WOW player interested in GW

OK. I don't know what the community here is like. Please don't flame me because I am completely ignorant. I have a few questions about GW, and I have never played it yet...that's all.

I've been playing WoW. Great game levels 1-58 or so. But I have found several problems with it that are really breaking it for me. I'm going to list out what I like and don't like about Wow. I hope someone can tell me, based on my preferences, would GW be good for me.

Likes:
Combat System is somewhat fast paced. Requires skill. Is fun when opponents are evenly leveled, evenly equiped, and are not of a 100% Rock/Sissor combination (meaning, some classes, like Warlock, completely shut down Druids and Mages, almost no matter what the equipment and skill differences between the combatants)

Big pretty world to explore

A sense of mission in the PvE game

Runs well on my 2.4Gh, 1MG RAM system

Random PvP encounters all the time

I like the Auction House system. I like the quests. I like the look and feel.

Dislikes:
Generally speaking in PvP, Equipment > Player Skill > Talents (character attributes). I would prefer Player Skill >Talents > Equipment

There is little world-effect in the PvP system. Battlegrounds does not effect the world (unlike, I hear, in Dark Ages of Camelott, in which PvP effects the world)

Everyone else has great uber Equipment which I can only hope to obtain if I dedicate my life to the game

and #1 dislike is that it takes hours to get together a group to go on an instance run.

GW, fast-paced? I'd say so. And you don't really have to worry about the counterclass thing in GW, considering every single pvp encounter will be in a team.

Pretty big. No idea how it compares to WoW though.

At first? Yes. But the story breaks down a bit later on.

You'll be fine.

Nope. Not in this game.

No Auction House yet, though apparently it's coming. Quests...dunno what you mean.

Dislikes:
Player Skill > Skills (Character/team build, whatever) > equipment. Yep.

Very very little. One PVP mode allows you to fight for the favor of the gods for your region. While you have favor, you have access to two 'high-end' dungeons.

Max equipment is very very easy to get. Money is almost meaningless.

You'll get that every now and then, but certainly not hours. Not often at all.

In GW:Factions, there will be a lot more world-effect with PVP. There will be two main factions, which you must choose and fight for and gain access to towns and who knows what else. In the current system though, there is quite little world-effect, other than the favor system, which occurs at the high end of pvp (accessable to anyone, knew or old, provided you have the personal/team skill.)

Guild Wars doesn't require a monthly payment. Guild Wars FTW, right there.

To expand a bit more, though, GW is very different from WoW, based on everyhting I have read over the months.

In GW, everything is instanced. Every town is an instance. These are the only places where you interact with large amounts of your peers. In towns, you form a party with a limited number of people, and you head out the door into another seperate instance, made specially for your party's use. This means that your party will be alone out there, so no spawn camping or anything.

I have heard that in WoW, people must decide before a quest who wants what drops. That's what I hear, maybe I'm wrong. In GW, drops are randomized to all party members to (attempt to) ensure equal drop rates (it doesn't always work properly. Some will argue that things like level, damage output, etc. affect it, but as of now it is random).

The PvP is always in teams of 4 or 8. Since you cna only carry 8 skills on you at one time, organizing team builds where everyone has a role to play is crucial to victory. Skill reigns supreme over armor and weapons in GW (that isn't to say that having a good weapon doesn't give advantages, just not a drastic one).

Sadly, there is no jumping in GW. This seems to piss alot of people off, although it is 100% trivial because GW wasn't designed with jumping in mind. The terrain wouldn't compliment such a feature, if it were ever implimented.

If you like vast, explorable areas, then you like GW. This game has some of the best scenery you could ever find in a game. The developers went out of their way to make your trip to the end of the world worth it.

In Guild Wars, you will NEVER have to wait to log in, the servers (almost) never go down. I say almost because a few days ago there was a bit of a fiasco involving a server glitch causing rune traders dropping prices unexpectedly...but they fixed with a roll-back. Occasionally you will get a disconnect from the game, but 90% of the time this is on your side of things (ex. ISP dropped you for a second). Overall, connectivity is great, and there are 0 server line-ups or anything.

There is a story line that you follow in PvE, but it is pretty lame...however, the content you go through to advance in this story is fantastic.

I hear alot of people say that WoW has better graphics, but I think its more about style preference. WoW players have gotten used to the cartoony, or more surreal look of things in their game, whereas GW is more realistic looking (as realistic as spell casting and extravagant monsters can be, I guess, lol).

You can get someone to give you their 14 day trial of the first chapter of Guild Wars, or have someone send you an invitation to the free preview event (mar 24) of chapter 2.

Using one of those 2 methods to demop the game will give you a better chance to decide to buy or not.

EDIT>>> If you do decide to buy, contact me in game at the name Midgets Beware.

This sounds really cool.

I'd honestly say you should wait for GW Chapter 2 because everything that's been said about it seems to suggest that it's a much more refined game than Chapter 1 was as far as PVE is concerned.

Yeah…a lot of WOW players would hate this. The only think I don’t like about this is that it lacks randomness. It lacks the fear of getting ambushed in PvP.

Question: so when you go into a new instance, you go direct to a “dungeon”, with no traveling?
Most people play with the random drops feature, or have it set so that you can only “roll” on a drop which you can use.

Big question here: Can you develop a sense of character or playstyle individuality in GW? I mean, although you are always selecting different skills before a match, can you still have a distinctive playstyle?

Jumping is not really of any use in Wow except for getting over some terrain features. Some classes can use jumping a little in PvP. But Wow would not be different without it.

I don’t understand how the story line is lame but the content is fantastic. What’s the difference?

Anyone reading this can provide and invitation to me? I would be very grateful.

OK. One more question. I understand that GW is not about getting the best lewt. That’s cool. But is there any use for money and auction houses then?

Will do. Thanks for your comments.

and wait for chapter 1 to price drop to like 20 dollars
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GW's money is quite hard to come by without hardcore farming... almost like other Games, except that the farming don't help you to win PvP at all. All the money are put into individualism, to customize your character's look.

You can customize the color of most weapons, shields etc

You can dye your any of your armor, from a combination of 100+ colors with basic red/blue/green/yellow/purple/silver/black dye color (although I say, the real color would be like 15~30 something, as many color turn out not much different).

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All this is speaking strictly for Chapter1:
You do teleport instantly to another town, however if you choose to, you can also run there. One problem, the PvE route you can take is limited, as in it go at max 2-3 direction for explorable area.

In terms of world size, GW should be ALOT smaller.

One thing people hate about GW when they came from other real MMORPG background is that, there are invisible walls all over the place. You can't slide/walk/jump down a hill or anything, if they decide to put an invisible wall there.

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The mission will make you feel that you are a part of a story. There are also cinemtic event during mission.

The story tend to get boring and dragging after you had gone through it two-three times, but that happen to EVERY game.

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There are random Arena that you can play PvP randomly whenver you want by creating "PvP only" character.

There are no such thing as PK/KS in the PvE enviorment. However, there are similar things such as "Pay me 5000 gold, or else I am not going to turn the story item in to complete mission" or "Yes, I am a healer, but I just feel like a jerk and not heal you today, unless you pay me... other wise, die or fail mission, I won't care".

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One more thing... You can dodge arrows in this game... your shield are only most effective to attack from front, and none to back. Arrows are effected by height of your position etc...

It's interesting you say the WoW combat system is fast paced. I've recently played WoW and coming from GW I'd have to say WoW's combat is too slow for me. It's like you have to run up to the enemies and keep clicking on the enemies hoping that your character will eventually attack. If the monster walks out of range before you character hits, you have to run up to it again and keep trying. When you actually do engage the enemy the hits are almost turn based in my opinion, if you have played both WoW and GW you notice what I am talking about.

I found this insanely annoying in WoW, and it's one of the main reasons why I like GW way better. I like how in GW the enemies actually want to pick a fight and come to you (well not always like it, but you get the point).

Thanks

PS- I would get GW if I were you, I did and haven't looked back!

To fit your needs and experiences i would recommend you to get Guild Wars Faction when it come out. The overall PvP side for chapter 1 is very minor and you can't see the changes as your team win matches. In chapter 2 however, you can win matches than you gain access into different quests, side mission, and different benefits if your guild is on the winning side. You can feel free to get GW now but overall, you won't experience that meet your expectation.

In Wow, once you target a mob or player, you don't loose the target. (although fears and other special affects can make you lose target). Your auto-attacks will always initiate if the target is in range. Some caster and ranged mobs will try to run out of range, or root, then run out of range. Caster/ranged players of course want to accomplish the same. But there is no multiple clicking on the target. You target. Then you click your special attack buttons.


I did read in the IGN review of GW that the Mobs in the PvE game have a huge agro radius and the reviewer didn't like that. He thought the PvE became a little tedius because of this. As I have not played the game, I cannot comment on this. In Wow, enemies have relately small agro radius. So a very important part of the PvE strategy in Wow...maybee THE most important strategy element, is determining which mob to "pull" that will have the least likely consequence of attracting other mobs to join in the pull.

The mobs in GW are hard to pull sometime especially when there is bunch of them in huge group. (no spacing between two huge mob) You have to rely on your ranger to draw one group at a time or if your group is that damn good, pull all and swing away!

The aggro range of mobs are TINY bit smaller than your caster range. Therefore, it is often possible to target and cast on them before they aggro you at max range.

This is however, not the reason why PvE is tedious in my opinion.

If anything that PvE is tedious, it is because the effect of the battle are TOO SMALL. Such as your fireball is only the size of your palm flying toward the target with a firing tail. Also that the game is suppose to be "challenging", but you can't have challenge with "everyone using the same skill" including the monsters in PvE.

Chapter 2 will be changing alot of boring facts mentioned here, that is why we strongly urge you to just get ch2. And, if you really want to try ch1, you still can try it with the trial version when you buy chapter2.

It's always so exhilarating to see all the support for GW =). Makes me wonder why I'm on the forums right now lol.

Quests: obtained from NPCs, and offer any combination of experience points, new skills, or weapons. These tell you to go somewhere, and do something, basically. You can take any route you want, and there are no time restrictions.

Missions: These start in towns, where you form a party. The group leader (first person in the list) will have a button that says "Enter Mission". Pressing this transports the party to some nearby location outside town where the mission begins. You are given specific objectives, one after the other. If all party members die in a mission, they must go back to town and restart. The missions are where the storyline is revealed.

Having played both games way too much... I'll tackle these. Its pretty much the same as the entrance to an instance in WoW. When you go through a cloudy/swirly/shiney/whatever you want to call it "barrier" you'll go through a slight loading screen and then be in an instanced world. I'm not sure what the person was talking about towns being instanced... because they are the only things that are not. Anywhere else, you'll be on your own or with your relatively small party of people/henchmen.

Sure you can develope your own style, as you can with many other games. With GW there are the main builds that many people will stubbornly follow, just as there are in WoW. With GW I think there's a lot more room for variation. People will look at WoW and think they see a ton of skills, but Guild Wars definitely kicks WoW's ass in the area of amount of skills or total amount of combinations.


You'll definitely notice a different playstyle with GW and WoW. You'll seem a little bit restricted with where you think you can go. Here are some major differences. No swimming. No climbing. No falling. No jumping. You run faster in GW. Using the mouse to view is different... but its hard to describe. Its understandable within the first few minutes of switching.

Not exactly sure what he means here... but I think he means the Story itself is unoriginal and stale (I disagree) but the physical content such as graphics and atmosphere are amazing (which is quite true). The huge difference is that there is actually a plot to GW. With WoW you have an incredibly open ended game with all of the quests and repeatable instances for the same reward. In GW you'll go through and enjoy the plot once or twice, but like most you'll move onto PVP, which really separates these two games.

The pvp in GW is so much more fast paced and dynamic compared to WoW. In WoW(unless you are trying for rank 14 or something) you'll generally just go in by yourself with sort of a "solo" build. In GW there really isn't anything like that. There is a random arena sort of like it which is concidered a joke to many, but aside fromt that there really isn't any solo pvp. You'll almost never encounter 1v1 fighting against humans, so you'll be fighting with a team of characters (hopefully) set up to balance each other's downfalls and create a well balanced team that will be most effective in every situation.

Of course there are builds that go heavy in a certain aspect and become weak in others, but in GW you'll see more overall balance, rather than 10 Paladins all running around trying to cap a flag.
Money quickly become a joke in GW. You'll instantly notice that your first drop might be "2 gold" and you'll freak out for a minute. Well in GW the currency is incredibly bland and you'll see little desire to use it. There are very few amusement items and only a handful of incredibly expensive vanity items. There are no professions to act as a money sink, so the money just builds and builds and builds.

People will say there is a use for money. There is a slight in-game economy based around the coolest looking items in the game. There are items in the game that have the exact same mods as others, and perform the exact same, but one is worth very little, and the other is worth an insane amount. Guild Wars has what I like to call a vanity economy.

An Auction House would probably help balance out sell prices and stabalize them. It would give people an idea what to sell at before they sell it. Currently the system involves the first few districts of each town filled with 50+ people yelling out "WTS WOOD" "WTS FELBLADE." You can't get anything done. Auction Houses just organize things, which this game would benefit greatly from.

Hope I helped...

Random Edit: In WoW, very few mobs were tied to other mobs, usually just bosses or those very close to other mobs. In GW a mob will almost always have a couple of other mobs around it, giving a new meaning to the term mob. You'll see a mob of mobs and not expect to get 3 guys in one pull, but its generally just because they are almost literally tied to each other.

The one thing I like about WoW's combat system, over GW, is that wether you have a skill in your skillbar or not, you can still access it through your skill menu. In GW you're given 8 skill slots, and those skills are only changeable while you're in a town/city/mission outpost. Once you set those skills and enter a mission, or instance an area to quest or farm, they are the only skills you can use until you re-enter a town/city/arena/mission outpost and re-organize your skill bar.

The world map in WoW is immense in comparison to GW. GW is a tiny little world that can be traversed, from one end to the other & stopping at every town and mission, in a matter of a few short hours. If you know the game well you can actually take a character from level 1 to level 20 (fully equipped with all the bells and whistles) in 12 hours (or less). The fact that the PvE aspect becomes so simple after a while ruins the sense of purpose or accomplishment in attaining level 20 when you do it for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc., time.

A small, but notable, difference between GW and WoW is that your group enters and leaves towns/missions/etc., as a group. If one person steps into town, the entire group is zoned into that town. This has it's perks and downfalls, but the number 1 perk (or downfall, depending on who you ask) is that it makes the game runnable. That is to stay, you could go afk in a group and be run through the entire game, come back and have every town/outpost open, every mission completed, and not have to so much as look at your screen to do it. Routes were deliberately opened by the developers so the game could be "run". It's a way for people who are making the aformentioned 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc., character for a specific purpose, and don't want to spend all that time doing everything all over again. Anet knows their storyline and game world lacks the dynamics to keep it interesting in a repetitive fashion.

As to the look and feel.. well, GW is less cartoony than WoW, so the look and feel is dramatically different. I can't say that one is better than the other, because the look and feel of WoW is well.. wow. It's an incredibly detailed game world. The only thing I've not liked about it is, as I mentioned above, that it's cartoon'ish in appearance. The GW game world is no less visually appealing than WoW, but the graphics are different and certain map options are clipped to prevent you from random exploration up yonder hill or across the deep blue sea.



In PvP your equipment is secondary to your talent and skills. The world effect is limited, as someone else mentioned, to the Hall of Heroes affecting the Favor system.

Brief detail of the Favor system: GW has servers around the world, each given a "region" designation. If you play on the North American servers, your region is "America", if you play on the European servers your region is "Europe", etc., and so on. There are currently 2 end game areas in PvE that are only accessible when your region has favor (The Underworld & The Fissure of Woe). Favor is fought for in PvP. If a PvP group from your region wins enough times in the Hall of Heroes your region will gain Favor, making UW and FoW accessible to you. That accessibility remains until another region garners enough wins in HoH to steal the favor of the Gods for their region. That's about the only way PvP directly affects the PvE game environment right now, though others have mentioned ways in which that will evolve in Factions.

There is no "uber" equipment that you'll never be able to aquire in GW. If you don't care to make money and buy the vanity equipment that drives the GW "economy", you can get collector equipment with identical (and sometimes better) stats with very little effort or money. Collectors are NPC's that trade you equipment or armor in return for item drops that they "collect". The items they collect are non-valuable items, most of which serve no other purpose other than being sold to a NPC vendor or salvaged for crafting materials.

On that note, I should point out that crafting and crafting materials in GW are limited to armor and some weapons, and most are inexpensive and very common. The only thing you can craft that requires expensive materials is Fissure of Woe armor, which has a total cost (materials and crafting fee) of over 1 million platinum. This armor serves no purpose other than a status symbol or indication that you've run out of things to spend money on. It has the same stats as 2 other armor sets, both of which are significantly cheaper.. the cheapest being a total of maybe 10 platinum total (materials and crafting fee). There are no potions in GW. No health restoration, no mana restoration, no speed potions or strength or what have you. Every person has access to the same skills, the same quality of weapons and the same quality of armor, wether you farm 12 hours a day or just play casually, travel with an uber leet group or just take henchmen.

To cut down wait times on doing quests and missions, there are Henchmen in GW that will assist you. The cost of using them is virtually non-existent. They operate as a person would, in that they take their share of money drops, and their presence effects how many drops you yourself will get. Drop ratio is determined by how many people you're with. More people = less drops per person.

Oh.. one last thing.. I mentioned before that everyone has access to the same skills, and that is 100% true. In GW you start out with a primary profession (Warrior, Monk, Ranger, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist), but you eventually get to add a secondary profession, which ultimately means you have not one but TWO professions, and access to all of the skills from both. Later on in the game, you're also given the option to change your secondary profession. If you wish to, you can change it numerous times and make EVERY skill available to your one character. Once you have the option to change your secondary, you can change it as many times as you wish.. back and forth between the available classes, making your character very flexible and adaptable for PvP. I should point out that you can't change your primary profession. If you want a different primary you have to create a new character.

I'm kinda jumping around here, but there's currently nothing similar to "raiding" in GW. The upcoming Factions expansion gives the impression that there will be something similar to it. If we have two Factions fighting for control of territory, it'd be kinda like going on a big raid.. except rather than mindlessly killing each other for shits and giggles for a few hours and getting nothing but a bit of rank in return, it sounds like this Factions business will actually determine wether or not you can access certain game content (areas and whatnot).

ogami_ito, I think you should try it out. It's an overall good game. The main problem is the community, a lot of immature kids out there, but if you can easily tolerate that, it's no problem. If not, then you can turn your chat.. sections off, don't know how to word it. But you'll figure it out. The PvP aspect of the game will obviously grow when Factions comes out, I may try PvP if I seem to like it, but right now I'm overall PvE based. You might start out a bit scratchy but it's really easy to get the hang of.

Oh, and just a top tip if you do get it, if you're ever stuck and bored, then go onto the build forums and find a pvp build that you like the sound of. Most are competant builds and a good way to have a bit of fun in randoms. Though you probably would have noticed that anyway

From what I've heard of, WoW players are a little bit zealously over-the-top compared to most of us casual GW players, but for a game that values player skill over equipment qualities, Guild Wars is definitely one of the best. Without a monthly fee, you got nothing to loose, I don't know of a reason why anyone shouldn't give Guild Wars at least a try. Good luck