden.
I know in WOW you have the trees that you go down, which really just enhances things, with maybe a couple new spells, but it's not enough. You can be more unique in GW.
Hmm, you bring up a valid point. When I went to WoW after playing GW I very much preffered being able to have all these different spell options at your disposal, and then coming back to GW I feel kind of the same I did when I first started playing, and that is mainly that I never feel very useful. I always feel like my builds must be wrong because I just get my rear handed to me ALL the time. I recently got EotN, and trying to do the Round One: Fight! quest, I'm lucky if I make it to the second fight. So in the end I feel like what's the point of having a second profession if I want to be able to deal damage with my main (warrior), and then only get to use maybe one or two things from the secon..which then leaves 6 spots for the main prof so you have to choose carefully, and..oy..
But anyways, I'm glad you mentioned that because as I said, it is a very valid point and one I'd never thought of before really.
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You can't win - if you strike me down I shall respawn more powerful than you could possibly imagine!