WoW player thinking about GW

So yeah, i've been playing WoW for about a year now(since it came out) and i've gotten kinda bored with it. Is it worth the $50 to buy guildwars. How much of the gameplay is different(besides taht stupid everything is instanced). Thanks

I would hardly call instanced stupid. Yes, Guild Wars is a good game, but coming to a forum dedicated to Guild Wars asking if it is a good game will probably only net yes answers. It won PC Gamer's best value and best MMO, although I wouldn't classify Guild Wars as an MMO.

After coming from a big MMO like WoW you may find this game to be too small, all my WoW loving friends did.

if you hate instanced dont buy GW....

I don't hate instanced areas it just annoys me. Mainly, how does the combat in this game work?

watched my friend playing WoW... I'd never switch from GW to play it. Just my opinion though... plus you can't beat free to play.

If you honestly like WoW, you will likely not enjoy GW very much at all.

I suppose I could clarify.

Teamplay is much, much more important in this game than in WoW. You will (almost) never ever go anywhere without someone else in your party. Your character WILL NOT be designed/able to do things completely on their own.

PVE is short. Tiny, compared to WoW. It's also very much linear, ala Diablo in a lot of ways. It does not take long at all to reach the maximum level (20) or get the absolute best equipment, stat-wise. This game does not focus very much at all on equipment--not nearly as much as WoW.

Combat is relatively straightforward. Your character can only have eight skills equipped at a time, so you have to pick and choose just what kind of character you want to be for each mission. For example, Elementalists have the choice of specializing in Fire (AOE), Air (Single-target), Earth (Utility, expensive AOE), or Water (more utility, snares).

Then there's PVP, which can be some of the most fun gaming experiences you've ever had, when it works. Random arenas (4v4, teams randomly matched), Team arenas (same, except you can put your team together beforehand), Heroes' Ascent (8-man teams progress through a tournament-style series of maps), and Guild vs Guild battles (again 8-man).

I don't know what else to put here so okay!

Coming from WoW myself, a few things in GW really shine, and these things in particular make it for me.
1. PvP- WoW PvP is a bloody mess atm- the only PvP that goes on is instances battleground pvp ANYWAY, and even that involves 1+ hr queues, or stupidy where a 'guild-based' bg team enters the bg, so the other party justexits immediately.

Not to mention the extremely poor itemization between warriors and every other class making it horribly imbalanced atm...

Guild Wars achieves the balance between classes that WoW could only dream of.

But first, you'll have to get passed the fact that you can't run *everywhere*, it'll be easier for you to operate guild wars ala diablo 2, using mouse clicking for movement. Groups are easy to find in guild wars, and the only time you'll see more than 8ish players together are in towns where you find groups.
Otherwise it's just your small party and the big wide world, and a plethora of missions.

If you're big into the 40 man raid business, guild wars isn't going to hold much for you. But if you like epic, close-knit instances where you can actually function as a proper team, guild wars has ALOT in store for you. And once you're through all that, if you're a PvP fan, then you'll be right at home, as guild wars offers team arenas, guild v guild battles (guilds mean something here unlike WoW), big competitive ladders and a host of character and class mixes that you can change on the fly , making no 2 PvP fights the same (nor any 2 party setups either!).

Hopefully some of the more experienced guys can elaborate further on what i've said, as I haven't gotten too far into it all yet!

Hope that helps somewhat.

Thats so wrong. GW is different, and he could well enjoy it.

Besides, if he does not like it after a week, then he can get almost all his money back if he sells his Game on ebay, maybe more than he paid for it, if its got lots of gold in it.

Thanks for the info, I'm not sure if i'm gonna buy it yet but i'll certainly think about it. I might try playing at a friends house before I buy it. There aren't any free trials for GW are there?

it may change comes chapter 2.. which is coming sooner than WoW Expansion.

G.W no grinds like in WoW.

Just Don't be a Wow Noob

WoW Noob: A noob who calls everyone else noobs, is bad at comebacks, and depends on high armor, weapons or character lvl to win.

Too many of these at my school. They Don't like the even PvP playing field of GW.

However if your not a WoW noob then you should like GW very much.

P.S. I am not calling everyone who plays WoW a noob. I am naming a type of noobs that invaded on Factions PvP Weekends and generally come from WoW.

Also if your tired of WoW noobs in WoW then this place is more clean but not entirely clean of them.

Even if you don't end up liking it very much, it'll still be far better value. Guild wars has a one-time fee, and that gives you pretty much hundreds of hours of unique content... Pretty good price, in my opinion. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, charges you the same amount for the game... then charges you to play it... and then you have to wait just to log on... (but ssshhhhh... don't tell anyone! The fact that it's a bad deal is supposed to be Blizzard's little secret! Plus, they need as much money as possible available to make Starcraft 2...)

Guild Wars is technically a superior game. The streaming technology kicks ass and the graphics are beautiful.

It's pretty much up to you, though. I don't really have anything to add to what the above posters have said.

it is not really a free trial but keep checking the GW site for the sneak peek free PVE weekend coming up hopefully soon.

we just finished the free PVP weekend peek a week or so ago.

get a free key, set up an account and look at the tiny bit they want to show you for the weekend no charge

I can tell you this much. I never really wanted to get into guild wars. I was playing Morrowind at the time and that game kicked serious *** because you could do almost anything you wanted. So when my friend bought me Guild Wars for my birthday, and he already had the game, I was motivated to play just because I could team up with him. At first I didn't like it that much because you didn't have as much freedom as in Morrowind. I think "simplistic" is how I described it to my friend. But eventually I got into it. Mainly because I was just plain sick of Morrowind at this point and I had nothing else going on so I played GW. It is fun trying to find good skill combinations to utterly crush your enemies. But it still bugs me that you can't do much in the way of details like pick locks, pick up misc items, totally customize everything, ect. But Elder Scrolls Oblivion is coming out in another month.... if my computer can handle it that game might drag me out of GW for a real long time. Now that I think about it, oblivion could keep me from getting factions. But I guess if anet "purposely" delays factions for a few months, I'll probably get over the initial wow of Oblivion to start up factions too.

Actually, the secret is even dirtier, more insipid than you think. There was a game trade article that did a study. Whereas in Korea, all game clients are free, you just pay a monthly fee to play (if at all), and *NO ONE* would ever dream marketing a game there by charging for the client and a monthly fee. The "discerning" American consumer taste is that we will not value a game if we actually hadn't overpaid for it (a la WoW or EQ when they are first released). Games that do not charge you a premium for a client or a monthly often receive the (incorrect) assumption and the reputation that it is an inferior product because (and inspite) of that reason! Are we really that stupid?

please forgive me butt i absolutely cannot help saying......

*that you have to ask the question is its own answer*

GW = is strats dependent, If you are dependent on level grinding, high end gear, this is not for you.

It's a great game thought

Psht, I'd subscribe to WoW if I thought SC2 would ever happen :P

Btw, its $25 bucks now. Search around for it in stores or online you can find it for that price.