Oh boy. I'd personally say that Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft in particular are hard to compare, seeing as they set out to accomplish their goals of providing fun with different methods. But, seeing as I recently quit during Throne of Thunder because I was being burned out by raiding and picked up Guild Wars 2 to tide over my boredom, why not put my thoughts down on paper?
I consider both games about equal/OK because they're both competently executed and polished (usually). However, World of Warcraft's primary endgame is both a blessing and a curse. Certainly, raiding is epic and whatnot, but it bothers me that you're essentially pigeonholed into raiding if you want to play top-level PvE, while PvP is all about the arenas and battlegrounds. Effort has been placed into various raid bosses wandering freely in the open world, likewise with PvP quests, but still, being at level 90 just isn't particularly fun after you've hunted down a few rare enemies and stolen their treasures. Despite that, Mists of Pandaria has shown to be promising with the amount of different content at max level, which I hope Blizzard will carry on doing in future expansions. Also, some focus on retuning earlier levels would be nice too. Outlevelling zones very quickly and thus missing a lot of the world is depressing. There needs to be some fun outside of level 90 as well!
Summarizing my point, I suppose World of Warcraft is the same faithful and traditional thing since Wrath of the Lich King, but it's slowly taking steps towards trying new and refreshing things at the level cap. Fighting things is still done the same way, questing is the same, instances are no different, but I suppose that's why we love it.
Guild Wars 2 is amusing and refreshing in its own way, naturally. Rewarding crafting, exploration, gathering, well, more or less everything you do is quite enjoyable, considering the inner explorer within me. 'course, this is a problem as well, because it definitely feels like the game is balanced around all these sources of experience, rather than just sticking to events and hearts. At least early on, it feels like events happen far too infrequently (or are possibly completed off-screen by other lowbies) and the static hearts give no where near enough experience for you to dedicate yourself to one zone. And if you want to do so, then you're more or less forced into grinding the same events to get anywhere, because killing things for experience gives pitiful returns. Don't like crafting or exploration? Tough luck, buddy.
Combat and character building is interesting and indeed fun at first glance, but maybe I just had bad luck with what classes I've rolled (Necromancer/Thief at 80, Guardian/Mesmer in 50s) or the combat honestly feels very shallow and repetitive in the end. Moving around while fighting things is fine and dandy, but in half the cases, using anything other than your first skill/auto-attack feels like an absolute waste of time and many utility skills, outside of the boring and generic Signets, feel far too situational for their own good. Is it a crime to have a set of worthwhile skills for a lazy and relaxed session of gameplay? Despite this, skill switching is quick and efficient, meaning that it's easy to tailor your skillset if you ever need anything in particular for soloing a tough Veteran, or if feeling very bold, a Champion. Having multiple avenues of gear upgrades (Runes and their sets are strangely compelling) and acquisition (imagine, getting the best gear through crafting!) is also a nice touch. Though admittedly, most of GW2's gear progression feels largely visual. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind!
However, I suppose Guild Wars 2's shtick is currently the whole Living Story thing and never becoming boring. I do appreciate regular content updates (every two weeks or so) that keep the world fresh, but either the dev team isn't feeding their QA/testers particularly well or they suffer from a severe lack of competence. I've been around for the last 4 patches and they're rather inconsistent in the bugs and balance department. As said, I don't know whether it's because the QA/Tester team isn't getting enough time or if they suck, but it's honestly rather annoying to have to deal with 2-4 quickfix patches on the first day of release that address nasty bugs or absurd balance issues. I just don't find it enjoyable to have content so often that suffers from such lack of polish. Can't we give the patches a few more days of testing and skip the heartache of this? Bugs and balance issues will be all around, but these are usually far more flamboyant than a Stealth skill failing when you're standing upside down and drinking a glass of water. A lot of the time you also have to rely on third-party sources to even get your orientation straight, because the game itself does such a poor job at directing you to the right places for all the juicy content.
Summarizing, Guild Wars 2 is quite thrilling with the emphasis it has placed on discovery and exploration. Combat, while it starts out interesting with the whole newbie daze, quickly begins feeling shallow because so much of what you can do is extremely situational. The Living Story business of frequent content updates is hit and miss; a fresh games makes for an exciting game, but said content is usually marred by annoying bugs and balance issues.
As for some other things that went unmentioned, I feel WoW and GW2 suck in them both equally. The storylines are trite messes of clichés in both games, the worlds feel empty because most players dedicate themselves to their dailies/champion farm trains for a few hours and call it a day and some other things I can't quite articulate at the moment.
I consider both games about equal/OK because they're both competently executed and polished (usually). However, World of Warcraft's primary endgame is both a blessing and a curse. Certainly, raiding is epic and whatnot, but it bothers me that you're essentially pigeonholed into raiding if you want to play top-level PvE, while PvP is all about the arenas and battlegrounds. Effort has been placed into various raid bosses wandering freely in the open world, likewise with PvP quests, but still, being at level 90 just isn't particularly fun after you've hunted down a few rare enemies and stolen their treasures. Despite that, Mists of Pandaria has shown to be promising with the amount of different content at max level, which I hope Blizzard will carry on doing in future expansions. Also, some focus on retuning earlier levels would be nice too. Outlevelling zones very quickly and thus missing a lot of the world is depressing. There needs to be some fun outside of level 90 as well!
Summarizing my point, I suppose World of Warcraft is the same faithful and traditional thing since Wrath of the Lich King, but it's slowly taking steps towards trying new and refreshing things at the level cap. Fighting things is still done the same way, questing is the same, instances are no different, but I suppose that's why we love it.
Guild Wars 2 is amusing and refreshing in its own way, naturally. Rewarding crafting, exploration, gathering, well, more or less everything you do is quite enjoyable, considering the inner explorer within me. 'course, this is a problem as well, because it definitely feels like the game is balanced around all these sources of experience, rather than just sticking to events and hearts. At least early on, it feels like events happen far too infrequently (or are possibly completed off-screen by other lowbies) and the static hearts give no where near enough experience for you to dedicate yourself to one zone. And if you want to do so, then you're more or less forced into grinding the same events to get anywhere, because killing things for experience gives pitiful returns. Don't like crafting or exploration? Tough luck, buddy.
Combat and character building is interesting and indeed fun at first glance, but maybe I just had bad luck with what classes I've rolled (Necromancer/Thief at 80, Guardian/Mesmer in 50s) or the combat honestly feels very shallow and repetitive in the end. Moving around while fighting things is fine and dandy, but in half the cases, using anything other than your first skill/auto-attack feels like an absolute waste of time and many utility skills, outside of the boring and generic Signets, feel far too situational for their own good. Is it a crime to have a set of worthwhile skills for a lazy and relaxed session of gameplay? Despite this, skill switching is quick and efficient, meaning that it's easy to tailor your skillset if you ever need anything in particular for soloing a tough Veteran, or if feeling very bold, a Champion. Having multiple avenues of gear upgrades (Runes and their sets are strangely compelling) and acquisition (imagine, getting the best gear through crafting!) is also a nice touch. Though admittedly, most of GW2's gear progression feels largely visual. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind!
However, I suppose Guild Wars 2's shtick is currently the whole Living Story thing and never becoming boring. I do appreciate regular content updates (every two weeks or so) that keep the world fresh, but either the dev team isn't feeding their QA/testers particularly well or they suffer from a severe lack of competence. I've been around for the last 4 patches and they're rather inconsistent in the bugs and balance department. As said, I don't know whether it's because the QA/Tester team isn't getting enough time or if they suck, but it's honestly rather annoying to have to deal with 2-4 quickfix patches on the first day of release that address nasty bugs or absurd balance issues. I just don't find it enjoyable to have content so often that suffers from such lack of polish. Can't we give the patches a few more days of testing and skip the heartache of this? Bugs and balance issues will be all around, but these are usually far more flamboyant than a Stealth skill failing when you're standing upside down and drinking a glass of water. A lot of the time you also have to rely on third-party sources to even get your orientation straight, because the game itself does such a poor job at directing you to the right places for all the juicy content.
Summarizing, Guild Wars 2 is quite thrilling with the emphasis it has placed on discovery and exploration. Combat, while it starts out interesting with the whole newbie daze, quickly begins feeling shallow because so much of what you can do is extremely situational. The Living Story business of frequent content updates is hit and miss; a fresh games makes for an exciting game, but said content is usually marred by annoying bugs and balance issues.
As for some other things that went unmentioned, I feel WoW and GW2 suck in them both equally. The storylines are trite messes of clichés in both games, the worlds feel empty because most players dedicate themselves to their dailies/champion farm trains for a few hours and call it a day and some other things I can't quite articulate at the moment.
