I've left WoW forever....so, Guild Wars 2, or Secret World?

[Deleted472477User]

Partly becase of their stupid design/business decisions with Diablo 3 and mostly because of something you won't read in the news (in a Livejournal WoW community, someone posted how Blizzard's continually just sitting with their thumbs up their butts when she and a friend of hers repeatedly had to report in game harassment that crossed over into real life into cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and irl stalking and death threats which culminating in her friend just snapping and killing herself. Yes, I know, jerks, a-holes, and downright evil people are everywhere, but it's more that Blizzard refused to ban them when such in-game harassment is well against their own damn ToS, which apparently they no longer give a 'tos's about.) I'm leaving World of Warcraft.

 

Now, I've narrowed my choices down to either Guild Wars 2 and Secret World. I like both options equally well for different reasons (Fantasy world versus Earth setting with beings from myth, legend, and horror tales) and my computer would handle both fairly well. so what I'm asking is if you've played either or both, tell me what you liked, didn't like, and what was meh. Thanks :D

[greywaste]

Heh, I remember when I still played that and some guy was griefing everyone during the argent dawn stuff that came before Lich King expansion. GM's told me to "resolve it 'in game' " :mellow:

Nothing we could do, so we actually had to give up on the event.

 

Anyway, I've tried both of the games you were thinking of and they have a lot in common actually regarding gameplay (small amount of skills on your bar, focus on evading damage rather than having to heal through everything), but I'd run with GW2 first, as it really feels a lot more polished and as though they've spent a long time thinking about the pitfalls of other mmo's and tried to address them. Neither are perfect however and I think to get the most out of either, you're most likely going to want to find a guild to join as solo'ing certain elements of both games can get a bit tedious.

 

Hope it helped a little :)

 

that Blizzard refused to ban them when such in-game harassment is well against their own damn ToS, which apparently they no longer give a 'tos's about.) I'm leaving World of Warcraft.

[Perrinwolf]

I played wow and guildwars2. In a lot of ways guildwars2 better then wow. With it's in game events. Like random or set, escort missions or invasions of villages. I never try secret world. Looks good from my PoV. In the end counts if you like fantasy setting more or modern alt.. I left wow for swtor. I like the class story lines. Each class has their way of shaping how things ended up. I also play guildwars2 from time to time. Because of my brother.

[hoofhearted4]

im not a huge MMOer. but ive really enjoyed GW2. its been awhile since ive played it, but since there is no sub fee, i can and will go back to it again sometime

 

honestly atm, i just started messing around with Champions Online again. haha

[Vindekarr]

Guild Wars. Played it since launch. Superb game, would still be an above average CRPG even without the MMO features, very very nice community too, given th emphasis on cooperative play. The best thing it has are it's "convenience" features: When you're doing a quest, there's always several ways to go about it, and once it's done, the NPC rewards you via an in-game mail, there's no fetchng. Second, when you're doing a quest with other players, you're automatically grouped with them, similarly if someone else attacks a mob you were fighting, as long as you hit it once, you get full credit for the kill. Loot only spawns for you and anyone who "tags" a mob gets their own instance of XP and loot, with bonuses in XP gain for group play.

 

Other strengths? branching main-story missions, some of which are very decent indeed, you get to customise your character's personality and backstory and these decision have a major effect on the way the game's singleplayer story quests play out, a little bit like SWTOR. The biggest strength though is the class design: there's 8 classes, but get this, nearly every class can do nearly every role. Some are channeled into maybe 3-4 potential roles, but everyone has a high degree versatility, and you're pretty much able to be whatever you like.

 

Given all the classes can heal themselves and revive, you don't have to worry about a healer, and virtually any group composition works. A couple of the classes, the so-called "playdough" classes, can even follow entirely different group roles depending on setup: the Warrior for example, depending on spec, can be melee DPS, ranged nuker, condition DPS, crowd control, a tank, a buff-throwing support toon, or even a healer, all with a high degree of success, If this wasn't enough, you get different skills depending on your currently equiped weapon.

 

Lets say you're a Warrior and you've got a Greatsword. This is an AOE DPS weapon, it's 12345 skills are all hard-hitting cone-damage offense, while if said warrior picks up a Mace, they'll get more defensive abilities. Single handed weapons give you your 123 skills, while your offhand defines the 4 and 5 slots. Different classes have different skills per weapon aswell; a Thief with dual pistols is a fast-firing mid-range DPS junky with good mobility, while an Engineer with dual pistol is a defensive, damage-over-time short range turtle. When you combine all this customisability, you end up with a character that really feels like your character. And I don't know any other MMOs that do that,

 

Weaknesses? It's a pretty easy-going game, but run it on Ultra take an ultra-modern graphics card and a serious CPU aswell. Learning curve varies by class, playing a Warrior or Guardian is very easy, while an Elementalist or Thief, is a far more hardcore, unforgiving experience, but rewarded by both class' astonishing DPS and survivability when played well. Risk N Reward.

[billyro]

I've only played Guild Wars 2 out of those three games, but it's probably the best MMO I can think of. And I'm not a fan of MMOs, so that's saying something. :P

 

Only thing I dislike about it is the repetition. To continue in the story, you have to get a few level ups which means hours of killing enemies and doing random missions, and then you finally level up and do the next part of the story... only to need 4 more level ups in order to continue after that bit. That's my only gripe, everything else is very high quality.

[Rennn]

The only MMO I play anymore is Guild Wars 2. It has everything that every other MMO wishes it could have. Just sayin'...

[lonewolfkai]

GW2 all the way. They got so much right in that game.

[hoofhearted4]

i need to go back to it god damn it! Hoof why are you being so stubborn right now?

[Zewp]

I found GW2 to be a major disappointment. I frequently encountered content-droughts while leveling, they try to force you to play in ways you don't enjoy and the 'end-game' doesn't even technically exist. To top it off, the end-game gear grind requires a lot of grinding, while the game's incredibly harsh anti-grind policy, Diminishing Returns, works against you in such a way that grinding is essentially impossible unless you're willing to spend 100s of hours grinding to get your Ascended gear. I recently went back to GW2 after not playing for a month and I was amazed at the loot drops I was receiving. Then out of the blue about 3 hours into playing my loot drops were absolutely abysmal all over again. Also, every time someone discovers an above-average way to make money, it gets nerfed so that your income slows down to a trickle again.

 

Then there's also the fact that their bug-fixing practices are abysmal. I reported a serious bug in one of the main story quests in January. It's still there. It also has horrendous performance issues that have not been fixed since launch and which doesn't seem like it's going to get fixed anytime soon.

 

You're much better off playing something like SW, although after finishing the game and all the quests once there's not really much incentive to keep playing it either. At least the game doesn't actively punish you for playing it the way you want to, though.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Zewp