A WoW player's guide to Guild Wars
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 31st 2008 at 2:30PM
Last time around, Massively introduced us WoW players to Age of Conan, and today they've posted a guide to Guild Wars for us World of Warcraft players. Unlike AoC, I have actually played Guild Wars, and they've hit the nail on the head here: for two of the most popular MMOs, Guild Wars is very different from our experience in Azeroth. From a completely instanced overworld (everything outside the cities is instanced, so you won't see anyone else out there questing with you unless they're in your group) to a much more streamlined leveling system and a completely different PvP game (you actually create different characters for PvP, something WoW players have actually been asking for), Guild Wars is a very different game, and definitely an experience worth trying for those of us ingrained with the way they do things in Azeroth.However, one thing Massively missed was the community of Guild Wars -- because the game doesn't have a monthly fee at all, there seems to be a very different audience playing it, and the feel of the chat channels and city general channels is very different. If you thought the trade channel was chaotic in Ironforge, just wait until you get into the starter area of Guild Wars -- because the game has no AH, not only is there more crazy business to be done, but people playing the game for free seem to have even less of a conviction towards making it a good experience for everyone else. WoW's community is a little crazy, but at least there are a few good people out there who'll group up or give you a port to Shattrath. In Guild Wars (in my experience), maybe it's a combination of the instanced world and the free-to-play quality, but it's very much an every-man-for-himself game unless you're playing with friends you know.
Not that GW is a bad game -- I enjoyed it, and still jump in occasionally to do some questing. But it's very different from World of Warcraft and many other MMOs.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Leveling, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Paulo Jul 31st 2008 2:41PM
more like..
BLEH wars.
or Age of BLEH.
Mike Schramm Jul 31st 2008 3:12PM
I see what you did there. Very witty.
Juneau Jul 31st 2008 2:44PM
I tried Guild Wars once, and I HATED it. The running is awkward, not being able to jump is annoying, and I really didn't like how everything was instanced.
In the end I gave up looking for groups and ended up doing all my quests with an NPC group. It might as well have been a single player game.
Liel Jul 31st 2008 2:46PM
I never understood the need for people to jump in an mmo.
zappo Jul 31st 2008 2:54PM
@Liel
Me neither really. I can say with certainty that it's a great way to judge people you don't want to group with though - when you see them jumping around in circles like a spaz. So I can appreciate that as a side effect of being able to jump.
Ktok Jul 31st 2008 3:20PM
Re: Jumping
Being able to jump = Hey that two foot gap in the floor is no problem for me!
Not being able to jump = OMG! A two foot gap! There's no escape now... I'm trapped! *TRAPPED!!* /cry If only I could somehow leave the ground with some forward momentum for a short distance!
My personal view is, if my character makes his/her living kicking asses, they better the heck know a full range of basic movements. Otherwise, it's just silly.
William Jul 31st 2008 3:26PM
Never seen a need to jump? the landscape isn't exactly flat you know... and there are trees and rocks all over. What about when you wanna get out of the water and the ground doesn't come down to the surface of the water smoothly but you don't wanna fight that fish that's hitting you? Or in PvP? Sometimes Jumping is enough of a distraction to make people start turning the wrong direction and they end up not hitting you cuz you're behind them. Jumping is VERY important. Moreso because of other people and because in a game like this you need as much mobility as possible. Just my two cents... now tear me apart!
Badger Jul 31st 2008 4:09PM
Jumping is being added in Guild Wars 2.
Mareena Jul 31st 2008 6:47PM
It's not really jumping that I had a problem with, it was falling. The game would not let you "fall" off a 2 foot cliff, so you had to go a long way around the get where you needed to go...
Juneau Aug 1st 2008 5:53AM
Yeah Mareena, that was the main problem I had too. I don't jump around "like a spaz", I just like being able to get over 1 foot high obstacles and to jump off ledges.
Datone Jul 31st 2008 3:01PM
MMO Insider?
RogueJedi86 Jul 31st 2008 4:07PM
That's what Massively is, a sister blog to WoWInsider that covers MMOs in general. But this article pertains to WoW, so WoWInsider crosslinked it. Joystiq, WoWInsider, and Massively all crosslink relevant postings among each other. Accept it.
Demosthenes Jul 31st 2008 3:02PM
I actually came from GW, after playing 1 1/2 years. It was an amazing MMO, different than WoW in some key areas that made it also as great as WoW.
brent Jul 31st 2008 3:06PM
Same here.
it was a blast and playing through the first expansion and the original was a great intro to MMO's It has alot of great features but some shortcomings as well. I left for a more robust endgame experience since i wasn't looking for PVP at the time.
Randal Jul 31st 2008 3:07PM
What a horrible way to read an article...2 paragraphs...next page...2 paragraphs...next page.
Ad revenue anyone?
Gary Combs Jul 31st 2008 4:47PM
Yeah, funny thing huh? That advertisers pay the company to write these nice articles for us to comment on. Novel concept huh?
Juneau Aug 1st 2008 6:00AM
Ad revenue is fine, but tactics like that to get more page views is a bit low. Just one thing though, is it just me or are WoW Insider ads always for University of Phoenix? Aren't they supposed to change?
Dightkuz Jul 31st 2008 3:12PM
GW was fun for a while but all the flaws eventually made me go back to WoW.
And wtf, looking out of my window, there is a guy sitting on a rooftop :S
Fedwinmorr Jul 31st 2008 3:17PM
I played GW for a while... and for a "free" MMO is was fun, but it just didn't compare to WoW, not near as polished smoothed or fleshed out. The story is ok, but doesn't have the fun lore and backhistory like WoW.
The funny thing is, you don't know how much you will miss jumping until it is gone.
Oh... and the game was fairly linear even after the sundering or breaking or whatever they called it. Even in design it was linear, you came to a hill and you couldn't jump off the hill... you had to walk around down the path...ect ect.
I had a friend that nay sayed WoW for a long time and swore by GW. For the longest time he refused to try WoW. Guess where he is now...logging more hours in Azeroth than I do, and GW is gathering dust on his shelf!
But, all that aside, as I said it was fun for a "free" MMO.
HunterZ Jul 31st 2008 9:23PM
I played Guild Wars when it was fairly new, because I wanted to support the idea of an MMO that didn't charge a monthly fee. However, GW isn't really an MMO, and the authors were careful to avoid labeling it as such.
I liked that it felt like there was a story unfolding as you ran through the instances that connected one major area of the game to the next, but other than that, GW was extremely lacking in interesting PvE content.
In fact, I eventually realized that Guild Wars was really designed around the PvP content, with the PvE stuff as a side-game where you could learn/unlock new skills and such. There was little to no variation in gear; it was all about skills, which makes a lot of sense for PvP but is totally boring for PvE.
Between the realization that the PvE content was boring and that 80% of players were Warrior/Monks, I ended up quitting GW months before I ever even saw someone playing WoW.