Differences between wow and guild wars

[lockstake0skill]

I might be planning to switch to guild wars as i have been playing wow for the past 3-4 years. Im just interested in the pvp aspects of the game. I already know that wow pve demolishes any other mmo out there. If i am going to switch its just for pvp, as in GW you can be capped level for pvp.
What are the differences between wow and GW pvp system. How does pvp work, like BG, arenas, world pvp, etc...
In pvp are the classes balanced in GW compared to wow.
The reason why i want to switch to guild wars is because it doesnt require the amount of commitment that wow requires to play and be good at. Also dont have to worry about fees. I already know wow is going to win, a game with monthly fees has a lot more money to spend on improving the game. I just want some imput comparing the games.

[Testudine]

Guild Wars don't have any subscription fee's so why not play both?

[Deleted]

GW has a boring pvp system tbh, oh and they quest 'instanced' so immediate interaction with other players is zero. (unless in group)

[Deleted]

I heard that guild wars 2 is fixing all there problems i.e no jumping,instanced zones, better pve endgame etc.

[Thage]

WoW's fun and Guild Wars is a grindy exercise in frustration with barely any contact with other players and a broken microtransaction system that basically requires you to buy things via their online store to afford anything players are selling.

[dakoeda]

The only thing GW lacks that wow has... you cant jump in GW

[zlygork]

differences? wow has a good LORE
wow has race and class variations in a far different magic level (guild wars doesnt even have races imo)
wow has pvp,pve and RP
wow is developed each some months with patches and expantions (dunno if guild wars is,srry)
guild wars has far less players than wow
guild wars has f*ing great graphics wich doesn'T make the good gameplay and is more likely to cause an fps drop in your pc
guild wars war mechanics is more booring if u ask me

[lockstake0skill]

I heard that guild wars 2 is fixing all there problems i.e no jumping,instanced zones, better pve endgame etc.

That is a long ways away...

[Rtwo]

The main difference is that pvp is much more balenced in GW then WoW.
alot of the skills change when you enter a pvp zone (less dmg/duration ...)
when i used to play there were skill updates on a weekly basis to keep the game balanced, recently they even did some sort of overhaul on a profession.

- HA (heroes ascent), competitive pvp 8v8
- GvG (guild versus guild) which is also 8v8 and the battle takes place in the guild hall and you have to kill the other guild's guild lord.
- RA (random arena's) 4v4 and you get a random team vs another random team
- TA (team arena's) 4v4 and you can choose your team
- HB (hero battles) 1v1, each with 3 heroes (heroes are npc's you control, you choose their skills, weapons, ... and you can manually activate the skills in battle aswel)

think this is everyting (been a while since i played GW, just waiting for GW2 ^^)

another thing: pvp characters: they start at max lvl and you can unlock all weapons/upgrades/skills with them via pve or pvp, which is very cool becouse you can play all professions(classes) w/o having to level all the way to max lvl + getting the skills/gear
also in guildwars you have a 2nd professions, which means you can use the skills of 2 classes on one char(less powerfull ofc) but it gives you a ton in variation.

the only downside may be that you start fresh so it will take a while to get a pvp title to get accepted in pvp groups, or you can get a good pvp guild (advised ^^).

pve is nice aswel, but you get to a point where you have done everything in game and all that is left is grinding titles etc, but it does take a looooong time untill you get there :d


in short: pvp much more balanced then wow, you can switch between professions without much effort.
pve is very good, but the endgame of wow is better becouse you have raiding, wich GW lacks a bit.

---------- Post added 2010-09-06 at 04:09 PM ----------

WoW's fun and Guild Wars is a grindy exercise in frustration with barely any contact with other players and a broken microtransaction system that basically requires you to buy things via their online store to afford anything players are selling.

depens on the player, i played the whole game with friends without soloing alot.
and i never payed for microtransaction and i have acces to everyting in game (execpt one mission pack wich you dont need at all)

i agree it gets grindy when you finish the game and all HM's

[Rurikar]

Man a world of a warcraft forum and everyone likes world of warcraft more.

Science.

[Deleted]

alot of the skills change when you enter a pvp zone (less dmg/duration ...)

wow has that too, it's called resilience,
and skills don't last as long when used on players too.

[Rtwo]

wow has that too, it's called resilience,

yes for the dmg part, but in GW some skill increase in cost/casttime/cd aswel, this way you can make some skills powerfull in pve but not overpowered for pvp.
you even have very powerfull pve skills that you cant use at all in pvp, i know wow has this aswel, but to a much lesser extend.

[Caradinist]

I played both games for a handful of years. Here's a detailed list of differences in Guild Wars.

Guild Wars

1)First difference and main selling point is and always will be, no subscription fee for the game itself. You need to purchase it's two standalone games (Factions & Nightfall) and it's expansion pack (Eye of the North) if you wish to acquire all 100% of the skills.

2)There are a total of Ten classes(named Professions in this game), Six in the original, 2 in Factions, 2 in Nightfall. The six Core professions are available in the standalone games.
- http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Profession - For more information.

3)Guild Wars's main focus is it's PvP. The Main title (Prophecies) Contains Random Arena, and Heroes Ascent, a tournament of sorts between your 8 man team and several others competing for the Hall of Heroes. Factions offers Alliance battles (12vs12), and two new Competitive scenarios. Nightfall's PvP feature (Hero battles) are no longer in the game, and has been replaced with Codex Arena.

4Guild Wars's PvE is limited to missions, roaming in areas, and visiting towns. All areas are instanced, so for example, you leave outside of town with four people, you will be in that area with those four people, and nothing else.

5)There are no craftable items. The only thing close to it is by delivering a specific amount of an item to a collector in return for an item. Any other items are random drops. the Quality of the item is dependant on which area you are in. For more details of what items drop where, consult Guild Wiki.

6)The maximum level cap is 20. How powerful you are depends on what skills you take with you. There are Skills and Elite skills. Typically, Elite skills are more powerful, and as such, you are limited to one elite. You can capture as many skills as you want, but in any combat situation, you have eight skill slots, and can only adjust them in a safe area, such as a town.

[Mijen]

I played both WoW and GW after RuneScape...
The reason I went with WoW:

The ability to jump.

[AdrianCC100]

You should check out Guild Wars 2, original poster. GW2 is a true MMO, which means everything is open world, like WoW, and only personal stories and dungeons or instanced. PVP in both GW and GW2 will be very balanced, there is not one class that is better then the other. All classes are equal in strength and only skill makes one person better then the other. PVP in GW1 and GW2 is more balanced then WoW's PVP will ever be.

Some things I love about GW2.

- Dynamic events. You will run into events on your travels and you have the option to participate in the event or just walk on by and ignore it. There are rewards if you participate and win, but there are also consequences if you participate and lose the event. Very fun stuff. These are open world events, meaning you wont be the only one there.

- No dedicated classes. I'm sure at times in WoW you tried to start a party and you were short a healer or a tank. Well, in GW2 there are no specific tanks, healers, or damage dealers. All classes can do either one of those roles and the switch is very fast. No more waiting for a healer, no more waiting for a tank, you can finally play with who you want to play with. This is the TRUE "bring the player not the class" idea.

- Little grind. No one likes to grind hours on end. I believe I read somewhere that the experience between level 1 and 2 is the same as level 79 and 80. So it wont take a long time to hit the highest level. Also, no grinding 30+ minutes on one quest that asks you to kill so and so NPCs.

- Get right into the fun! In GW2 you don't need to be the max level to get right into the fun stuff. At all levels of the game there are tons of fun things to do ranging from epic boss fights to feeding animals and watering plants. lol Yes you can feed animals and water plants, all part of the human starting level dynamic event.

- Lets assume you have a real good friend who is level 80 and you are level 10. That level 80 and invite you to be a sidekick and you can go adventure with him in the high level zones. You will gain experience and levels while you are side kicked with your level 80 friend.

- Boss fights... Boss fights in GW2 are truly epic. They are not like WoW where each time you fight the boss you know exactly what it will do and when it will do it. In GW2 the bosses gain abilities based on how many players are attacking him, If 40 players are all attacking the same boss, that boss will get stronger and more abilities to deal with those 40 players. This way the boss does not seem so easy and feel like a lame fight.

Those are some things I like about GW2. Also some people don't know this. Former Blizzard developers who have worked on the original WoW, who have worked on Diablo, and who have worked on Starcraft are all on the ArenaNet team and are working on GW2. So you can expect a quality game.

[Kofisan]

The one thing that I reallly liked about Gw pvp that I wished wow had, was the ability to dodge a few incoming projectiles.
Such as if an elementalist fired a lightning ball at you, you had the ability to strafe left or right and the attack would miss.
Doing this we were able to play dodgeball >.<.

GvG's were also better. They seemed a lot more tactical and invloved more teamplay than wow does. You couldn't just go up to the other team and wtf
pwn them (asumming that the teams are evenly matched).

[levitate]

I bought GW before WoW and I was stunned by the beautiful graphics. The no subscription fee was also very nice. But I felt the game was hollow with all the instanced zones. Didn't quite do it for me and made the world feel small.