Guild Wars 2

Before you start complaining „Oh no, not another WoW comparison!”, I want to let you know that the main reason of this post is to start a discussion. I spent a lot of time playing WoW, and I foresee that I’m going to do the same with GW2. I did a comparison to WoW since it is the only MMORPG I played besides GW2. I know that they are two different games, one could say for different type of people, but bear with me. I am not suggesting to change everything that I didn’t like or bothers me about GW2. I am merely putting it out there. Well, here

My opinions are based on my short game-time of 76 hours in the past two months. I only played my Elementalist, which is level 60.
You can skip the first part, it’s about my experience in WoW and why I quit.

A short introduction
I started playing WoW several years ago, during Vanilla, on an US server to play together with a friend (I am from Europe). I quit for 6-7 months during BC (first WoW expansion), then started again on an EU server just before WotLK (second WoW expansion). I quit for good in February, this year. WoW was fun because I played it with some RL friends, and I got to make some new friends while playing. When you spend 12 hours raiding each week with the same people, you get to know them. Not to mention all the time outside the raiding schedule. I quit because all my friends stopped playing, and there wasn’t anything left to do. Playing WoW alone was boring, and being stuck on a low population server was the end of WoW for me.

Graphics
This is what actually made me write this comparison. I used to play WoW on medium-high settings, and I’m playing GW2 on medium-low settings right now. Considering highest quality settings, both games have great graphics (no, I don’t mind the cartoon-ish graphic in WoW), and some background-worthy scenery and art, but GW2 has the advantage on beauty from my point of view.
My problem with GW2 is that for one you can’t zoom out as much as you want, and second even if you are zoomed in, everything around you seems so small. I don’t understand why. For example, if I want to see the details on a player around me I have to zoom all the way in, and even then it seems small (I hardly can tell players apart from their looks, and I didn’t notice how awesome one of my fellow party members looked until she was in a cutscene. I tried to zoom in after the cutscene ended, but she barely looked the same). I am not sure if this is because of the PoV, but I can’t play other than fully zoomed out. This is part of the problem and a big disappointment for me. I play on a 17” LCD. Do I really need a bigger screen to enjoy the game? Also, the camera. It sucks balls from time to time, especially for my Charr.
In WoW, there was a console command that let you zoom out quite a lot, giving you all the awareness you needed, and you could zoom in as much as you wanted to see the details around you. And although I know that having huge enemies or bosses is unrealistic in some cases (why is an ogre boss 3 times bigger than a normal ogre?), I prefer it that way. Many of the bosses in GW2 are just like any other mob in size. Realism +1, Usefulness -1 (yes, there are huge bosses in GW2 as well, I know, but many don’t stand out at all, besides having a name). You could say “But why aren’t you playing zoomed it?”. Because I can’t play like that. WoW managed to deliver a good ratio of awareness (how much you could see) and details (players, monsters) and for that, if I were to choose between graphics, I would pick WoW. I really hope that some of this problems will be fixed with a FoV change (I hope that the FoV setting that is in beta will fix this).

Storyline
I’m not going to judge the story, but how it is delivered.
Most of the story from the GW universe I know from the wiki. I read most of it, and I liked it. My personal story is still at level 55-ish, and I have yet to find out the outcome.
I love the Warcraft universe and its lore, and all the drama it has, but after playing so many years WoW, I hardly read any quest stories. It was mostly accept, check objectives, complete quest. Now, the advantage of the quest giver NPCs is that you can read all the story there. In GW2, if you want to find out why you’re killing those bandits (they’re bandits, duh!), you have to walk around and talk with the named NPCs around you. Again, Realism +1. It took me a while until I noticed that I can get extra information from everyone around me, and I found it difficult to do that. I wanted it all summed up at my quest giver NPC. But now that I got used to this system, it seems better, it feels better, helps me immerse. Either you’re not interested and you just do the event, or you want to know the background story and then you don’t mind moving around, finding all the NPCs, exploring.

Gameplay
I will only consider PvE here, since I never was much of a PvP guy.
My gameplay is affected by the problems I already mentioned at Graphics, but I will try to ignore that. When I started WoW, it was the first MMORPG I played. Everything was new, everything was interesting, there was so much to do. The first impression was great. Now, after 5 years, the only thing that kept me playing WoW was raiding with friends, both for the great feeling of achievement when finally downing a new boss, and for the fun times we had while and outside of raiding. That was WoW for me. When all my friends stopped playing, I didn’t have any reason to go on.
I watched a lot of videos about GW2 before preordering it, and I kind of knew what I was getting into, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. I only had very little time to play when it was launched (I was like level 10 after the head start). At first, it was fun but I felt like something was missing (I tend to believe it was immersion, it didn’t suck me in). Not going in detail here, but I started enjoying the game more when I changed my attitude toward it. This wasn’t just another alt I had to race to 80 fast so I could get the “epics”. Once I realized it was a different game and started to slow down, enjoy the events and read the story behind them (as mentioned above at Storyline, I didn’t do it from the start) things changed for the better. Mainly that’s why I am still level 60. One could say that dynamic events are just on-going quest chains, but I enjoy the way they are. I had my problems in the start until I learned that following a NPC running away sometimes leads to another event. And sometimes waiting around for a follow-up isn’t intuitive, not if you are used to the “!” system. That’s why in the starting zones, I ended up doing only one event at a time, rarely seeing the whole chain. It was a bit disappointing. It changed once I started being more patient, and waited for all the dialogue to finish, which eventually lead to the follow-up event. Again, it took me a while.

Combat
For those not familiar with WoW, it has the Tank-Healer-Damage system. Each player has a role: Tank (you make the enemies hit you), Healer (you heal the players getting hit) and DPS (you kill stuff). I like that system, and have played all 3 roles. Each player tries to do his role, while being careful to avoid taking damage (mostly, staying out of the fire and other pretty visual cues). I over-simplify it, I know. The idea is to work as a team to defeat an encounter, while everybody performs their task.
In GW2, each player should be self-sufficient but also selfless (Damage-Support-Control system?). You deal some damage, use some crowd-control, maybe take some hits if you have a damage reducing cooldown, then heal yourself and maybe some allies as well, then deal some more damage, all while helping your fellow party members. You have more freedom, but from my experience in PuGs, it’s also more chaotic. I consider myself a newbie, I have yet to master my elementalist, but it seems a bit chaotic. From my (relative low) experience in dungeons, people do use their CC abilities, but random, so they often overlap. Sometimes it happens that the mob is CC for a long time, other times it runs around without being CC’d at all, while everyone has their CC abilities on cooldown.
Combat in GW2, in general, is more dynamic than in WoW. You have to be more alert, to move a lot, there is usually more stuff that you can and should avoid, you actually have to hit the target, and you can hide behind others. The one thing that it lacks, and which I do miss, is competition. I know that GW2 is all about helping others, and the entire system is made so that it encourages playing together (from gathering to looting). But after defeating a boss, or an event, I want to know: was I better than the others, did I do better than I did last time? And I’m sure there is a solution better than DPS meters, but I do not know what, and I am not sure it is ArenaNet’s intention to do something in this regard.

Dungeons
Now that I look back, the best dungeon/heroic runs I had in WoW were in early TBC. You just couldn’t get past several packs (Shadow Labs or Arcatraz) without really good coordination. I’m talking about the times your gear wasn’t good enough to AoE pull. Also, since getting a full group could take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes (due to the trinity system), once you got inside, everyone was doing their best to finish the dungeon.
Back then, communication was key. The pulls were important (usually done by the tank), and most of the DPS (sometimes even healer) had a CC assignment. Basically everyone had two roles in the group. It required attention, awareness and skill. I believe this is what GW2 is trying to achieve in dungeons. Everyone needs to both CC and DPS. But instead of having long CCs (10 to 20s) like in WoW, everybody has several shorter cooldowns, which they are supposed to rotate. Which from my experience so far (only in PuGs) is chaotic.
The biggest problem I had in dungeons is that I very often die without knowing why. Some of the boss abilities either one shot me, or aren’t very visible (my gear is mostly vitality/toughness so no, I’m not a glass cannon). And I am range… I heard that melees are having a tougher life than me. However, this might be my own fault, so I will take it as that. They are still better than the AoE-fest WoW dungeons usually end up to be though.
Another thing I want to mention. Considering from what I’ve seen so far, the community in GW is more friendly and mature than the one in WoW. Thus, I expected the people to be a little more chatty in dungeons. I didn’t expect a perfect planning for each pull, but the only short dialogue we had was when I apologized for taking my time to watch all the cut scenes, since it was my first run.
I haven’t done any dungeons with my guild yet, and since they are usually on Mumble, I expect dungeon runs with them to be smoother. I guess people just moved on from typing to voice chat, which partly explains the lack of chat in parties.

End content
Obviously, I haven’t gotten to the end game, or level 80 content in GW2, but I kind of have an idea. There are quite many explorable paths that you can do, and I will do them all, for the challenge. Once. There are jumping puzzles and vistas, 100% map completion. I will probably do that as well. Once. Farm mats for a legendary? Maybe. I don’t want to sound like an elitist, but I consider this “casual content”. I am more than happy with what I got (and what awaits me) from GW2, but I kind of enjoyed raiding.
In WoW, in PvE, raiding is the end content. The challenge lies in managing to defeat a boss. It gets easier once you get used to the encounter and get better gear. You keep doing (farming) the raid after you defeat all bosses, so that by the time a new raid comes up, you have the best possible gear (thus, it’s easier, means you kill the boss faster, and are ranked higher as a guild). Yes, I talk about competition. WoW had competition. Having a server first kill was one of the most satisfying experiences I had in any game I played. That’s why sports are so popular as well. It’s about being better than the other team, or the other individual (yes, I do miss DPS meters).
I know that GW2 has a different approach (the no tread mill philosophy) and I was full aware of it when I started playing. I like the idea itself, everyone having the same gear and all, the only difference being the looks. But I want to be able to compete against others. If getting better gear is not an option, then I hope to find some other way of competition (WoW introduced Challenge Modes with the new expansion, allowing people with the same level of gear competing against each other in dungeons). The obvious answer is PvP, I know, but I am hoping to find competition in PvE as well.

Achievements
I was an achievement-kitten in WoW, but somehow it didn’t caught on to me in GW2 (yet?). It might be the psychological factor that in WoW it popped up in the middle of your screen, with that distinguish sound, while in GW2 I often miss the fact that I just “achieved” something. Maybe it will change once I reach 80 and start achievement-hunting.

Seasonal Events
Considering that I’ve done every single seasonal event in WoW (Hello Violet proto-drake), and only one (Halloween) in GW2, I might be very wrong on this one. But hey, we already established it’s my personal view on the games.
Events in WoW had some fun in it, I admit it, but mostly it was about getting some easy gear for the alts, and a nice pet for my main. It had extra activities, which you would do once, and that’s about it. Oh, and achievements!
During the Halloween event in GW2, I did the Mad King dungeon, some costume brawling, the farming area, and some of the events in Gendarran Fields. They were fun as well, but I am not sure that I will do them again next year, if they remain the same. And I couldn’t be bothered with the achievements. A problem with GW2 events, which kind of bothered me, is that there could be a better announcement system. For the event that just finished, if I didn’t read the forums or Reddit, I would have had no idea that there was anything new. I believe they could improve the in-game announcements, like adding NPCs that announce this kind of stuff. If there were some, and I missed them, then my bad! There’s no way you can miss an event in WoW once you enter one of the capital cities, they are full with seasonal NPCs, and it is very easy to find all the activities.
In hope that all the activities will be as much fun as the Halloween event, and that they will make them easier to discover.

Miscellaneous
Blizzard is greedy. Besides the monthly fee, they tax you for everything. I would probably be still playing WoW right now if I could have transferred all my chars to a more populated server. But there’s no way I would pay 20 Euro (each) to transfer some alts I only use for crafting. And no, I don’t want to transfer my main and then level another round of alts and level their professions.
ArenaNet with the no subscription system and the Gem Store are much more to my liking. Having free transfers, even if they were limited to once every 2 weeks, hell, even once per month (for each char), is definitely a big bonus. I can only hope that it is profitable and they will continue to support this game for a long time.

I wonder if anyone will get to read this… if you do, thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to hear your opinions.

Didn’t read all of it due there been soooo much text, but i tried to pick out the ones that caught my eye the most.

So let’s start with achievements; True, gw2 doesn’t make such a big deal out of it, where as in WoW the achievements were almost a meta game by themselves. It ‘earned’ you some bragging rights and so on (pff..). Personally i’m not sure which system i like the best, it’s good that game doesnt revolve around achievements, but at the same time they do seem less satisfying.

End game, not sure what kind of competition you want, realm first kills? Doubt you’ll find anything like that here.
Events can be tricky when the launch rush has passed and you’ll be spending most of your time doing them alone or with less than three people.
Dungeons, well.. they do feel harder than in WoW (that doesn’t require much, i know).

Community; Well as harsh as it might sound, i find community here being way worse than i have ever seen in WoW. Which is saddening but not gamebreaking for me. There are lots of decent people too.

Combat; I’ll keep this short, i love AND hate the idea of getting rid of “holy trinity”.
Downside is that it all boils down to zerg enemies down.
Good thing, no need to search up healers for several hours.

That’s about it for now.

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

HellsMachine.4083:

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

Attention seeker, you just keep on whining on every thread aren’t you. Still here eh?
Also reference to kung-fu panda proves that you don’t know anything about Warcraft lore.

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

Attention seeker, you just keep on whining on every thread aren’t you. Still here eh?
Also reference to kung-fu panda proves that you don’t know anything about Warcraft lore.

Don’t know and don’t care….
It will forever be known as panda land, get used to it.

edit: and thank you for bestowing your attention on me.

HellsMachine.4083:

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

Attention seeker, you just keep on whining on every thread aren’t you. Still here eh?
Also reference to kung-fu panda proves that you don’t know anything about Warcraft lore.

Don’t know and don’t care….
It will forever be known as panda land, get used to it.

edit: and thank you for bestowing your attention on me.

Nothing to get used to, people are ignorant and stupid.
Just get your facts straight before whining.

Also if you don’t like the game, why are you still here? That’s the one thing i really want to know.

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

Attention seeker, you just keep on whining on every thread aren’t you. Still here eh?
Also reference to kung-fu panda proves that you don’t know anything about Warcraft lore.

Don’t know and don’t care….
It will forever be known as panda land, get used to it.

edit: and thank you for bestowing your attention on me.

Nothing to get used to, people are ignorant and stupid.
Just get your facts straight before whining.

Also if you don’t like the game, why are you still here? That’s the one thing i really want to know.

I love this game and I am trying my best to voice my opinion in order to help save it from being changed into a mind numbing gear grind (like WoW is), which I, as a paying customer am entitled to.

If it turns into an endless gear grind such as WoW (or “Panda Land” as it is now known as) then I will be quitting the game and taking my money elsewhere (exactly what I did with my dissatisfaction of Diablo 3).

Savvy?

HellsMachine.4083:

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

Valtameri.2075:

HellsMachine.4083:

YAY! We’re finally getting the “gear treadmill” EVERYONE asked for.

Hopefully soon we will get flying mounts, resilience gear, reputation grind, gnomes, night elves and kung-fu pandas!

/end sarcasm

Attention seeker, you just keep on whining on every thread aren’t you. Still here eh?
Also reference to kung-fu panda proves that you don’t know anything about Warcraft lore.

Don’t know and don’t care….
It will forever be known as panda land, get used to it.

edit: and thank you for bestowing your attention on me.

Nothing to get used to, people are ignorant and stupid.
Just get your facts straight before whining.

Also if you don’t like the game, why are you still here? That’s the one thing i really want to know.

I love this game ankittenrying my best to voice my opinion in order to help save it from being changed into a mind numbing gear grind (like WoW is), which I, as a paying customer am entitled to.

If it turns into an endless gear grind such as WoW (or “Panda Land” as it is now known as) then I will be quitting the game and taking my money elsewhere (exactly what I did with my dissatisfaction of Diablo 3).

Savvy?

Voicing your opinion is one thing, going on whining in EVERY thread even the positive ones are just being spiteful. Send email to Anet or something.
And you taking your money elsewhere, they already got money from you, so did Blizzard from Diablo. Doubt you would buy that many diamonds anyway so their loss is minimal.

Also you said “IF”, since patch isn’t even out, you could like save up that whine for the time being and use it AFTER you have actually tested the game out after patch.