To me it's only a competition because Guild Wars has no monthy fees, albeit that lack of fees shows incredibly since there are no real mods involved (even as far as WoW's go) and very limited content.
Sure Guild Wars has a lot of potential skill combinations, but only had a handfull of gear sets and character apperances when you get down to it. The instances are okay, but as someone pointed out, very lonely. It was intended to be played with other people, and lacks a lot as a solo game (compared to other solo RPGs).
I do tend to disagree that you can get through the game soloing except for the end parts. Largely because when I played their oriental expansion (Factions I believe) you needed to group with actual players early on to get through some guy's manor. They might have changed it, but it was not doable with NPC henchies.
The overall point of Guild Wars however was largely the ranked PVP. The relatively limited variables basically meaning that it all came down to your abillity to crunch what was there as opposed to being able to level up and/or outgear someone else. Leading to some people believing it's a skill based game (which really it isn't, except in the very loose sense of coordination with other players which is hardly unique to them when it comes to MMORPGs).
WoW has more, both solo AND group/raiding play, plus a fairly decent PVP system (even if people tend to knock it, it's popular with millions). Of course the thing is that with WoW you pay every single month for these things. The one time fee for Guild Wars is a big deal because honestly there are a lot of people who have computers but just can't afford $15 a month extra expense every month.
What's more WoW takes a constant investment of time, where in Guild Wars the generally limited variables means that once you've got a top level character, with the appropiate gear, that remains more or less constant. All that changes is what skills you load up on and what gear you equip with those skills. *IF* you've gotten to the top of guild wars you could more or less stop playing for three months, come back, and your character would remain roughly as viable as he's always been. Do that in WoW your likely to miss a bit and fall behind. As more gear fills up the game, expectations increase. This month 2k DPS is fine, but when you've moved up to guild competition for "how fast we can clear" people become more wary about having you around with less than say 2.5k-3k DPS.
Those who have played WoW know what I mean, and yes it is VERY annoying, and again that is also part of why people prefer Guild Wars.
Having played both (albeit having done Guild Wars a while back, I bought all the expansions but have not played the last couple) my impression is basically that Guild Wars is like a ghetto version of WoW. For those who can't afford a WoW account (nothing wrong with that actually, despite the ghetto comment. RL takes priority as much as it blows chips at times), or are simply too casual to even think about playing WoW. Guild Wars being like a step above a free Korean MMO.
