Guild Wars/ WoW Dynamic

Preface: If anything in this post sounds negative/critical, I mean it only in a constructive way. I like GW a lot.

This always interests me because of ArenaNet's roots in Blizzard's Diablo.
I find it ironic that the presence of GW has helped WoW improve *its* PvP. I think it's pretty obvious that the honor system and the new Battegrounds PvP competition update to WoW was put in as a direct method to stop/slow down attrition to GW.

And it works, at least in my guild experience. 3/4 of my guild has left GW and went back to playing WoW. Other long-standing guilds that I know (from Shadowbane) have had a similar time attrition going on. Granted, my guild had played WoW a lot before GW and many of them picked up GW to try it out. I am told the Battlegrounds has a more FPS time feel to it that PvPers enjoy, with capture the flag games etc. but all using their WoW characters that they've developed over a few months. Who knows how long it will last, but there were some things I noticed that I didn't expect beforehand from talking to these guys who have gone back to WoW.

1) The lack of a monthly fee in GW encourages people to try GW, but the presence of a monthly fee in WoW encourages people to play WoW more if they have both games. It makes sense, actually, because if you are paying a monthly fee, you feel like you ought to use your WoW account. Whereas with GW you have no qualms about putting it on the shelf for months at a time.

2) I am neither for nor against a UAS, but I think the lack of it has hurt GW's long term marketability. It won't show in initial sales, because the consequences of a lack of UAS don't show up until you're about 50+ hours in the game. Some people have claimed that GW and WoW have different crowds and compete very little with each other, but I think that's wrong. There are a lot of people who were disappointed with WoW who picked up GW but did not cancel their WoW accounts (who would, after putting a few months of work). For these people, GW has to offer a quick and promising gaming experience before WoW gets altered to try to suck them back into WoW. I think the UAS would have helped here, as it would have quickly showed these straddlers what GW has to offer that WoW cannot patch- depth in organized PvP that goes beyond skill acquisition and levelling.

There's also the sector of the gaming population that WoW can never attract: the player who simply cannot put in the time commitment (I'll be PC and avoid the charged word "grind") to compete in WoW, as well as the FPS/Counterstrike crowd who like to log in for an hour or two after work, kick some butt, and that's it because of time constraints. GW, rightfully or wrongfully, advertised itself to cater to this crowd, but to the extent that it provides a barrier to entry as far as "work" that must be done in order to "get" to competitive PvP, it is not attractive for someone who could just log on to CS or similar games. Again, I am not saying that GW should have a UAS, but if it doesn't, it definitely loses its appeal for *this* crowd.

3) This has been much commented on, but the lack of a monthly payment means younger players. Parents can just buy the game for their kids for the summer and keep them happy. Is this good or bad? I'm not bashing kids, but I think it's fair to say that a large proportion of extremely young players making a large portion of the online gaming community is not conducive to realizing the organized community PvP potential that GW was designed for. My experience has been that I've played with significantly more 17 and under players in GW than in WoW, Shadowbane, UO and even many strategy games. There is a certain glee that occurs for young players when play their first online game- the freedom of anonymity to curse, be an ass, etc. (ok, I'll admit it, I was probably like that too when I was 16 years ago). This will be less of a problem in the coming months as people filter out. But it could still leave a bad taste in the mouth of people who try out GW, but leave because of lack of maturity in the community.

I'm not saying there are solutions to any of these issues, if they are even problems. And, even though there's no monthly fee, it does affect every GW lover if the community becomes small or fractured- it means less expansion purchases and less good stuff in the future. Arenanet has to maintain their servers after all, and they will only invest in expansions if it provides a marginal return for them.

if they put a monthly fee ill stop playing.

And there is kid everywhere irl, and you have to live with em. I doubt you will see their parent and tell em they gotta pay 15$ per month so they can breath.

All valid points.

P.s. he didn't say charge a monthly, he just pointed out what not having a monthly does to the server population, which also accounts for the majority of "players are idiots" posts. Weither they be posted by 12 year olds or 30 year olds who have just had a game with 12 year olds. (generalization i know, but it simplifies they point.)

Excellent, thoughtful post, Soda! Thanks!

No one pointed out that WoW PvP system is laughable. I don't like watching my Tauren swinging a hammer in the air and hitting an elf 14 mts far and behind him.

Besides, there is no skill system comparable to GW in terms of PvP. WoW is a PvE game, it was always meant to be. If they're desperate enough to copy ideas from Arenanet, it means GW had a horrible effect on Blizzard's pool of players, as statistics report.

That said, WoW is still a solid MMORPG and I appreciated Soda's well thought out post. I'm afraid he's right about the fee too. I regret not having a nice grown-up community like WoW has.

There a going to be a lot of GW players (myself included) for whom GW is their second MMOG. I simply couldn't justify paying 2 subscriptions currently, so GW makes a great alternative option.

People will come and go playing GW, for the main reason that there is less content. They'll play until they run out of things to do, then go back to other games. What I expect you will see is established guilds from other games logging on to GW together specifically to PvP. This isn't seen a huge amount yet, as the game is still quite young, so not so many people have got to the high-PvP stages yet.

Quoted for truth.

Quoted for... Wait what? HAHAHAHA you've got to be kidding!!

Heh. WoW's community is pretty pathetic also. Nearly as bad as GW's, if not the same.

Ummmmmmm...WoW is a joke as far as community. The game is pretty much RUN by 12 year olds, which is the very reason I quit.

I almost spit soda all over my keyboard and monitor...lol. I hope that was /sarcasm.

I agree with you that GW's PvP design is superior to WoW's, that's not in dispute. What is in question, at least for me, is whether WoW can offer a community PvP experience that is superior to GW's.

There are at least two ingredients for a good PvP experience: a great PvP design (that GW has) AND a healthy community that plays the game regularly and competitively. GW could have the best PvP system in the world but it won't mean anything if there's not an established community that can take advantage of it and milk it for all it is worth. Think about UO back in 1998, the PvP was a lot of fun but it wasn't because the PvP design was all that great (it was simplistic in comparison). It was the community experience. I'm sure some of the top PvP guilds in the game who have players who have been playing since alpha are concerned about this, what's the point of having a super PvP team build and developing strategies if the community is too small and unstable to offer worthy competition?

So I guess one of the problems I was trying to get at is this: there are a lot of established guilds who have PvPed in a number of online games prior to GW. Many of these guilds considered or are considering GW, but also have presences in WoW. If WoW offers a superior PvP experience (not just the design, but also the combination of both factors listed above) then they will go back to WoW. And the GW community is hurt by this, because having established guilds is great for this sort of game. It provides structure, and also accelerates the development of a stable online GW community. It also provides cross-fertilization in terms of spin-off guilds, alliances, etc. I've seen it happen in the past in other games. On the other hand, a GW community that is fractured, small and consists of little more than spamming "We need a monk/Don't suck" and "LFG!" will not begin to tap the full PvP potential that GW has to offer. Without good competition, there's no need to spend your days strategizing about exotic and unique team builds, just bring a group of friends in TS or Vent and you'll beat most PUGs that tend to be disorganized.

I'm overstating my case a bit, but hopefully you see what I'm trying to get at.

The maturity level of the WoW community varies greatly by server. The communities on some servers is quite mature for the most part.

Were it not for the monthly subscription, I never would have even begun playing GW. Now I'm an addict. I bought WoW in Canada (so I could have it in English... Korean download site is in Korean only, no language conversion like GW has) and then came back to Canada and realized I also needed to buy my subscription with a Canadian card and billing address... no direct payment, no wire transfer, credit card only (or game cards which are also not available here)...

So I have a pretty WoW box and if I so desire, a damn cool looking log in screen... that's as far as it goes. But WoW's limitations in methods of payment have earned GW another customer, and a fan which means a customer for future expansions also.

Oh well I tried WoW for about two months...dunno if I was lucky, but I could find nicer people and a more adult community. Maybe it was a wrong impression, as anyone who daily plays WoW could say.

Soda, I think you're right again, a rich community is vital to GW, for the reasons you listed. Actually I think the game is too young and the majority of players are unexperienced. I remember people trying to beat amazons using necros in Diablo 2, few months after its release. Most of the people haven't even finished the game, and if you give a quick look at the ladder, you'll find that all the greatest guilds played GW since the beta or are experienced and serious clans, successful in other games as well.

WoW has the greatest PvE ever. I don't play WoW just because it's too time consuming, but I'm pretty sure its core is not PvP and will never be. I don't think any serious guild would choose WoW's PvP. Maybe GW community is not on par with the game yet, but I suppose the depth of GW PvP mechanisms will be exploited in time.

I would have agreed with you about this until yesterday. WoW issued a major patch yesterday with Battlegrounds, an area which is focussed on team PvP competition and even has rewards. It is clearly a PvP only upgrade, which means WoW is focussing on PvP right now, most certainly because of the presence of GW.

Can meaningful PvP really be patched in later? I mean, in Guild Wars it is obvious that the combat system has been designed for team based PvP, and then merely reused for PvE, with monster teams emulating player teams. Going the other way seems to me much harder. But I have never played World of Warcraft.

WoWs end game is pretty shallow for PvE

Id rather be 20 in GuildWars than 60 in WoW



I quit WoW because I was bored at 60 - not because of any fees

by comparison,
I'm not bored in GuildWars at 20

The fact I find difficult to understand is that most of WoW customers (and fee payers) bought the game because it's huge, smartly designed, and has a great PvE. Why are they now focusing on PvP? It's pointless to me: patching WoW won't make it more similar to GW.

I'm afraid it could be just a commercial move.

in defense of WoW,
the retail game manual mentions both the PvP Honor System and Battlegrounds

Blizzard shipped an unfinished game (or the game manual is wrong )



the recent patch makes WoW a finished game
(to what the game manual says the game has)

That's in defence of WoW?