WOW or Guild Wars

[Extreme Angle]

So I have my runescape account on ebay and it's reached £80! yay!
Going to keep saving and probably end up buying a gaming pc which can run wow and guild wars.
So which one is better?
Guild wars is free and I have a mate on there.
WOW is the omg one which everybody plays, still I only have one mate on there, isit worht the £9 a month?
I'd play it about an hour or 2 a night so isit worth it?
I played WOW yesterday and everything ran smooth.

[Requiem]

Um, neither?

[Requiem]

I dunno, if you're new to MMOs then play WoW. But there are better ones out there.

[Extreme Angle]

I.E?

[Requiem]

Depends what you enjoy doing. You more into PvE or PvP? Do you like class based games or skill based games? Casual or hardcore?

[road doggy dogg]

If you're going to get into the whole MMO scene at all, might as well play the only one worth anyone's time (WoW).

[Requiem]

Tony, have you ever played any MMO besides WoW? Beta tested any? Followed any of the media about MMOs in development? Played one of the original big three? etc..

[road doggy dogg]

No, but the entire premise of MMO's is the community. When every single one of my gaming friends who even touches MMO's plays WoW, why would I want to jump ship and play some other game? I don't care if some other no-name fantasy MMO knock-off has better graphics or some other insignificant feature that WoW doesn't, the backbone of an MMO is the community that plays it, and WoW will always be #1 for that. Unless you have a core group of friends who are all gonna play Warhammer or something, then knock yourself out.

[Requiem]

So your basis for telling him to play WoW is because you play it, and all of your friends play it. Since you don't have any experience with other MMOs, you don't know what other games have to offer besides what you've seen in WoW.

He already noted that he only has one friend who plays WoW.

And WoW's community in general is pretty much shit. The amount of immature l33t kiddies that WoW introduced to the genre overshadowed the amount of decent people it added.

[Extreme Angle]

Well I like the way WoW works... spells and such in the bottom bar and the layout of it and feel of it in general

[El Fangel]

:yes:

[Kane Knight]

If you've only got one friend, GW is gonna suck. The online community is shite, and that's really the point.

I don't know WoW, because I was never huge on MMOs to begin with, but if it's down between those two (And since Requiem has offered no suggestions), I'd go with WoW if I were you.

[Extreme Angle]

Or I could just leave it and keep my social life

[Requiem]

Well, without know what he wants out of a game I can hardly give suggestions specific for him. But here. I'll make a small list of decent/good games and what they consist of so you can see what might appeal to you EA.

[Requiem]

If any of these interest you, I will try to give you more details on whichever one you sound interested in.

EVE Online: Sci-Fi game. There is only one server, with roughly 20-30k people on it at one time. You fly a space-ship. That's the basics of the game. The backbone of the game is that it is one of the most in-depth games on the market. Beneath the surface is a world of politics, player ran corporations fighting to take control of the universe, a real economy driven by the players, full PvP, space pirates, mercenaries, mining corporations, and fleet warfare. It is a skill-based game. Instead of choosing a class from the start, you just choose a general area of skills, and then take whatever skills you want later on. Very steep learning curve, free-for-all PvP, quite possibly the most fun of any MMO I've played.
Good for casual players due to its XP-system (you set a skill to learn and it learns it for you, even while offline. There are several thousand skills though, and nobody in the game has them all, not even those who have played since its release) At the same time, good for hardcore players because the more effort you put in, the more it rewards you. Instead of killing for XP, you kill for ISK (money). You can gain ISK by mining, running missions, being a pirate and ransoming people, being in a mercenary corp where people pay you to fight their wars for them, etc.. very harsh world that will bite you in the ass if you aren't prepared. People will steal from you, kill you, etc.. as long as it was done using real in-game mechanics (and not exploits/glitches) it is completely legal.
Huge alliances made up of multiple corporations (guilds) will fight to control space, set up stations for mining moons, block access to their areas of space, and will have huge fleet wars to try to push the others out of space that they want. LOTS of different ships make for great variety.

FFXI: Their community is widely regarded as one of the best in the genre. Very long game. If you don't have time, I wouldn't bother with this one. Class-based system with multi-classing. Typical raid-based endgame, and you may have a hard time catching up to the older players due to how long it takes to get anywhere. Also - Forced grouping. If you don't group, you're screwed, unless you know people who will help you out as soon as you start playing.

Lord of the Rings Online: I played in the beta of this game, but wasn't that impressed. Since its release though it is widely known as a casual players dream game. A lot of people speak highly of it, and the immersion factor is great. Another class-based game, without all that many classes. No PvP either. I thought it was quite generic, and looked/felt way too much like WoW. Lots of quests, and frequent free updates.

Guild Wars: Not an MMO - As stated by the developers, it is a CORPG - Cooperative Online RPG. The entire game is instanced, which just bugs the hell out of me. You might not care, but it takes a lot away from the game world when everywhere you go is just like playing a single player game, with exception of cities. PvP is the only true upside to this game. The PvP takes a mixture of skill and gear to be good at, and is actually pretty fun. Don't expect the same kind of PvP as you would in other games though. This is strictly a team vs. team sort of thing.

WoW: Yes, the heavy hitter in the MMO world. Why? Because it is easy for someone to pick up and instantly know what they are doing. There is very little learning curve to the game. As far as PvE goes, they got it right... sort of. Players are very far ahead now with epic gear, and it will be hard to compete if you don't have enough time to dedicate to getting gear to start working up the chain. If you like raiding, then this is the game for you. If you don't... well, this is the game for you UNTIL you hit the level cap. From then on, it becomes strictly a raiding based game. Because either way, you need gear to be able to compete in PvP. PvP is based mostly on gear, and less on what the player knows. Put a skilled player in decent gear up against a mediocre player with uber gear, and the person with better gear will in nearly all cases poop all over the better player. In addition, PvP is just another grind. Grind kills to get better gear. Not very meaningful in that it doesn't affect anything in the game world. If you win in a battleground, nothing happens except... you won! You gained some honor points, and that's pretty much it. It's a very polished game, and decent. I can see why it has so many subscriptions, but there are better games out there.

City of Heroes/Villains: Superhero game. Customization is great. Class-based game. Very different from what you might expect in the genre. Has a very decent following, but unfortunately it felt like too much of a grind for me to get very involved in. Definitely fun for a change of pace though, and if you want something 'different', it's definitely worth a shot.

Everquest II: Another pretty hardcore raiding game. EQ 1 started the trend of raiding games, and EQ II repeated it. Old-school fantasy MMO at its finest though. This game screams cliche fantasy, but the immersion is great. They actually did voice-overs for the NPCs so that they actually talk to you, which is just a nice touch on the game. Again, a raiding game that I really didn't get into it. But still worth a shot.

MMOs to keep an eye on in the future:

Hero's Journey: Not much is known, but it is being made by Simutronics, the "Kings of Content". They made old-school MUDs, and have spent the last few years developing nothing but the engine to be used in the development of their MMO. The engine has also been licensed to Bioware and several other companies. Very capable company, and what will likely be a very original MMO of their own design.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: A game based on the age of sailing. PvP oriented, with the option of passing on PvP. Players will fight to take over ports to gain benefits from them. You level up, get access to bigger ships, etc.. 4 factions, all against eachother. Pirates, Spain, France, England. Comes out in January.

[Requiem]

There are plenty more MMOs out there, but those are the only ones I think you would be interested in since the others, however fun they might be, are old and somewhat outdated in the terms of graphics and people still playing them.

[road doggy dogg]

So your basis for telling him to play WoW is because you play it, and all of your friends play it. Since you don't have any experience with other MMOs, you don't know what other games have to offer besides what you've seen in WoW.

He already noted that he only has one friend who plays WoW.

And WoW's community in general is pretty much shit. The amount of immature l33t kiddies that WoW introduced to the genre overshadowed the amount of decent people it added.

My argument is because me personally I know a ton of people who play WoW and zero people who play any other MMO ever.


Even if you don't know anybody who plays, if you talk to people about video games at school or work or any other social medium, you have a hugely greater chance of someone being into WoW than any other game. Just easier to find people you know to play with, type dealie.

[Requiem]

Of course there's a greater chance... because WoW has millions of people playing it. But it didn't make the MMOs I played pre-WoW any less fun just because I didn't know people who played MMOs. As you said, the point of MMOs is the community, and I made plenty of friends in those other MMOs regardless of the fact that I didn't know anyone when I started.

And I'm not trying to sway your mind on playing WoW. I know that you're set in your ways. But he wanted suggestions, so I'm giving them to him.

[DS]

If you're alright with wasting hours of time as well as the £9 then go with WoW. It's going to be the same thing over and over with no real change at all but that's why it's so easy for non-gamers and casual gamers to yack it up like it's the greatest game out there.

However, since you only have one friend in each game...you're probably better staying away from both and trying something else. You'll make friends in game as you play and chances are your friends are at a high level which means they won't want to tag along all the time and you'll be on your own anyways.

I would normally suggest anyone stay away from WoW but since you've never played an MMO and are only going to play for 2 hours a night (still too much WoW) then you might as well.

[The Destroyer]

If any of these interest you, I will try to give you more details on whichever one you sound interested in.

EVE Online: Sci-Fi game. There is only one server, with roughly 20-30k people on it at one time. You fly a space-ship. That's the basics of the game. The backbone of the game is that it is one of the most in-depth games on the market. Beneath the surface is a world of politics, player ran corporations fighting to take control of the universe, a real economy driven by the players, full PvP, space pirates, mercenaries, mining corporations, and fleet warfare. It is a skill-based game. Instead of choosing a class from the start, you just choose a general area of skills, and then take whatever skills you want later on. Very steep learning curve, free-for-all PvP, quite possibly the most fun of any MMO I've played.
Good for casual players due to its XP-system (you set a skill to learn and it learns it for you, even while offline. There are several thousand skills though, and nobody in the game has them all, not even those who have played since its release) At the same time, good for hardcore players because the more effort you put in, the more it rewards you. Instead of killing for XP, you kill for ISK (money). You can gain ISK by mining, running missions, being a pirate and ransoming people, being in a mercenary corp where people pay you to fight their wars for them, etc.. very harsh world that will bite you in the ass if you aren't prepared. People will steal from you, kill you, etc.. as long as it was done using real in-game mechanics (and not exploits/glitches) it is completely legal.
Huge alliances made up of multiple corporations (guilds) will fight to control space, set up stations for mining moons, block access to their areas of space, and will have huge fleet wars to try to push the others out of space that they want. LOTS of different ships make for great variety.
Would be an even better game if the server hadn't been down for 9 hours.

I have stuff I need to do.:rant:

[Requiem]

Yeah, their company site and game site are down as well. No ETA yet.

When my account is active (no money) I will have to look you up in-game. :cool:

[Savio]

Um, neither?

[road doggy dogg]

Of course there's a greater chance... because WoW has millions of people playing it. But it didn't make the MMOs I played pre-WoW any less fun just because I didn't know people who played MMOs. As you said, the point of MMOs is the community, and I made plenty of friends in those other MMOs regardless of the fact that I didn't know anyone when I started.

And I'm not trying to sway your mind on playing WoW. I know that you're set in your ways. But he wanted suggestions, so I'm giving them to him.

Of course. I'm just saying, someone new to the field will probably have the most luck in the game with the largest fanbase. From then on, once he gets his feet wet he can explore other options. Doubtful he'd find anything that's overall head and shoulders better than it though.