How Guild Wars 2 Compares to World of Warcraft

During this weekends play of the Guild Wars 2 Beta, and in the coming days after it ended, I’ve come to feel quite strongly about some similarities to World of Warcraft, as well as differences. I felt I wanted to share these thoughts with you guys. If you’re a raging fanboi/girl of any of these games, please take into account that I’m doing the comparison between them because they are the two MMORPG’s I’ve spent some time on, further explanation will follow with each point as well.

The differences and similarities between Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft

The addiction, even if I only spent one weekend in Guild Wars 2 during the beta, I felt a very similar feeling to how I felt when I was addicted to World of Warcraft. And addiction can be a bad thing if not handled correctly. In March I got back to gaming, about 2.5 years after I stopped gaming all together. Something in Guild Wars 2 brought out the same feelings, that I’ve not had since then.
Even these past few days, after the weekend was over, I’ve felt the urge to play even if I know I can’t.

The hardcore, the dedicated player side, of the games. I was into hardcore raiding in WoW, I was one of those whiney bitches thinking they made the game TOO EASY raiding wise. When I played Guild Wars, and GvG (8v8 man PvP) some of the matches I loved the most, were the gridlock type of games, because it brought out a sort of intensity, and if one team screwed up their timing once they were screwed. What I really enjoyed when playing GW2 was that you had to be on your toes most of the time. You couldn’t leisurely lay back and play. I guess you can, to an extent, but if you played as well, you understand what I’m getting at. I loved that it was hard, and complicated from start. It might end up taking a strain on me on release, but I truly believe that I will love the game because of this. In WoW there wasn’t much of this, you could mindlessly do most of the things, even raid at the end of my reign and that gets quite boring.

Questing in GW2 will be completely different from what you’re used to as a WoW player. Remember running around a city to find all the quest givers, only to realize you can not fit all the quests into your quest log because it’s limited? I did this so many times before WoW upped the numbers of quests you could pick up. With GW2 you will not need to worry about such nonsense! Unfortunately, if you’re anything like Jesse Cox, you might get disheartened by this new way of questing. A quest line does have a tendency to steer you in the right direction and make sure you get to where you’re going, one way or the other. Without any standard type of quests this might get confusing.
For me heading into GW2 I knew so much of the way that the game lined up with the Renown Regions (the little heart for “quest areas” on the map), and the other progressing dynamic events that I was quite comfortable with it. I can imagine that if you’re not quite prepared for it, it can be overwhelming.

Player vs Player, in WoW you’re used to, if you’re playing on a PvP server, always be ready for an attack and that you’ll be running into enemies from the “Other side” that you will have to choose how to encounter. “Will he attack, or will he not?”. In GW2 there is not enemy except for PvE related stuff in the PvE world. And there is no room for dueling. You will not have to worry about Fridays and Saturdays being Gankvale fest. (Stranglethorn Vale in WoW was a very popular place for higher level players to attack lower level players during the weekends.)
In GW2 there’s something called World vs World (vs World), WvW. Where you on your Home World is fighting two other worlds for the glory and honor of that fortnights fighting. 3 teams, in what becomes what I would like to call a MMO-RTS-RPG. You need to get siege units out in the field and strategy will be involved so that’s where I see the real time strategy coming in, I know it’s not typical.

Playing with your friends on different servers. In Guild Wars 2, even if you and your friends choose a different server to play on, this will not stop you from playing and questing together. You can visit a different server and play there as a guest. Only thing you will not be able to do is join that worlds WvW, for somewhat obvious reasons.
You will also be able to  transfer to another server as your home server for money as in most other MMO’s.

Now to one of my best and most addictive parts, the crafting! No more of “Oh no I just spent loads and loads of expensive mats on crafting this one thing and I didn’t get that last lousy point!“, as we’ve all probably encountered at one time or another in WoW. The crafting system in GW2 is based on experience. As you’re gaining experience in the crafting of your choosing your character also gains experience for it’s own level. This also goes out in the PvE when gathering from mining nodes, trees and herbs. Except you don’t need experience to gather from different nodes, just the right tools (which are available from merchants). On top of that, you don’t have to spend all your money on learning new recipes. As you’re leveling your crafting you get the new recipes for your level automatically. On top of which you can use the discovery tab, to find out if different materials can create something new you didn’t know if.

There are more points I could compare the two games, but I’m quite settled here. If you have any comments or insights, your own views on the matter feel free to leave a comment here or anywhere!

During this weekends play of the Guild Wars 2 Beta, and in the coming days after it ended, I’ve come to feel quite strongly about some similarities to World of...

Written by maloki. This entry was posted on May 3, 2012 at 23:55 and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Tagged comparison, Guild Wars 2, gw2, vs, world of warcraft, wow You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.