WoW vs. Guild Wars

I'm thinking of taking up WoW, but only if it's really worth it. I wanna know all the things WoW has that Guild Wars doesn't.

For example, does anybody ever go on raids in Guild Wars? Do those raids last as long as WoW raids? Details like that.

In other words, what are the differences, and which would you call "better"?

I already have Guild Wars, but I'm still not very far in it.

In before complete devastation.

I never liked WoW because of the horrible community and what it does to you.

Personally i'd go for WAR because all WoW ends up being is grinding, questing and you only get in on raids happen you get into a good faction clan thing. WAR is based off PvP, and isn't as mindless monster fighting focused.

Depends on the person, get the trials for both of them.

honestly i have always enjoyed guildwars more because it actually takes more skill because in WOW you level up to like 99(i dont know i never got that far) and that takes forever and by the time you get there you have a whole bunch of skills that you can put on your skill bar that makes the game waaaaay to easy because you never really have to worry about your build not working on certain groups and stuff but guildwars you get to lvl 20 and your not even 1/8th of the way through the game and you have to think and know when to run what to and what not to fight what your different builds can handle and when to use certain builds its more challenging witch most of the time equals more fun and besides all that you dont have to pay monthly for guildwars

I like Guild Wars because of it's creative storylines and characters. Guild Wars has a variety of monsters and other creatures, like the Charr and the Margonites, not just the usual elves and dwarves (although there are dwarves).

I've played both. My suggestion:

You can get free trials of WoW, I believe. So, just try it, and decide then.

I don't like all this "Guild Wars/WoW/Any Other Game is better cause..." stuff. Its all a matter of personal preference. If you ask me, too many people are getting into fanatical wars over their games when they were just meant to entertain.

Myself, I prefer Guild Wars since it lets you be able to go through the game by yourself with AI allies, since sometimes I don't want to be with other people. I also like the graphic style more than WoW.

But if you can get the right people in WoW, it can be fun as well.

Actually, I like the idea of leveling to very very high. It's more traditional. Aside from that, the skill bar thing is a pain in the butt to me. Not enough room for all the skills I need, and somebody's always criticizing my combination, telling me to change it or remaking it entirely for me. Maybe I should just grow some guts and tell them to back off, but I don't want my PvP team to hate me. Another problem is that Guild Wars is releasing Guild Wars 2, so I'm afraid that people will stop playing GW and all my time rebuilding the guild will be wasted. WoW isn't releasing a sequel, and its popularity is higher, so I'm guaranteed more people to play with for longer time, probably.

Maybe I'm just not far enough yet. I haven't even beaten GW in one campaign, although I own all of them.

But then again, I do like the variety in Guild Wars, and the fact that you have different types of humans instead of different sub-human creatures to play as.

Unfortunately, my trial of WoW didn't last long enough for me to be able to reach a verdict on my own. Tell me, what's this I hear about "private servers" and how do they work? Do people play for free on those things? Maybe I'll be able to truly explore the game that way.

So change of subject: Please tell me about private servers.

Unfortunately, my trial of WoW didn't last long enough for me to be able to reach a verdict on my own. Tell me, what's this I hear about "private servers" and how do they work? Do people play for free on those things? Maybe I'll be able to truly explore the game that way.

So change of subject: Please tell me about private servers.

Shit's horribly broken and crashes about every 30 minutes. Most are shit scams and horribly put together.

;[

I played guildwars.  This is the only reason you need to play it.  Alternately, look at all my posts comparing them.

Actually, I like the idea of leveling to very very high. It's more traditional. Aside from that, the skill bar thing is a pain in the butt to me. Not enough room for all the skills I need, and somebody's always criticizing my combination, telling me to change it or remaking it entirely for me. Maybe I should just grow some guts and tell them to back off, but I don't want my PvP team to hate me. Another problem is that Guild Wars is releasing Guild Wars 2, so I'm afraid that people will stop playing GW and all my time rebuilding the guild will be wasted. WoW isn't releasing a sequel, and its popularity is higher, so I'm guaranteed more people to play with for longer time, probably.

just tell those people to leave you alone while you work on your build yourself.  You'll get the same type of jerks in WoW.

Unfortunately, my trial of WoW didn't last long enough for me to be able to reach a verdict on my own. Tell me, what's this I hear about "private servers" and how do they work? Do people play for free on those things? Maybe I'll be able to truly explore the game that way.

So change of subject: Please tell me about private servers.

what anski said.
I'd definitively suggest WAR over WoW.  I have a friend who's playing it now, and it sounds a lot better.

Im sticking to GW though, cuz I'm poor and it's fun.

Is WAR short for Guild Wars, or is it something else entirely? I googled it and all I got was the definition of War, and White Aryan Resistance.

Warhammer Online

Pff, Warhammer Online.

Is WAR short for Guild Wars, or is it something else entirely? I googled it and all I got was the definition of War, and White Aryan Resistance.

GW is short for Guild Wars

WAR is short for Warhammer Online, which is a rather good (from what I heard) MMO, that takes place further in the future of the Warhammer 40k universe.

Is WAR short for Guild Wars, or is it something else entirely? I googled it and all I got was the definition of War, and White Aryan Resistance.

GW is short for Guild Wars

WAR is short for Warhammer Online, which is a rather good (from what I heard) MMO, that takes place further in the future of the Warhammer 40k universe.

Takes place in Warhammer Fantasy, not 40k lol

Is WAR short for Guild Wars, or is it something else entirely? I googled it and all I got was the definition of War, and White Aryan Resistance.

GW is short for Guild Wars

WAR is short for Warhammer Online, which is a rather good (from what I heard) MMO, that takes place further in the future of the Warhammer 40k universe.

Takes place in Warhammer Fantasy, not 40k lol

bleh
all I remember was "alternate timeline to Warhammer 40k in the future" or some shit like that.
blame the poor explanation.

Actually, I like the idea of leveling to very very high. It's more traditional. Aside from that, the skill bar thing is a pain in the butt to me. Not enough room for all the skills I need, and somebody's always criticizing my combination, telling me to change it or remaking it entirely for me. Maybe I should just grow some guts and tell them to back off, but I don't want my PvP team to hate me. Another problem is that Guild Wars is releasing Guild Wars 2, so I'm afraid that people will stop playing GW and all my time rebuilding the guild will be wasted. WoW isn't releasing a sequel, and its popularity is higher, so I'm guaranteed more people to play with for longer time, probably.

Maybe I'm just not far enough yet. I haven't even beaten GW in one campaign, although I own all of them.

Regarding the leveling: It's all relative to one another.
Skill bars: The game is entirely based on strategy, choking the amount of skills is why you have to work on a team. The game is constantly getting nerfed and buffed, some skills (DSlash/FGJ combo) got totally raped because the skill balancer "Izzy" is a dumb-ass who doesn't think builds should work for more than a year. OKAY, maybe that was a little rough, but it's entirely true; some builds that worked when I started playing (when it came out) are absolutely awful, or just became obsolete because of better builds. Your best bet is go to PvX Wiki to find stuff about builds.
Guild Wars 2: Will be entirely mainstream MMORPG, core GW players probably wont swich, but people who just play the game for their own reasons probably will, no need to worry, you own all the games, you're fine.

I couldn't agree with NAMKCOR more on the wow jerks, I personally like to play by my self, get good skills, take the loot for my self and go on with my life. There are times when you need to party, specific missions in NF and Factions really it helps to have a well balanced team; they wont complain, they'll give you tips.
Beating GW campaigns don't really mean much anymore. And plus, highly regarded end-game skills can (mostly) be found earlier on in other games. But to answer your main question: Yeah, they do add some amounts of "ah hah!", but mainly, most people do it for titles now a days. It's fun to beat the game too, though. Prophecies has a much better end mission IMO, all the others are just boss fights.

Wow has it's moments, GW is much different than WoW, that's why I reason the core GW players won't go over to GW2, wow has mounts, which a lot of people like, it has a bunch of novelty stuff, more so than GW. You have time wasters like professions in WoW, but you have time wasters like titles in GW, so it is and it isn't similar.

WoW and GW both suffer from a lot of fundamental problems.

WoW made the unfortunate decision to pour all of their innovations in to making standard MMO conventions that turn off most people in to something a person won't mind sitting through. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how slow it would have been without a mount, a 20 minute run from one place to another still isn't fun. WoW also suffers from poor environment design; making lowbies cross significantly higher level zones to get to class critical quests *coughDruidscough* is seriously uncool, not to mention placing a level 20-30 Horde questing zone right beside not one, but two zones with Battleground portals, thus ensuring that Tarren Mill will always be overrun by bored maxed level Alliance going on ganking sprees while waiting for a queue. WoW also hates, hates, hates lowbies. The last time there was some decent new low level content was Maraudon, which was pre-Burning Crusade. In addition, WoW is plagued with stupid people, from the rampant loot ninjas, to the folks who don't know how to play their class and/or role in the party and then get snippy when you try and inform them why it's bad and what they should be doing. I swear, there's nothing worse in that game than trying to farm an instance, and getting stuck with Warrior tanks who insist on using Charge instead of pulling with their gun (bonus points if they also complain about the constant wipes that he himself is to blame for).


Guild Wars has its own share of issues. For starters, it's ugly as sin- hell, it almost looks as bad as Dark Age of Camelot (except, you know, without all the characters looking like they have Down's Syndrome). The classes (sorry, 'professions') are also all over the map in Guild Wars. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that classes with names like 'Warrior', and 'Assassin' are totally out of place sitting beside classes with names like 'Paragon'. Seriously, shouldn't they call the class that's all about singing and giving speeches 'Bard' or 'Minstrel' or something? Also, the MMO aspects of them game seem tacked on because of the way they handled the world. Having every damn thing instanced is a huge mistake- if I wanted to run around an environment devoid of life except for bad guys and party members, I'll turn on my X-Box and play some Dark Alliance with someone I know in real life.

tl;dr

They both suck. Sell your accounts and pick up CoX for your MMO needs (or WAR, if PvP combat gives you serious wood).

Guild Wars has its own share of issues. For starters, it's ugly as sin- hell, it almost looks as bad as Dark Age of Camelot (except, you know, without all the characters looking like they have Down's Syndrome). The classes (sorry, 'professions') are also all over the map in Guild Wars. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that classes with names like 'Warrior', and 'Assassin' are totally out of place sitting beside classes with names like 'Paragon'. Seriously, shouldn't they call the class that's all about singing and giving speeches 'Bard' or 'Minstrel' or something? Also, the MMO aspects of them game seem tacked on because of the way they handled the world. Having every damn thing instanced is a huge mistake- if I wanted to run around an environment devoid of life except for bad guys and party members, I'll turn on my X-Box and play some Dark Alliance with someone I know in real life.

Guild wars has better graphics than WoW.  The classes being diversified can only be seen as a plus.  Oh no?! THEY ARE NAMED DIFFERENTLY! WORST GAME EVER! as for the instancing everything, it's not that bad, but I would have liked up to like 32 player parties instead of 8.

Guild Wars has its own share of issues. For starters, it's ugly as sin- hell, it almost looks as bad as Dark Age of Camelot (except, you know, without all the characters looking like they have Down's Syndrome).

The graphics are fine.  I'd just wish they would have offered more in terms of character customization, but it's not too hard to live with what they put up.

The classes (sorry, 'professions') are also all over the map in Guild Wars. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that classes with names like 'Warrior', and 'Assassin' are totally out of place sitting beside classes with names like 'Paragon'. Seriously, shouldn't they call the class that's all about singing and giving speeches 'Bard' or 'Minstrel' or something?

Why? They're both english words, and they describe the profession.  I don't see your point at all.  What, use more cliche names so that you can complain about them being unoriginal? 

Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Ranger, Monk, Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon, Dervish.
they sound original and different, as opposed to just stealing from D&D.

Also, the MMO aspects of them game seem tacked on because of the way they handled the world. Having every damn thing instanced is a huge mistake- if I wanted to run around an environment devoid of life except for bad guys and party members, I'll turn on my X-Box and play some Dark Alliance with someone I know in real life.

the point of the instancing is that you won't have people drop-camping.  And when you go to do a quest you KNOW that you can do it, because someone isn't going to be there to beat you to it.  Also, want a party? meet up in an outpost or town, want to PvP? Enter an arena.  It works fine imho.

They both suck. Sell your accounts and pick up CoX for your MMO needs (or WAR, if PvP combat gives you serious wood).

City of Heroes/Villians is ok, but I'm already bored with it and I was only trying it out.  Haven't tried WAR yet but I've heard great things.

GW is more of a casual multiplayer game with an MMO-style fighting system, rather than a suck-your-life-away generic MMO grindfest.
You're complaining that WoW is too generic, but then you turn right around and complain that GW isn't generic -enough- ?_?

Now I enjoy GW a lot but I -can- find flaws in it.  Firstly it'd be cool if they raised the level cap to like 30 or something, I'm not even in the Crystal Desert in Proph yet and I've already hit 18. 
Secondly, a few interesting dungeons/raids would be fun.  I always liked that concept.  (like task forces in CoH/V and such)
Other than that, I have no real complaint.

Guild wars has better graphics than WoW.

Guild Wars might be more graphics intensive, but polygons and textures aside, WoW looks very pretty despite being graphically rather simple, whereas Guild Wars looks ugly because of creative laziness. Guild Wars has some very gorgeous environments, but the buildings tend to look boxy and lazily constructed (which is odd, because GW also has some of the best ruins of buildings I've ever seen), and the colour pallet is a muted and sepia affair with little to no vibrancy- like they took a Hollywood war scene and removed all the conflict raging on in the background. Also, spell and skill effects in Guild Wars don't exactly dazzle me the way they should. There are plenty of MMOs that make you feel powerful right out of the gate by making abilities that draw your attention and make you think "I can do that. Awesome!" Guild Wars doesn't.

The classes being diversified can only be seen as a plus.

This would be totally fine if all the classes had neat, fluff-inspired names. Having some that do and some that don't is not only a little jarring, but actually dissuades people from picking the classes with the archetypal names. Classes like Mesmer and Paragon just sound special. Yes, this is totally a pet peeve of mine rather than a real grievance, but when it comes to class balance, especially in an MMO, consistency is God, and the naming conventions of the classes need to be part of that consistency, or the game world suffers for it.

GW just strikes me as being phoned in. I really did want to like it, but every time I tried to play it, I just got underwhelmed and bored within the hour and had to go play another game for a few days to get the taste out of my mouth. I hope GW2 is good, but honestly, by then The Agency and Champions Online should already be out, and both of those games look far better than what GW2 has to offer so far.

To me, the graphics of GW look a lot better than WoW. For the following reasons...

- I prefer the character design of GW. Its more realistic to me.
- Giant "Oh mah gawd" magic attacks are toned down so you can actually see the screen
- The landscapes. They're amazing.

Also, I almost agree with you about the buildings. Except you're still a bit off. I prefer the buildings of places like the Norn areas in EotN over some places in Prophecies.

Also, if you haven't played Factions, you can't say anything about the graphics and environments. Factions looks the best of all of them to me.

This would be totally fine if all the classes had neat, fluff-inspired names. Having some that do and some that don't is not only a little jarring, but actually dissuades people from picking the classes with the archetypal names. Classes like Mesmer and Paragon just sound special. Yes, this is totally a pet peeve of mine rather than a real grievance, but when it comes to class balance, especially in an MMO, consistency is God, and the naming conventions of the classes need to be part of that consistency, or the game world suffers for it.

GW just strikes me as being phoned in. I really did want to like it, but every time I tried to play it, I just got underwhelmed and bored within the hour and had to go play another game for a few days to get the taste out of my mouth. I hope GW2 is good, but honestly, by then The Agency and Champions Online should already be out, and both of those games look far better than what GW2 has to offer so far.

The names are entirely unique, instead of pulling stuff from a hat, why not actually read the names in full:
Mesmerizer: Pretty much describes the class. You have spells to take control of your targets and and punish them with great force.
Paragon: Someone who inspires; Idol, the main gameplay element of Paragons are being able to buff others while having a decent amount of power to keep yourself good to go. Exactly.
Assassin: Quick, massive AoE/Single target damage, but fragile. Exactly.
Warrior: Instead of having a million different classes that should be just one (I'm looking at you, WoW). GW aces that, Axe Mastery, Sword Mastery, Tactics, Strength and Hammer Mastery, that's Paladin, Hunter and Warrior right there.
Ranger: Weeeelll, I shouldn't have to describe this one....
Elementalist: Controls elements. Not only good in three ways (Buff, AoE and single target), but great combined with almost any other class.
Dervish: This class's focal point is using the god's power to bring down heavy amounts of wrath upon their enemies. They also wear traditional dervish skirts..
Necromancer: OK, I really shouldn't have to describe this one.
Monk: I really like this because it differs from your typical Monk class. Not only can a single (well balanced) monk manage seven other party members,  they can also take on enemies en mass, a 55 Monk (AKA invincible Monk) can take on the UW solo, which is hard for most other classes to do it as well as the Monk can.
Ritualist: Rits are commonly know as ANets forgotten child, so yeah. Not much to see here other than insanely powerful buffs and great healing (in some cases better than a monk). OK, so this class really focuses on either sacrificing their health or minions to summon shit. Rituals in the rawest meaning.

Of course guild wars isn't diverse with a class roster like that...you need three copies of a single class and the most generically vague names to make a great game. Pft...

Everybody hopes GW2 is going to be better; don't get your hopes up. Aside from the armor (which is awesome), EotN is a massive grindfest, and is supposedly "just a taste of what GW2 will be like"


While I agree that both the games have their flaws, GW is much better developed. It doesn't seem like they're pumping out more and more content just to get that extra 120M a month. It seems more like an honest attempt at an MMORPG than WoW is.

I've never played GW. What's the best "healing" class? Cause that's what I'll be playing as.