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Which is better, GW2 or WoW5?
Flippy_D
Digital ConquistadorLondonRegistered User regular
Digital ConquistadorLondonRegistered User regular
I know, WoW5 is a bit of a weird naming convention but roll with me here.
This isn't really a poll thread although one-word answers are fine. It's also not a stupid 'discussion' thread; I'm actually just genuinely not sure which one to try, if either.
I played WoW for a few years after release up to about the end of TBC and loved it to pieces, then quit after I realised I had been bored for about two weeks. I went back twice, once for WOTLK and once for Cataclysm, and although enjoyable and impressively slick I've kind of done all I wanted to do there (check the weapon). I feel a slight exhaustion when I consider Pandaren, and none of the myriad content videos really quite did it for me - though one of the best titles ever, the game is showing its age in quite a few ways now. I'm a PvE man - PvP just isn't my bag, at least not as WoW currently imagines it (TBC was the height of PvP imho). But I'm too busy these days to raid and I'm a long way from my heyday as the best druid MT on the server. So: is there enough fresh solo and small-group content to keep me occupado for more than a month or two?
As for GW2, I played the beta for a couple of days and it struck me that it might fall into the same traps as so many other RPGs, especially the ones that befall WAR. Big, open environments can feel real empty real fast. I'm not sold on the single-player story, either. And the sort of uh... collaborative open-world stuff is pretty neat, but feels as though it will inevitably lack variety and depth beyond playing with weapon combinations and so on. And I'm just not that kind of guy, I tend to stick with one optimal loadout that's perfect for me - be it 960 hours in sniper in TF2 or not playing any other class but feral specced druid in WoW. As for the PvP, I know nothing about it whatsoever. So: am I being unkind? Is there more to the single player than my first impressions? Is there a vast world to wander, and would it fast grow stale?
Thanks guys.
This isn't really a poll thread although one-word answers are fine. It's also not a stupid 'discussion' thread; I'm actually just genuinely not sure which one to try, if either.
I played WoW for a few years after release up to about the end of TBC and loved it to pieces, then quit after I realised I had been bored for about two weeks. I went back twice, once for WOTLK and once for Cataclysm, and although enjoyable and impressively slick I've kind of done all I wanted to do there (check the weapon). I feel a slight exhaustion when I consider Pandaren, and none of the myriad content videos really quite did it for me - though one of the best titles ever, the game is showing its age in quite a few ways now. I'm a PvE man - PvP just isn't my bag, at least not as WoW currently imagines it (TBC was the height of PvP imho). But I'm too busy these days to raid and I'm a long way from my heyday as the best druid MT on the server. So: is there enough fresh solo and small-group content to keep me occupado for more than a month or two?
As for GW2, I played the beta for a couple of days and it struck me that it might fall into the same traps as so many other RPGs, especially the ones that befall WAR. Big, open environments can feel real empty real fast. I'm not sold on the single-player story, either. And the sort of uh... collaborative open-world stuff is pretty neat, but feels as though it will inevitably lack variety and depth beyond playing with weapon combinations and so on. And I'm just not that kind of guy, I tend to stick with one optimal loadout that's perfect for me - be it 960 hours in sniper in TF2 or not playing any other class but feral specced druid in WoW. As for the PvP, I know nothing about it whatsoever. So: am I being unkind? Is there more to the single player than my first impressions? Is there a vast world to wander, and would it fast grow stale?
Thanks guys.
Flippy_D on
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I love GW2 to pieces, it's a fantastic evolution of the mmo formula, but at it's heart you're still collecting 10 bear asses for the hearts and killing a giant monster, or defending point X / Npc Y for a set amount of time during events.
Disliking PvP you miss out on what I consider the best 2/3 of the endgame (WvW and Spvp) leaving only pve filled with mediocre dungeons and the same style of events you've done for 80 levels.
As for build variety, the game really promotes experimentation and trying different skill setups. You'll probably get really bored if you stick with just one set of weapons and utilities the whole time.
I'm about 150 hours in and still have so much I have yet to complete and want to do, but given everything you've said I won't recommend jumping in.
The two types of pvp are structured and WvWvW.
Spvp has its own progression and is completely separate from pve. You have everything unlocked when you start except for pretty dresses and glowy weapons. Tournaments are available for 5 man premades and 8v8 hot join for a more casual counterstrike experience.
WvW is big messy three way DAoC inspired combat over a set of 4 large maps. Matches are currently 7 days long and winning servers are matched up or down in the rankings depending on how they do. It's all about big zergs smashing into each other, 5-man strike teams taking objectives and massive siege weapons taking down fortifications.
And wouldn't people just chain-dodge whilst chipping away at you? And if they do, isn't that annoying/unsatisfying?
As he said, like DAoC so there are THREE servers going up against each other in WvW. It works quite well, honestly. Especially since the server match ups change every week or so. As for chain dodging... nope, not gonna happen. Closest to 'chain' dodging someone can get is as a Thief with a very specific build, and even then they'll ruin out of endurance. Generally you can manage two dodges back to back, before you need to wait for your endurance to fill back up.
You can spam dodge but its essentially only good for dodging one hit, and if you blow that on a simple auto attack you'll get screwed when the enemy pops buffs or hits you with a CC.
As for WvW yeah it's kinda sorta like a massive AV in a way but you're right that the current system is favoring one server getting off to a strong start and stomping the other two. Theoretically the other two servers should be able to team up and take down the lead server but things are so disorganized in the mid tiers that you don't see it happening.
Matchmaking may take care of this but it's a legit concern. The system does work for the top super hardcore servers but its messy right now for the rest of us.
The three servers thing is supposed to works like so:
One server starts to win.
The other two servers team up to knock them down a peg.
Equilibrium is restored.
How it actually works is:
One server starts to lose.
The other two servers, sensing weakness, start gobbling up all of their territory.
The remaining players on the losing team, now pushed back to their spawn, decide "fuck this" and stop even trying.
Now it is 1v1.
WoW's levelling is too streamlined and boring nowadays, plus I outlevel zones before I'm done with them leading to fighting green and grey mobs far below my level. I'm also sick of not being able to see any of the cool storyline stuff as someone who doesn't raid.
Guild Wars 2 does everything right for me. I adore the personal story quests, questing is fun and fluid, the dynamic events are great. I can take my time levelling and exploring, and if because of that I'm a little above level for content it simply scales me down so I don't rofl-stomp mobs. Same if my husband or daughter want to tea up with me, I simply get adjusted to their level and we can play together rather then me 1-hitting things before they can get a shot in.
The game is beautiful, the music is great but I'm a big fan of Soule anyway.
It's also the first MMO in a long time where I don't mind seeing other players, unlike in WoW where others are a pest. You all have your own gathering nodes spawning, so no-one quickly ninja's that ore that I just so carefully cleared the mobs around off. People go out of their way to come and rez you even if you die in an off the path location. If there's a veteran or a champion to fight, other people happily chip in, and no-one yells at each other for kill-stealing.
Yes, there are bugs, broken events, under-powered classes and so on, but I've seen a huge amount of stuff fixed in the first month, and I'm sure they are working hard to fix the rest as well. So i'm not even counting that in at the moment.
The whole monthly fee/no fee is a big deal to me as well as a casual MMO player. With Guild Wars 2 I can hop in whenever I want, even if it is just for 1 evening or so. No more guilt about wasting monthly fees if I get distracted by a different game or simply got bored.
All in all I think it's safe to say that after a month the honeymoon period is over, and I can see where people are coming from that want other things from an MMO, like end game content with raids and progressive dungeons. But for me Guild Wars 2 hits all the right spots. I'll be levelling several alts over the next few years, playing through expansions, and hopping in whenever I feel like it. WoW just simply doesn't offer me the same amount of fun, and with the monthly fee it costs me more as well. It's an easy choice for me
They've done a marvelous job with removing the hassle of playing with other players. Everyone gets loot from a kill. Everyone gets experience for a monster. Resource nodes are free to each player to gather from. Contributing to events is easy, is not a contest like WAR based on completely unknown metrics. Events are fairly plentiful and fun. Experience rewards for exploration and gathering makes the game seem far more open. Dynamic events draws people together from that massive world.
I like guild war's combat. It's got depth! Dodging requires quick wits and fingers. There's a nice array of abilities; most of them are competitive so there's plenty of meaningful character building and choices. I've had a good time sitting in the "Heart of the Mists" which is a PvP Lobby area that allows you to freely respec your character and gives you full access to competitive weapons and gear. I put together engineer builds of all sorts and varieties, took them into a handful of matches, and then came out and tried another. Eventually I settled on a favorite and still use that build; but the freedom is nice.
I would criticize class balance a little. Not that the classes are unbalanced with one having huge advantages over the other! Necromancers are a little more durable... and Guardians are more close range oriented... but there are not many power house abilities between classes that really distinguish them from the others. Each class has such diversity on it's own: there are engineers that can heal, support, deal great single target damage, deal great AoE damage, attack from extreme range, hit you with a wrench, etc. No class has a special wheelhouse that makes them much better at any aspect of warfare than another. They feel very... samey. On the bright-side, this means you can play whatever concept excites you the most (Lightning wielding sorcerer to wrench toting gunslinger), and fit into whatever battlefield role you like.
I was not a huge fan of World v World PvP. My experience casually flirting with it was that you bunch up in a zerg and beat on some gates and throw some abilities at people on walls who just back off before they die; the wall people throw abilities at you and you back off before you die. Repeat for a while, storm the tower, swap places. Open plains skirmishes are far more fun but end quickly. They're also rather pointless as the metric for 'winning' WvW is all based around fortifications. The good juicy parts of World v World require teamwork and squads of individuals with clear goals and objectives on the field. Sounds fun, but you need a squad to be a part of that. Of course, with the right guild there's always something going on that you can join up with. It didn't personally interest me. I enjoy smaller combat where one can distinguish themselves.
As such, I found Scenario PvP to be fun! 8v8 matches with Warhammer Online scenario style objectives. You can queue as a group in these but you've half a chance that you'll be fighting your friends (which can be fun of it's own right!). You get glory which unlocks cooler looking gear but not statistically better. The playing field is always equal here. Glory progression is really slow. If you enjoy scenarios though it's not a huge deal.
Dungeons are lackluster. Story mode is nice for most dungeons. It's cool to have a bit more story in your game. I would liken them to the Hour of Twilight dungeons in WoW. There's story characters and a plot that is being moved forward. The plots are not always very... good. The fights tend to be pretty terrible. Most bosses have a ton of health. Bosses generally lack phases; so victory is fairly binary and just takes a while. There's no mechanics to stop you from graveyard zerging bosses down if you can't handle them; indeed some bosses are bugged/poorly balanced so you'll need to zerg them down. I would expect renovations for this part of the game from Arena.net. I know they're already looking at re-balancing the rewards from dungeons to be more substantial considering how lackluster they are.
Personal stories are actually pretty fun. For the one-character player though they're going to be a very small part of the game.
It has been a month from the release. I've played a fair share during this time: I have a level 80 engineer, 36 warrior and a handful of low level classes. I am done with the game in it's current incarnation. I have enjoyed it. I think the end game is a little grim? Dungeon grinding for loot is purely cosmetic so you need to enjoy it. Event grinding is similar and the events in Orr (the endgame zone) are not much to write home about. The end-game is in the PvP. I enjoy DotA2 and other games to Scenario PvP style play so I've even sort of lost my drive for that. Worth a good month now, perhaps more later with new content?
Alternate answer: If you really like PvE and are looking for a setting shift, I really like The Secret World as well.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Whether the WoW dungeons are better depends on if Pandaria brings back actually challenging instances like the release TBC heroics, instead of the wrath sillyness. I can't answer for that since I probably won't play Pandaria, after playing wow since open beta to cataclysm I am not feeling the need to get back to it :P.
From what I've heard they made the heroics AoE fests again.
On the other hand if you did like the previous versions, MoP is another successful refinement and there are lots of new ways to fill up bars.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It's not really the difficulty that makes them bad. Like I said, it's more a matter of poor tuning and bland mechanics.
Here's what I mean. Crucible of Eternity is a great example of these mechanics. You have the second to last "boss". The boss has no danger, just a ton of health. I can't even remember one mechanic on her that was remotely dangerous. She just... hit the person with the most aggro for an utterly piddly amount of damage. She also took about 5-6 minutes to kill. Unreasonable amount of health for someone who offers no challenge whatsoever. I have no idea what they were thinking.
Crucible's final fight is split into three fights. The first fight a large mob runs around with an insanely slow attack speed and attempts to one-shot anyone in melee. With dodge mechanics, this guy is a complete non-threat. Technically, he has some lightning moves that randomly hit the room that could stun you long enough for him to maybe start his windup. Even if he does hit you, you go into knocked down state. He switches targets. You can calmly just revive yourself before he'll even bat another eye at you. The knockdown state alone makes that fight trivial. He takes forever to die.
The next phase is the same story, but ranged. He takes out a rifle and starts doing "kill shots" on people. These shots take like 8 seconds to wind up and will (for most people) one-shot whomever they hit. Guild Wars 2 doesn't have "Target of Target" though, so you can't actually tell who he's aiming at. There's no cast bar as well, so you don't really know when the shot is going to go off. It's hard to dodge for this reason. Doesn't really matter though, because it one shots you and knocks you to the ground. Then... he switches targets! Your allies can calmly revive you in like four seconds flat before the next shot even goes off. He's a complete non-threat as long as you know how to revive. He still takes 3-5 minutes to drop. You just run through your DPS rotation and pick up whoever he puts down every 10 seconds. It's... dumb.
The last boss in Story AC is the same. One mechanic, very deadly. Misstep for a second and you're dead. Who really cares though? You can just run back from the graveyard that is literally 10 feet from his room. He's still a one-trick pony for 3-5 minutes.
There are good fights in Guild Wars 2. I loved the end fight of Story Citadel of Flame for instance. Cool mechanics, great atmosphere, the difficulty ramps up with additional walls and fire attacks as the fight progresses. Perfect fight? No, but pretty good. In my experience though, those are a minority.
Hopefully they'll change for the better.
The dungeons are a weak point in Guild Wars 2.
On the other hand, between the condition/boon system, combo system, dodge system and the generally mobile combat, it is pretty damn rewarding when everything clicks. I never had that feeling in WoW dungeons. That might be because in WoW the normal mode dungeons are very easy, and when you do eventually go to heroics you are already familiar with the mechanics from normal, so it is a bit more "gentle" on the difficulty curve.
In my opinion, this is not a problem for GW2. The world zones are large, but very dense in terms of content, whether that is hearts/events or exploration-oriented landmarks.
There is huge depth to figuring out your character build. This is a big part of GW since the first game, and is pretty rewarding when you figure out a clever build design for your character. The game purposely limits your skill and trait selection such that you have to put together the right traits, skills, weapons and gear (in terms of sigils/runes, especially) to get everything right for your playstyle.
That said, being flexible (within your chosen build) is necessary to adapt to different encounters, so you can't have completely the same setup for every fight. It might be necessary to swap out one of your skills, or possibly one of your weapons, to be optimal in varying encounters. Personally, I am glad of that. Keeps things interesting.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
On the one hand, Guild Wars 2 offers too many options when it comes to actively playing the game in the moment. At any one moment, most classes have at least 16 abilities, 90% of them on 0-45 second cooldowns. Plus there's dodging. Plus normal movement. In PvP, Guild Wars 2 plays more like a complex real time strategy game, needing to remember what each of your 16 buttons does and when to hit each button at the precisely the right time. Your APM (Actions Per Minute) really matters in this game, if you want to perform well. You need to think quickly, be accurate with your ability activation, and god help you if you accidentally hit your "Z" instead of your "5".
This, to me, is not fun. I prefer games with more elegant designs: either something like League of Legends, where you have a limited number of spells available to you at one time, or something like World of Warcraft, where you have a small number of low-cooldown abilities and a high number of very long-cooldown "oh shit" buttons for when things really get out of hand. I like focusing on a small number of things, and getting good at those things. I'm not a huge fan of needing to dart my hand across the keyboard like a StarCraft 2 pro gamer.
And yet, strangely, Guild Wars 2 also offers too few options when it comes to thinking strategically before the fight. The skill selection side of things is shallow, with a few number of uninteresting, same-y abilities. What kind of abilities you can have on your bars at one time is highly limited compared to the original game, with sets of skills limited by weapon choice, only being allowed a single heal, etc. And the "talent point" system is far less interesting than it could have been.
The result is a game that is frenetic, but feels shallow -- there's lots of stuff going on in the moment, with not much thought required going into a battle. It feels like the worst blend of the original Guild Wars and World of Warcraft.
Add to these problems the fact that Guild Wars 2 eliminated not just the "holy trinity" of healers, tanks, and DPS, but they eliminated roles altogether. They didn't replace those traditional roles with new kinds of roles, they just made every player able to do just about the same thing. There are no niche, specialized roles that are a pleasure to get good at in that game. And that, more than anything else, is why I think you wouldn't enjoy getting into Guild Wars 2, Flippy, given your propensity for getting great at a niche role.
The question you need to ask yourself is which game do you want to play?
If you're looking for anecdotal evidence, I've played every major (and most minor) MMO's since I started in '99 with UO. My favorite MMO's prior to GW2's release are: UO and AC. I did not enjoy WoW (played sporadically until Wrath, didn't progress to 80. I stalled at 78.).
GW2 has sucked me in utterly. I have put in over 250 hours, on just one character. I look forward to playing the game, I look forward to playing my character, I genuinely enjoy the gaming experience. Much like I did in UO and AC. It recaptured that "new MMO feel" which we all know and love.
Despite some saying that it's just a rehash (which it may or may not be), it all feels very new and fun.
Ultimately though, look at the game world for yourself. Examine the classes and races. Find something that speaks to you, then you will find out which you should invest your time in.
Sounds like you have roughly the same WoW experience as I did, except swap Wrath with Cataclysm. I've found that every time I've driven myself to go back to play WoW, I can't bring myself to really get into it again. I'm about to give it another shot with Mists - I don't expect it to pan out well, though.
Guild Wars 2 has never felt empty for me. The closest it's ever come to reaching that point is because of bugs affecting spawns. Even if it did, I know exciting stuff is always a map travel, a WvW queue, or a portal away. Rewards are fantastic in open world PvE - much better than they were with earlier betas.
Single player story does pick up. The first 2 chapters seem geared towards showing how your initial choices affected your character - after that, it becomes awesome. One gripe I had is that they haven't done a lot with the home instance yet, but they're working on it.
Variety and depth is there - you find it in just about every single mob you'll face out in the world. Unlike WoW, they even stay alive long enough for you to see what kinds of abilities they use. Also unlike WoW, they can rock you hard if you aren't paying attention. They won't be rocking you because you chose a bad build, though. Maybe a poor loadout, but that's simple to fix.
You should try the PvP, because WvW is essentially the logical conclusion of Alterac Valley had they not fucked it up entirely, and sPvP doesn't tell you to fuck off if you didn't gear up proper in advance. You should also try the PvE again, especially if you played a human, norn, or sylvari in the beta. Events have their own ways of staying interesting as you progress, and the world itself has something in just about every nook and cranny to check out.
Everything just insta-gibs you if you fuck up, there's no time to react, no time to learn, you just keel over dead, there's almost no allowance for you to recover.
I'd also like to point out that some builds DO have the OHSHIT buttons. Again, using engies! Engies have a huge number of skillswaps that, while they're slow butts, give them those oshit buttons. afik Elementalists have a few too. And finally, Warrior is all ABOUT building up your Adrenaline bar so you can finally use your Oshit button.
That could be designed around, though. For instance, you could use the trash to train players on the mechanics of bosses, by having less-deadly variants of the "you MUST dodge this" stuff. Or, you could have multiple phases that simply up the lethality of the boss, so that you have a chance to learn before the instagibbing. But, they don't.
Pretty much this.
If what you wanted was more WoW, MOP is just more, good, better refined WoW.
If you are bored with the whole idea of WoW, MOP isn't gonna change your mind.
1. Combat is very active and fluid.
2. Everyone gets loot. There is no kill stealing.
3. The dynamic events are a ton of fun to do.
4. TONS of areas to run around and explore.
5. Gathering nodes are "instanced" so everyone gets to gather it.
6. "Send to stash" where you can send all of your crafitng mats to your bank vault instantly.
7. WvW.
8. sPvP.
9. Character customization. The races look great, original and distinct. TONS of appearence options. TONS of dye options (400 or so dye colors).
10. The dungeons are really well done. They are challenging to work through and really keep you on your toes. A group really needs to work together to get through it.
11. EVERYONE can rez. (and you get XP for doing it too ! )
12. WvW.
13. Gear "transmorgrification" where you take the appearence of 1 item and the stats from another.
14. Runes system where you can further customize "set" bonuses.
15. WvW.
16. Waypoints that allow you to teleport to anywhere in the world where you already have a waypoint unlocked.
After playing GW2 I cant stomach WoW anymore. Its the little "quality of life things" that GW2 does that you really miss when they are not there. (eg, 1, 2, 5, 6!, 7, 11! )
SPVP (battlegrounds) have some balance issues but honestly I can't imagine wow5 doesn't either, the metagame is going to be completely broken there for a while. GW2's removal of the gear requirement from organized pvp is a godsend
WoW Panda time is basically WoW's continuing casual evolution mixed with Chinese culture, alcohol, Pokemon and an emphasis on adventure rather then fighting a big bad like it was in the last 3 expacks. If you still value the game after all this time and change and are willing to keep paying the monthly fee, by all means.
In the future, I personally see myself never returning to WoW, perhaps giving Blizzard's future Titan a chance, playing GW2 forever since it's free and just dipping into it when something new comes up (I'll still be running the main PA guild, just not always actively playing), and continuing to hope that one day a game developer can have the insight and courage to create a game that evolves on old MMO precedents from the 90's and from WoW's early days and can create a virtual world MMO that people can actually spend years playing rather then just a few months. That's what I personally want to see. Only EvE's CCP (EvE still being the best sandbox game you never play and enjoy reading about) and Aventurine, the makers of Darkfall, have gotten it right to the extent of the vision part, if not necessarily always the execution and presentation. Secret World would have been greatly served in that capacity by better anticipating how niche a true MMO is and planning finances accordingly, as it's still a solid MMO that thrives on creating a good story and puzzle solving. That can translate into modest success, but they didn't plan for that and expected a million plus subs and such. Very silly.
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
Trying to determine if GW2 is "just another" MMO kind depends on how many incremental improvements you think collectively count as a real step forward.
Keep in mind as well that GW2 is just a newer game - so the graphics are better, everything's a little smoother and easier to do, I've found there to be much less downtime than I remember in WoW.
In my opinion, Guild Wars' combat is much better. I've spent 95% of my time playing one class (Mesmer) and I know there are still ways I can improve and learn the class better. This is the first game I've considered getting one of those mouses with a gajillion buttons for. Be advised that the game (or at least most classes) are a bit more twitchy and actiony than WoW is, but if you play TF2 sniper I doubt that'll be a problem.
Also be advised that most classes seem to take a little bit of time to get going. Once you unlock traits and all your utility skills they really open up.
GW2 is a lot of fun but has a few flaws. Personally I think too much of the game is based around zerging. Most of the events are pretty damn mindless and it gets a bit repetitive eventually. On the flipside there's really a lot of stuff for you to engage in for such a newly launched MMO. The world is huge, and if you're into exploration there are nooks and crannies everywhere with hidden surprises. I enjoyed the storymissions as well though I wish there were a lot more of them.
World vs World pvp is okay, it's mostly just zerging again which I personally don't find very enjoyable. You can break off into smaller groups and do smaller objectives as well but you'll need a decent team for this because I've found it's pretty hard to get random people to do stuff with you - most of them are content sticking with the zerg. The only real fun I've had in WvW so far was when me and a group of friends roamed the countryside, getting into skirmishes with other smaller groups. This didn't happen too much though, usually we just accidentally ran into a massive zerg and had to leave or got overwhelmed. So yeah, WvW is good times if you're into either zerging or if you have people you can play tactically with, otherwise it gets pretty dull pretty fast.
sPvP, which is the smaller instanced version of PvP is also just "okay". There are only 3-4 small maps in the game and once again that gets repetitive extremely quickly. The combat itself is better than WoW in some ways and worse in others. Playing a class like Mesmer in GW2's PvP is cooler than anything you can do in WoW PvP, but WoW has GW2 beat when it comes to clarity of spells/animations and feedback during gameplay. It's also unfortunate that sPvP is entirely separated from the regular game as I had hoped to level up through it like I did back in Warhammer Online
Overall GW2 is definitely worth buying, especially since there's no monthly fee so when you get bored with it you can put it down without having to worry about any money committed. I'm gonna be trying Mists of Pandaria soon myself, to see what WoW has to offer these days as well
Dude you should roll with NICE (the PA guild) guys in WvW. Waaaaaay more fun than following the zerg (though sometimes the zerg follows us).
Seconding this, NICE is extremely coordinated in WvW and we are pulling off some amazing stuff with much smaller numbers of participants (not that we can't pull out big numbers if we need to.)
To weigh in on GW2 vs WoW. I played Wow from vanilla through every expansion except MoP (Although I played it extensively in the beta) If you like WoW and are content with it, MoP is more of the same. It has a few new things, but tends to stick to it's core base. GW2 on the other hand is new, has some new ideas, some very highly polished aspects of the MMO genre and a bit of rougher ones.
Zerging doesn't happen much any more (This was a byproduct mostly of the initial rush of players) outside of the higher zones and WvW (which only happens if that's what you want to do. When you realize you can direct the zerg, and use it as a tool for strategy it opens up entire worlds of options to your team) Dungeons are fun but a bit overtuned and rough around the edges, I can't weigh in on sPVP having not played it yet. The stories are interesting, and the lore is there if you take the time to immerse yourself in it.
The GW2 world is enormous and you need to hoof it everywhere initially, but once you have explored a location you can waypoint to it from anywhere for a small fee. While I like the size of WoW spending large amounts of time flying around just to remind me the world is big got old, fast.
I find GW2 to have more things to do in a given zone, and to generally be more interesting where WoW is familiar but a bit outdated now.
Plus no subscription for GW2 means that you don't feel obligated to get your time in to justify the fee. You play it when you want, as little or as often as you like.
Last thing to add since I'm a visual person.
WoW doesn't have these:
Which means there really isn't even a contest in my mind. My thief is the best thing since the Golem Matrix.
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