While I have not played every MMO or CORPG in existance I would say:
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if:
You feel the "holy trinity of tank, heal & DPS" grew old with EQ.
You like tactical skillbased (as opposed to gearbased) PVP in an instanced environment. (Like a counterstrike clanwar)
You like a gameworld that has a lot of activity in towns, but you will go on adventure with just the few friends you choose.
You hate to sit around for hours spamming "LF 1 healer (tank whatever) ready to go"
You like an immersive storyline and can accept that most stories are in fact linear.
You enjoy a game, casually or hardcore, with or without friends, but always without griefing. (Killsteals, ninjalooters, ganking etc.)
You like a game where every person ingame is effectively on the same "server". (Like EVE Online)
Complex crafting and auction house functions are unimportant.
Yes, GW is not considered a MMO, not even by its creators but personally I have never, in other games, grouped with as many different and fun people, nor had such epic virtual moments as I have had in GW. (Early Aion sieges came close, but the elitism/favourism and overall sad community soon killed that.)
Sorry for trying to maptravel back OT... :-p
(edit: English being my 3.rd language)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Because it's cheap, free but best of all - because its a clone of the bigger games anyway, so you get what the rich subbed players are experiencing for free*!
*Just a lot less content.
Above is my original post, says nothing about WoW, just MMO's in general.
The reason I posted this was because I had friends telling me how much better GW was than WoW, and how innovative it was, and how different it was.
I played it, very subtle "differences" but too many massive "similarities."
Again, I have never said any of MY OPINION is fact, because it's not, at the end of the day it's my opinion.
I've had enough with all you biased fanboys trying to force me to change my mind on the game.
In my opinion (key words here, remember I said them please.) Guild Wars is not innovative, not fun and not different enough to be called different. It has so many influences from the top MMO's (WoW, EQ, Lineage, VG?) and to say it hasn't it very biased.
On topic again -
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if....
You want to play the most innovative, fun, and most of all, unique lobby based game?
Hmm
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
Because it's cheap, free but best of all - because its a clone of the bigger games anyway, so you get what the rich subbed players are experiencing for free*!
*Just a lot less content.
Above is my original post, says nothing about WoW, just MMO's in general.
The reason I posted this was because I had friends telling me how much better GW was than WoW, and how innovative it was, and how different it was.
I played it, very subtle "differences" but too many massive "similarities."
Again, I have never said any of MY OPINION is fact, because it's not, at the end of the day it's my opinion.
I've had enough with all you biased fanboys trying to force me to change my mind on the game.
In my opinion (key words here, remember I said them please.) Guild Wars is not innovative, not fun and not different enough to be called different. It has so many influences from the top MMO's (WoW, EQ, Lineage, VG?) and to say it hasn't it very biased.
On topic again -
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if....
You want to play the most innovative, fun, and most of all, unique lobby based game?
Hmm
Okay. I've read your opinions a lot in the last couple of pages so here. I propose to you a way to get your possibly valid argument across. Name 10 things in the game that you think are cloned off of WoW and what part it is a clone of. Ignoring the core/generic problems of all mmos like: Monk in GW = Priest in WoW = Medic in TF2 or it is a fantasy genre. We gathered that a long time ago.
If you are going to critize quests, then specifiy which part of the quest system is cloned, not GW has quests, WoW has Quests. Instead do something like this. "Some quests in GW have you go out, kill a certain boss then turn it in."
I like opinion supported with fact, it makes an arguement a lot more valid. If you wish I could equally do 10 things in the game that are very different to aspects of WoW.
Anyway to main topic.
you want to have faced pace combat without the annoying grind.
Okay. I've read your opinions a lot in the last couple of pages so here. I propose to you a way to get your possibly valid argument across. Name 10 things in the game that you think are cloned off of WoW and what part it is a clone of. Ignoring the core/generic problems of all mmos like: Monk in GW = Priest in WoW = Medic in TF2 or it is a fantasy genre. We gathered that a long time ago.
If you are going to critize quests, then specifiy which part of the quest system is cloned, not GW has quests, WoW has Quests. Instead do something like this. "Some quests in GW have you go out, kill a certain boss then turn it in."
I like opinion supported with fact, it makes an arguement a lot more valid. If you wish I could equally do 10 things in the game that are very different to aspects of WoW.
Anyway to main topic.
you want to have faced pace combat without the annoying grind.
I agree with this, I probably should have done this in place of my previous posts, here's my list.
1 - Charcater Creation - Generic, seen before, nothing interesting here. Not enough options, like in most MMO's, which I think is stupid because your character should look different from everyone elses. Praise to super hero games and other MMO's with in depth character customization.
2 - Starting area (I can't remember what its called, before the world gets destroyed or somethin?) Is very generic too, starts with cinematic, your character is then standing there with fifteen other character standing ontop of him, then you run off and start questing. Boring in my opinion.
3 - Quests are very, very boring. Even more so than other MMO's, maybe it's just because I am so bored of quest text in general, I don't want to read an epic story, I want to play a game. The story should be expressed in other forms (cinematics, voice overs etc) as you would expect from a game.
4 - I was going to merge this one with the above, but I realised that both annoy and bore me just as much as eachother. The objectives of quests are generic, boring, unoriginal etc. Escort quests, kill quests, collection quests, all boring. I do remember one quest which I liked, but I can't remember what it was now, it was before the destruction of the world though.
5 - Henchmen, these annoyed me. It seemed at the level I was, I think about 10, no one was grouping for quests that required more than yourself. I put this down to the use of Henchmen. This annoyed me on its own ground. But then when I actually used the Henchmen and found that they bugged very often, didn't heal or tank well etc, I got even more annoyed with them.
6 - Premade level 20 PvP character. I thought this might have been a breath of fresh air, but then, after creating my character, I realised that if I haven't played the campaign and unlocked skills/gear or whatever, my character sucked. This might be a better option later on, after doing the campaigns, but when I used this it was just annoying.
7 - PvP itself is very unoriginal, the objective based arena's or battlegrounds or whatever they are called have all been seen before, and have all beed overly used recently, especially instanced PvP as a whole, but I get it that GW is an instanced game. So, I found the PVP in this PvP game boring, not good for me.
8 - After completing Prophercies I left the game for a long time, maybe a year or two, but came back when the Nightfall expansion came out, I think, and bought that. I was very dissapointed when I realised that there was no level increase, and that in order to get the most out of the new expansion I would have to start a new character an level through it to experience the whole story. I wanted to just continue playing on my level 20 Elementalist and still be able to experience everything. (I could be wrong on this one, but this is what I got from it.)
9 - This one is purely just out of my taste, no jumping and no mounts. I like to jump, don't ask me why, it adds some form of realism to the game for me, that I like. I know the game would be very different with it, but its something I didn't like about the game not having. And as for mounts, I know you can map travel, but still, when you are running great distances while questing I would have loved a mount. Mounts are also one of my favourite things about MMO's in general.
10 - The community. They spam their wares a lot, if you attempt to sell anything they will spam the chat so that your sale will go unnoticed etc, they were very unhelpful when I asked questions, I sometimes got people insulting me for asking "such stupid question" like the location of vendors and such. Not a nice crowd, WoW also has a terribad community, but I'd put it over that of Guild Wars any day.
Again, all the above is just my opinion, I'm not trying to force self made facts down anyones throat and I don't expect anyone to force their opinions down my throat now after this.
On topic -
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if...
You want to fight against giant cat like humanoids!
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
If you like building decks for card games like Magic: The Gathering.
That is what kept me interested for so long, so many different possibilities for your skill bar!
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Guild Wars isn't mainstream? I must have been in a coma for the past six years. They're published by one of the bigger MMO publishers globally, and in 2010 made $11.5 million in sales, just through box copies and cash shop items.
Choosing Guild Wars over a "mainstream" mmo is like choosing Starbucks over a "mainstream" coffee shop, or Apple over a "mainstream" Windows PC.
1 - Charcater Creation - Generic, seen before, nothing interesting here. Not enough options, like in most MMO's, which I think is stupid because your character should look different from everyone elses. Praise to super hero games and other MMO's with in depth character customization.
All true, the thing abot GW is that you choose your skills and get a second class, not about the few things you can't change.
2 - Starting area (I can't remember what its called, before the world gets destroyed or somethin?) Is very generic too, starts with cinematic, your character is then standing there with fifteen other character standing ontop of him, then you run off and start questing. Boring in my opinion.
Uhm, that is one of the starting areas, there are 2 more as well. They differs a lot from eachother and most people pick the place they prefer.
3 - Quests are very, very boring. Even more so than other MMO's, maybe it's just because I am so bored of quest text in general, I don't want to read an epic story, I want to play a game. The story should be expressed in other forms (cinematics, voice overs etc) as you would expect from a game.
I don't agree, most quests in GW is exactly the same as in any other game, but there are quite a few that are both fun and different. Most of those are however in Nightfall and Eye of the North.
4 - I was going to merge this one with the above, but I realised that both annoy and bore me just as much as eachother. The objectives of quests are generic, boring, unoriginal etc. Escort quests, kill quests, collection quests, all boring. I do remember one quest which I liked, but I can't remember what it was now, it was before the destruction of the world though.
You already said this once. And I might point out that this is the first part of the first campaign, you should compare those quests to Vanilla Wow or EQ.
5 - Henchmen, these annoyed me. It seemed at the level I was, I think about 10, no one was grouping for quests that required more than yourself. I put this down to the use of Henchmen. This annoyed me on its own ground. But then when I actually used the Henchmen and found that they bugged very often, didn't heal or tank well etc, I got even more annoyed with them.
Well, either you should try using heroes or even play with actual humans. You can customize your heroes with weapons and skills, but nothing beats playing with real humans. In fact don't I get the point at all to just play a online game just solo.
6 - Premade level 20 PvP character. I thought this might have been a breath of fresh air, but then, after creating my character, I realised that if I haven't played the campaign and unlocked skills/gear or whatever, my character sucked. This might be a better option later on, after doing the campaigns, but when I used this it was just annoying.
Wait, you want your character both at max level and with all gear and skills? I don't see how that would make things more fun but it is pretty quick to unlock your first good build.
7 - PvP itself is very unoriginal, the objective based arena's or battlegrounds or whatever they are called have all been seen before, and have all beed overly used recently, especially instanced PvP as a whole, but I get it that GW is an instanced game. So, I found the PVP in this PvP game boring, not good for me.
That is because most other games including Wow ripped the arenas from this game. It is very competive and fast, not all people like that.
8 - After completing Prophercies I left the game for a long time, maybe a year or two, but came back when the Nightfall expansion came out, I think, and bought that. I was very dissapointed when I realised that there was no level increase, and that in order to get the most out of the new expansion I would have to start a new character an level through it to experience the whole story. I wanted to just continue playing on my level 20 Elementalist and still be able to experience everything. (I could be wrong on this one, but this is what I got from it.)
Actually, you could easily get there but you would skip the starting area. Not raising the levelcap was the best thing they could have done, that is why GW is the only game with good balance around. When games like Wow gets balance they add new levels and have to spend years getting it again.
9 - This one is purely just out of my taste, no jumping and no mounts. I like to jump, don't ask me why, it adds some form of realism to the game for me, that I like. I know the game would be very different with it, but its something I didn't like about the game not having. And as for mounts, I know you can map travel, but still, when you are running great distances while questing I would have loved a mount. Mounts are also one of my favourite things about MMO's in general.
All true, GW were supposed to get mounts in GW: Utopia but they moved the ideas into GW2 and cancelled it.
10 - The community. They spam their wares a lot, if you attempt to sell anything they will spam the chat so that your sale will go unnoticed etc, they were very unhelpful when I asked questions, I sometimes got people insulting me for asking "such stupid question" like the location of vendors and such. Not a nice crowd, WoW also has a terribad community, but I'd put it over that of Guild Wars any day.
Yeah, this was also true 4 years ago. Not anymore however.
Guild Wars isn't mainstream? I must have been in a coma for the past six years. They're published by one of the bigger MMO publishers globally, and in 2010 made $11.5 million in sales, just through box copies and cash shop items.
Choosing Guild Wars over a "mainstream" mmo is like choosing Starbucks over a "mainstream" coffee shop, or Apple over a "mainstream" Windows PC.
LOL, you are right. But it started out as a small indie company that grew after their game got released.
Many people like to consider themselves alternative people, but stuff that earns millions are not alternatives at all. Rock is not rebellic either for that matter.
Strains new project, Zombie labs are an indie developer right now but I have a feeling it will grow as well.
Hmmm. Your list really explains a lot, actually. You seem to be confusing 'different' with 'things I like', since your list isn't 'things GW did just like other MMOs', it's 'things I don't like about GW'. Which also explains why you're getting so unhappy about people who are 'trying to change your opinion', since you apparently think people are trying to change what you LIKE. That's not the point. The point is not 'GW is a game you like', nobody is saying that. GW is not for everybody. The point is 'GW is different'. If it's different in ways you personally dislike, that doesn't make it the same, that just means the ways it is different is not ways you like. Let's go through your list, shall we?
Originally posted by Roaki
1 - Charcater Creation - Generic, seen before, nothing interesting here. Not enough options, like in most MMO's, which I think is stupid because your character should look different from everyone elses. Praise to super hero games and other MMO's with in depth character customization.
Okay, this really applies to games in general. The vast majority of games dont' have much in the way of character customization. You could say 'This is a way that GW is like MMOs', but then you might as well put things on your list like 'Uses a mouse and keyboard for control' and 'Uses a third person perspective'. These are not things specific to the MMO genre, they're just a product of games. Also, this appears to be on this list because you're disappointed with the GW character appearance creation. Which is fine, lots of people think the character appearance editing in GW is nothing special. It doesn't make it an MMO clone though.
2 - Starting area (I can't remember what its called, before the world gets destroyed or somethin?) Is very generic too, starts with cinematic, your character is then standing there with fifteen other character standing ontop of him, then you run off and start questing. Boring in my opinion.
Quests do show up in MMOs a lot, but they also show up in other games. Does this have a similarity to MMOs? Sure. I'll give this one half a point.
3 - Quests are very, very boring. Even more so than other MMO's, maybe it's just because I am so bored of quest text in general, I don't want to read an epic story, I want to play a game. The story should be expressed in other forms (cinematics, voice overs etc) as you would expect from a game.
This one confuses me, because the story in GW is mostly done with cinematics and voice overs. Far more than any MMO of that time. So I'm not sure what you're talking about, to be honest. This is one area in which GW was a pioneer. In fact, you could listen to the cinematics in what... 6 languages? Some crazy amount.
4 - I was going to merge this one with the above, but I realised that both annoy and bore me just as much as eachother. The objectives of quests are generic, boring, unoriginal etc. Escort quests, kill quests, collection quests, all boring. I do remember one quest which I liked, but I can't remember what it was now, it was before the destruction of the world though.
It's like you never played a mission in all the GW games. I find that strange. There were normal quests, but the missions were what set GW apart from MMOs. It told a story, it used voice and cinematics, it had a beginning, a middle and an end. The story of each GW game ends. The quests weren't anything special, especially in the first game, but they're only part of the game, and not really the story (Other than background story).
5 - Henchmen, these annoyed me. It seemed at the level I was, I think about 10, no one was grouping for quests that required more than yourself. I put this down to the use of Henchmen. This annoyed me on its own ground. But then when I actually used the Henchmen and found that they bugged very often, didn't heal or tank well etc, I got even more annoyed with them.
Here's where you really start to slip into confusing 'Things I don't like' with 'Things that are the same'. Some people like henchmen, some people don't. What they ARE, is different from MMOs. The point of contention was not 'Does Roaki like GW' (We all know you don't), the point was 'Is this game just like every MMO of that time'. This is a huge feature that is totally unlike MMOs of the time, whether you like it or not.
6 - Premade level 20 PvP character. I thought this might have been a breath of fresh air, but then, after creating my character, I realised that if I haven't played the campaign and unlocked skills/gear or whatever, my character sucked. This might be a better option later on, after doing the campaigns, but when I used this it was just annoying.
Read the first sentence of my previous paragraph. Still holds true. Also, with just a tiny bit of PvP, you can unlock further skills, further gear, and what not. You never have to step foot outside of the instanced PvP game in your whole game life, and you can collect every skill and piece of gear usable in PvP. True fact. Also, not like MMOs whether or not you actually like it.
7 - PvP itself is very unoriginal, the objective based arena's or battlegrounds or whatever they are called have all been seen before, and have all beed overly used recently, especially instanced PvP as a whole, but I get it that GW is an instanced game. So, I found the PVP in this PvP game boring, not good for me.
Actually, GW pretty much pioneered the Esports kind of objective based arenas in MMOs. So if you hate that feature, you can blame GW. What you can't do is say that GW stole it from the games that borrowed liberally from it.
8 - After completing Prophercies I left the game for a long time, maybe a year or two, but came back when the Nightfall expansion came out, I think, and bought that. I was very dissapointed when I realised that there was no level increase, and that in order to get the most out of the new expansion I would have to start a new character an level through it to experience the whole story. I wanted to just continue playing on my level 20 Elementalist and still be able to experience everything. (I could be wrong on this one, but this is what I got from it.)
No level increase. Also unlike MMOs and their expansions. Why, I don't have to say a thing really, when you're proving my point for me. I get the point that you don't like GW, and I never said you had to. Nobody cares if you like GW or not. But you can't point to all the things different, say you dislike them because they're different, then say the game is the exact same. Also, you could have continued playing on your level 20 Elementalist, and missed about 2-3 hours of tutorial. So this is actually a complaint due to... you not reading the manual, I guess. Oh, and when you logged in as your character, it told you how to play in the other campaign. I guess you skipped that part.
9 - This one is purely just out of my taste, no jumping and no mounts. I like to jump, don't ask me why, it adds some form of realism to the game for me, that I like. I know the game would be very different with it, but its something I didn't like about the game not having. And as for mounts, I know you can map travel, but still, when you are running great distances while questing I would have loved a mount. Mounts are also one of my favourite things about MMO's in general.
Once again, you are stating something you would like to be MORE like an MMO. So isn't this disproving your whole original point?
10 - The community. They spam their wares a lot, if you attempt to sell anything they will spam the chat so that your sale will go unnoticed etc, they were very unhelpful when I asked questions, I sometimes got people insulting me for asking "such stupid question" like the location of vendors and such. Not a nice crowd, WoW also has a terribad community, but I'd put it over that of Guild Wars any day.
So... your point here is... that this game has people playing it, and many of them are jerks. Yes. Yes, actually, I can see how that's a lot like an MMO. You're right. I'll give you a full point for this one. I'm pretty sure GW stole 'having players who are jerks' from WoW.
Again, all the above is just my opinion, I'm not trying to force self made facts down anyones throat and I don't expect anyone to force their opinions down my throat now after this.
Luckily, this isn't my opinion, this is just factual stuff here. Whew. I don't care if you like the game. In fact, I'm secretly a little glad you don't. Your opinion on the game is meaningless to me, just I think you should really check out the logic you're using, and stop conflating 'Things I don't like' with 'things that are the same', especially when the reasons you don't like them is often 'because it's different'.
On topic, people should play GW if they want a chance to get lectured by me in PERSON, in a game! Doesn't that sound fun? c.c
If you want to see how strangely reminiscent of Diablo it is in some game aspects. Stuff like carrying identification kits, keys for opening chests post-searing, henchmen, etc. I know it is, or at least it was, present in other older MMOs, but GW1 always struck me as odd with it's design similarities in comparison to Diablo. And yeah, I'm aware of former Blizzard employees in ANet and all that.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
If you want to see how strangely reminiscent of Diablo it is in some game aspects. Stuff like carrying identification kits, keys for opening chests post-searing, henchmen, etc. I know it is, or at least it was, present in other older MMOs, but GW1 always struck me as odd with it's design similarities in comparison to Diablo. And yeah, I'm aware of former Blizzard employees in ANet and all that.
Yeah, GW has as many similarities to Diablo as it does to MMOs. Possibly because it was made by the same people who programmed Diablo, haha.
You know what the problem with your posts is, Roaki? Most of the things you are saying are completely wrong. Yet you go and say it is your opinion.
Imagine that we have a black book. Yet you say it is orange. Should we just be okay with your statement because that is your opinion?
It is true that some of the things you talked about can be subject to your personal opinion. But look at these:
You said missions = quests in other MMOs. Well, excuse me but there is no WAY you can relate them to quests in traditional MMOs. But as I said I doubt you ever played the game for more than 15 minutes. This is further supported by your last post where you only talk about the starting zone in the game (which can take about 10-15 minutes to complete).
You said you don't want to read quests and you need cinematics and voiceovers. You don't need to read a single line in GW. Every mission has qute a few CINEMATICs which are VOICED (as you suggested) and you can get a very good idea of the whole story by simply watching these. But I am afraid you need to play beyond the starting zone to see those.
So you say there are no cinematics yet there are so many cinematics in the game. Is this discrepancy due to your personal opinion?
And that is just one example. There quite a few extra things which are simply misinformed because you never played the game.
But yes, we are fanboys cause we're trying to point out how wrong your info is. It is all a matter of personal opinion isn't it?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
i personally disagree with ppl calling this a MMO...it just dosnt have that feel to me...just feels like annother 3rd person elders scrolls or somethign along thouse lines. A true mmo is everyone everywhere all the time not just in the city...and for that reason i never did get into it the feel was too playstation. Also the lighting and whoal feel of the game made me tired, bored and unintrested. Hell world of tanks is more of a MMO than guild wars is atleast in it you play with alot of ppl ALL the time not just in the base/city
i personally disagree with ppl calling this a MMO...it just dosnt have that feel to me...just feels like annother 3rd person elders scrolls or somethign along thouse lines. A true mmo is everyone everywhere all the time not just in the city...and for that reason i never did get into it the feel was too playstation. Also the lighting and whoal feel of the game made me tired, bored and unintrested. Hell worldof tanks is more of a MMO than guild wars is atleast in it you play with alot of ppl ALL the time not just in the base/city
If it makes you feel any better, the makers of the game never called it an MMO, they call it a CORPG for 'Cooperative Online RPG'.
Of course, nowadays there are plenty of games that have even less than the 8 players GW had that call themselves MMORPGs, but whatever.
Stopped reading Roaki's posts the moment he claimed Guild Wars was a MMO.
Guild Wars is as much a MMO as Diablo 2 is.
"Massively" means you're able to interact with the "massive" playerbase at any given time/place within the game world. In Guild Wars, that interaction only exists within cities, i.e. "lobbies." I can't be questing and spot another person and form a group to take down a boss right there and then, I need to go back to a city, form a group, before even heading out and start anything.
As someone said before, a lobby with 3D avatars and an environment is still a lobby. They've added that in to make it feel "seemless" with the game world, but it's still a lobby.
Not even the developer claimed Guild Wars is a MMORPG, don't be running around doing so. You think you know the game better than the people who made it?
Stopped reading Roaki's posts the moment he claimed Guild Wars was a MMO.
Guild Wars is as much a MMO as Diablo 2 is.
"Massively" means you're able to interact with the "massive" playerbase at any given time/place within the game world.
According to this description, any game which has instanced parts (and most of current MMORPG have instanced parts - limited to one party/raid) is not "massive" - inside instances you cannot interact with "massive" playerbase, so 'any time/place' failed there. Fact is, that in Guild Wars instanced is most of the world, as in other games instances (if are) are usually limited areas within much bigger non-instanced world. This made GW rather unique MMORPG or even not MMORPG at all, but some other type of game .... but such difference is only important before 'end-game'. Most MMORPG on endgame are centered on instanced parts (raiding / pvp areas), most players spend time in "lobbies" between instanced parts as there is nothing interesting to do for them on non-instanced parts of world (there are always some gatherers/grinders/wanderers, sometimes some game events worth to participate, but only part of players is interested in this), so is not much different than in GW.
Aren't there events that take place where anyone can join in? I just started GW but I know I had to guide brother meheno(?) to a certain area to progress in the story. While I was doing this another guy was doing the same thing. I hadn't invited him to party so I assume it is anyone on that quest get dumped into the same instance/area. That opens the oppurtunity for massive amounts of people in the same area doesn't it :P?
Anyways, pick it up instead of WoW if you're tired of end game 4 hour raids. Time crucial factor to your gaming? Pick up GW.
Edit: I too fail to see such a huge difference between missions and quests. Is the big argument that missions progress a story line? Quests can be part of a story, the only difference is there is an end to the game in GW but that doesn't change the fact that WoW quests have a story to them as well. Maybe I'm misunderstanding exactly but that's what it made me think.
Main missions progress your story further and allow you to travel to new areas, and also come with cinematics. Side quests are good for exp, exploring (because they usually take you all around the place), and unlocking new skills (so you don't have to buy it from skill trainer). Side quets have story in them and they complement the main story, but they are not as important as main quests naturally.
There's really a huuge number of side quets and unless you have nothing better to do, do them. But I suggest concentrating on the main story both NM and later HM. Only exception for side quests are those that reward skills, some weapons, and attribute points.
Comments
While I have not played every MMO or CORPG in existance I would say:
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if:
You feel the "holy trinity of tank, heal & DPS" grew old with EQ.
You like tactical skillbased (as opposed to gearbased) PVP in an instanced environment. (Like a counterstrike clanwar)
You like a gameworld that has a lot of activity in towns, but you will go on adventure with just the few friends you choose.
You hate to sit around for hours spamming "LF 1 healer (tank whatever) ready to go"
You like an immersive storyline and can accept that most stories are in fact linear.
You enjoy a game, casually or hardcore, with or without friends, but always without griefing. (Killsteals, ninjalooters, ganking etc.)
You like a game where every person ingame is effectively on the same "server". (Like EVE Online)
Complex crafting and auction house functions are unimportant.
Yes, GW is not considered a MMO, not even by its creators but personally I have never, in other games, grouped with as many different and fun people, nor had such epic virtual moments as I have had in GW. (Early Aion sieges came close, but the elitism/favourism and overall sad community soon killed that.)
Sorry for trying to maptravel back OT... :-p
(edit: English being my 3.rd language)
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Because it's cheap, free but best of all - because its a clone of the bigger games anyway, so you get what the rich subbed players are experiencing for free*!
*Just a lot less content.
Above is my original post, says nothing about WoW, just MMO's in general.
The reason I posted this was because I had friends telling me how much better GW was than WoW, and how innovative it was, and how different it was.
I played it, very subtle "differences" but too many massive "similarities."
Again, I have never said any of MY OPINION is fact, because it's not, at the end of the day it's my opinion.
I've had enough with all you biased fanboys trying to force me to change my mind on the game.
In my opinion (key words here, remember I said them please.) Guild Wars is not innovative, not fun and not different enough to be called different. It has so many influences from the top MMO's (WoW, EQ, Lineage, VG?) and to say it hasn't it very biased.
On topic again -
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if....
You want to play the most innovative, fun, and most of all, unique lobby based game?
Hmm
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
Pick up Guild wars instead of wow if you dont want to play a mmorg and fancy playing a top notch online roleplaying game with a ton of content.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Okay. I've read your opinions a lot in the last couple of pages so here. I propose to you a way to get your possibly valid argument across. Name 10 things in the game that you think are cloned off of WoW and what part it is a clone of. Ignoring the core/generic problems of all mmos like: Monk in GW = Priest in WoW = Medic in TF2 or it is a fantasy genre. We gathered that a long time ago.
If you are going to critize quests, then specifiy which part of the quest system is cloned, not GW has quests, WoW has Quests. Instead do something like this. "Some quests in GW have you go out, kill a certain boss then turn it in."
I like opinion supported with fact, it makes an arguement a lot more valid. If you wish I could equally do 10 things in the game that are very different to aspects of WoW.
Anyway to main topic.
you want to have faced pace combat without the annoying grind.
I agree with this, I probably should have done this in place of my previous posts, here's my list.
1 - Charcater Creation - Generic, seen before, nothing interesting here. Not enough options, like in most MMO's, which I think is stupid because your character should look different from everyone elses. Praise to super hero games and other MMO's with in depth character customization.
2 - Starting area (I can't remember what its called, before the world gets destroyed or somethin?) Is very generic too, starts with cinematic, your character is then standing there with fifteen other character standing ontop of him, then you run off and start questing. Boring in my opinion.
3 - Quests are very, very boring. Even more so than other MMO's, maybe it's just because I am so bored of quest text in general, I don't want to read an epic story, I want to play a game. The story should be expressed in other forms (cinematics, voice overs etc) as you would expect from a game.
4 - I was going to merge this one with the above, but I realised that both annoy and bore me just as much as eachother. The objectives of quests are generic, boring, unoriginal etc. Escort quests, kill quests, collection quests, all boring. I do remember one quest which I liked, but I can't remember what it was now, it was before the destruction of the world though.
5 - Henchmen, these annoyed me. It seemed at the level I was, I think about 10, no one was grouping for quests that required more than yourself. I put this down to the use of Henchmen. This annoyed me on its own ground. But then when I actually used the Henchmen and found that they bugged very often, didn't heal or tank well etc, I got even more annoyed with them.
6 - Premade level 20 PvP character. I thought this might have been a breath of fresh air, but then, after creating my character, I realised that if I haven't played the campaign and unlocked skills/gear or whatever, my character sucked. This might be a better option later on, after doing the campaigns, but when I used this it was just annoying.
7 - PvP itself is very unoriginal, the objective based arena's or battlegrounds or whatever they are called have all been seen before, and have all beed overly used recently, especially instanced PvP as a whole, but I get it that GW is an instanced game. So, I found the PVP in this PvP game boring, not good for me.
8 - After completing Prophercies I left the game for a long time, maybe a year or two, but came back when the Nightfall expansion came out, I think, and bought that. I was very dissapointed when I realised that there was no level increase, and that in order to get the most out of the new expansion I would have to start a new character an level through it to experience the whole story. I wanted to just continue playing on my level 20 Elementalist and still be able to experience everything. (I could be wrong on this one, but this is what I got from it.)
9 - This one is purely just out of my taste, no jumping and no mounts. I like to jump, don't ask me why, it adds some form of realism to the game for me, that I like. I know the game would be very different with it, but its something I didn't like about the game not having. And as for mounts, I know you can map travel, but still, when you are running great distances while questing I would have loved a mount. Mounts are also one of my favourite things about MMO's in general.
10 - The community. They spam their wares a lot, if you attempt to sell anything they will spam the chat so that your sale will go unnoticed etc, they were very unhelpful when I asked questions, I sometimes got people insulting me for asking "such stupid question" like the location of vendors and such. Not a nice crowd, WoW also has a terribad community, but I'd put it over that of Guild Wars any day.
Again, all the above is just my opinion, I'm not trying to force self made facts down anyones throat and I don't expect anyone to force their opinions down my throat now after this.
On topic -
Pick up GW instead of WoW (or any mainstream mmorpg) if...
You want to fight against giant cat like humanoids!
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
If you like building decks for card games like Magic: The Gathering.
That is what kept me interested for so long, so many different possibilities for your skill bar!
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Guild Wars isn't mainstream? I must have been in a coma for the past six years. They're published by one of the bigger MMO publishers globally, and in 2010 made $11.5 million in sales, just through box copies and cash shop items.
Choosing Guild Wars over a "mainstream" mmo is like choosing Starbucks over a "mainstream" coffee shop, or Apple over a "mainstream" Windows PC.
I love Magic but disliked GW.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
LOL, you are right. But it started out as a small indie company that grew after their game got released.
Many people like to consider themselves alternative people, but stuff that earns millions are not alternatives at all. Rock is not rebellic either for that matter.
Strains new project, Zombie labs are an indie developer right now but I have a feeling it will grow as well.
Well, they have some similarities. In both cases you try to think of good builds by combining skills/spells with eachother.
But magic is more about strategy and less about doing the right thing in the just right second so I can see why you would like one but not th eother.
Would you BTW like a game where you picked a longer list of skills close to a magic deck?
On topic, people should play GW if they want a chance to get lectured by me in PERSON, in a game! Doesn't that sound fun? c.c
If you want to see how strangely reminiscent of Diablo it is in some game aspects. Stuff like carrying identification kits, keys for opening chests post-searing, henchmen, etc. I know it is, or at least it was, present in other older MMOs, but GW1 always struck me as odd with it's design similarities in comparison to Diablo. And yeah, I'm aware of former Blizzard employees in ANet and all that.
Yeah, GW has as many similarities to Diablo as it does to MMOs. Possibly because it was made by the same people who programmed Diablo, haha.
You know what the problem with your posts is, Roaki? Most of the things you are saying are completely wrong. Yet you go and say it is your opinion.
Imagine that we have a black book. Yet you say it is orange. Should we just be okay with your statement because that is your opinion?
It is true that some of the things you talked about can be subject to your personal opinion. But look at these:
You said missions = quests in other MMOs. Well, excuse me but there is no WAY you can relate them to quests in traditional MMOs. But as I said I doubt you ever played the game for more than 15 minutes. This is further supported by your last post where you only talk about the starting zone in the game (which can take about 10-15 minutes to complete).
You said you don't want to read quests and you need cinematics and voiceovers. You don't need to read a single line in GW. Every mission has qute a few CINEMATICs which are VOICED (as you suggested) and you can get a very good idea of the whole story by simply watching these. But I am afraid you need to play beyond the starting zone to see those.
So you say there are no cinematics yet there are so many cinematics in the game. Is this discrepancy due to your personal opinion?
And that is just one example. There quite a few extra things which are simply misinformed because you never played the game.
But yes, we are fanboys cause we're trying to point out how wrong your info is. It is all a matter of personal opinion isn't it?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
i personally disagree with ppl calling this a MMO...it just dosnt have that feel to me...just feels like annother 3rd person elders scrolls or somethign along thouse lines. A true mmo is everyone everywhere all the time not just in the city...and for that reason i never did get into it the feel was too playstation. Also the lighting and whoal feel of the game made me tired, bored and unintrested. Hell world of tanks is more of a MMO than guild wars is atleast in it you play with alot of ppl ALL the time not just in the base/city
If it makes you feel any better, the makers of the game never called it an MMO, they call it a CORPG for 'Cooperative Online RPG'.
Of course, nowadays there are plenty of games that have even less than the 8 players GW had that call themselves MMORPGs, but whatever.
Stopped reading Roaki's posts the moment he claimed Guild Wars was a MMO.
Guild Wars is as much a MMO as Diablo 2 is.
"Massively" means you're able to interact with the "massive" playerbase at any given time/place within the game world. In Guild Wars, that interaction only exists within cities, i.e. "lobbies." I can't be questing and spot another person and form a group to take down a boss right there and then, I need to go back to a city, form a group, before even heading out and start anything.
As someone said before, a lobby with 3D avatars and an environment is still a lobby. They've added that in to make it feel "seemless" with the game world, but it's still a lobby.
Not even the developer claimed Guild Wars is a MMORPG, don't be running around doing so. You think you know the game better than the people who made it?
According to this description, any game which has instanced parts (and most of current MMORPG have instanced parts - limited to one party/raid) is not "massive" - inside instances you cannot interact with "massive" playerbase, so 'any time/place' failed there. Fact is, that in Guild Wars instanced is most of the world, as in other games instances (if are) are usually limited areas within much bigger non-instanced world. This made GW rather unique MMORPG or even not MMORPG at all, but some other type of game .... but such difference is only important before 'end-game'. Most MMORPG on endgame are centered on instanced parts (raiding / pvp areas), most players spend time in "lobbies" between instanced parts as there is nothing interesting to do for them on non-instanced parts of world (there are always some gatherers/grinders/wanderers, sometimes some game events worth to participate, but only part of players is interested in this), so is not much different than in GW.
Aren't there events that take place where anyone can join in? I just started GW but I know I had to guide brother meheno(?) to a certain area to progress in the story. While I was doing this another guy was doing the same thing. I hadn't invited him to party so I assume it is anyone on that quest get dumped into the same instance/area. That opens the oppurtunity for massive amounts of people in the same area doesn't it :P?
Anyways, pick it up instead of WoW if you're tired of end game 4 hour raids. Time crucial factor to your gaming? Pick up GW.
Edit: I too fail to see such a huge difference between missions and quests. Is the big argument that missions progress a story line? Quests can be part of a story, the only difference is there is an end to the game in GW but that doesn't change the fact that WoW quests have a story to them as well. Maybe I'm misunderstanding exactly but that's what it made me think.
Main missions progress your story further and allow you to travel to new areas, and also come with cinematics. Side quests are good for exp, exploring (because they usually take you all around the place), and unlocking new skills (so you don't have to buy it from skill trainer). Side quets have story in them and they complement the main story, but they are not as important as main quests naturally.
There's really a huuge number of side quets and unless you have nothing better to do, do them. But I suggest concentrating on the main story both NM and later HM. Only exception for side quests are those that reward skills, some weapons, and attribute points.
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Pick up GW instead of WoW if you dislike the raiding-based endgame of WoW and similar MMORPGs.