Guild Wars 2

My friend was showing me WoW on his computer, and if anything could have made me want to go to WoW instead, it would be how enourmous and immserive the world is. There are also the two sides (Horde and Alliance) and their respective home cities that the other side can’t safely access, creating a feel exclusive to the side you pick, making you feel like what race you pick actually matters.

WoW’s world also has so much depth and the cities are enormous. They really feel like cities instead of large towns. Likewise, the world map really feels like another world, as opposed to just feeling like a country.

I know GW2 has only been out a little more than a year so it’s still young, but maybe a suggestion for where it can heads towards in terms of depth and how much lore makes a difference in the game in the future?

I feel like the problem with making the game too casual is that it becomes really shallow with a lack of depth, resulting in a lower player retention rate than it could be.

I swapped from WoW to GW2 earlier this year. The open world feeling of WoW comes from the lack of instanced zones. I find the cities in GW2 to be way more “finished” and more efficient within their space.

I’d like to point out (politely) that WoW was able to work up to having a massive open world over the course of nearly a decade and four expansions, while basically owning the market. They’ve had a great deal of funding in order to produce their content, and a great deal of time to add on to their initial world. It’s not something that can happen overnight, and it’s certainly not warranted in the first year- we’ve seen plenty of MMOs crash and burn in the early days.

The race you pick matters in WoW because there are race/class combinations, and because of the horde/alliance conflict. It’s a difficult thing to balance, in practice. It’s also not necessarily fun.

All games will have flaws, and all games will appeal to different people. WoW, despite the people who vocally hate it because it’s a bandwagon thing to do (there are people with legitimate experience/complaints from the game, I’m not lumping everyone on the bandwagon), has been an amazing game in many respects, and there are quite a few things they absolutely get right. I don’t disagree with your suggestion about lore and depth, but it does seem rather non-specific. Aside from, “Hey, look at WoW and how they pulled off their success” which is something game companies always do before they even begin working on their own MMO. It’s just sensible.