Guild Wars 2

[Lisaara]

Ramla Thorsdotter - Norn Guardian

... The daughter of Thor?! What? xD

In other news, god, I'm finally getting my new laptop soon. A shiny (and not to mention expensive) new Alienware M17x laptop. Hng they look so beautiful. This means I can FINALLY play GW2. It's funny really. I can play WoW on the top graphics no problem, yet I struggle to run GW2 smoothly at all. I'm not just getting it for GW2 though, the graphical updates to WoW will mean, if I want to continue running it smoothly on ultra graphics, I'll want a new PC eventually anyway *and* I needed a laptop for university. So perfect! :3

Yuh. I made her after the daughter of Nathifa(my egyptian OC, daughter of Isis) and Thor from the MARVEL universe. XD I had help from my fiance and a good friend of mine.

The graphics of GW2....I hate to admit it....blows WoW away. It really does. They use a more realistic approach as well as your quests and vistas are cinematics.

[Snowy]

I have to disagree. GW2 have a more realistic approach but to me, that's kinda boring. I much prefer the stylised look in WoW, especially where they're going with it in MoP.

[Vephriel]

Guild Wars 2 has hit the perfect appearance for me. It has a stunning sense of realism without being too drab or dull. It manages to maintain a crisp, beautiful graphic look while retaining a stylized appearance. It isn't afraid to use bright colours and vivid scenes. I'm absolutely in love with the look of this game. Everywhere I go I end up stopping to just stare in awe at the surroundings.

[Snowy]

Maybe it's because I haven't had a chance to play on high graphics yet. It does look beautiful, yes, but WoW will always strike me more. But that's just my opinion. :3

[Vephriel]

Oh I definitely enjoy WoW's look, I've always admired its stylization. I can't deny though that, for myself, GW2 has completely blown me away, and I can't help seeing the stark difference now when I go from game to game. I love both, but GW2 is far in the lead in terms of graphics to me. They just captured something that strikes me like no other game has. Their method of realism looks far more beautiful than any other game I've seen try to attempt it.

[Lotusii]

WoW needs to update their graphics. The older stuff stands out like a sore thumb when close to newer models of things and even those don't look all that good. I'm not trying to hate on WoW and I don't hate stylized graphics but the terrible contrast between the older models and the newer... ick.

I love the GW2 vibrant colours and the overall design aesthetic. The backgrounds are stunning and for the first time in an MMO I don't completely hate the look of the humans. I normally find them to be drab and boring but not in GW2.

[Snowy]

I can believe that. (: The only issue with that though is that only certain people will be able to make the most out of GW2. I think it's always been Blizzard's thing to make their games work on as many systems as possible, even if that means pushing/keeping back the graphics so they're not too CPU intensive. GW2 does look pretty damned impressive graphically. I can't wait to play it properly. (:

Edit: This post was aimed at Veph cause Lotusii posted at the same time as me.

[Lisaara]

I agree with both Veph and Lotusii. WoW needs to update their older models. Thankfully they're in the process of doing that. Graphics wise, GW2 is better. But I love both games equally. :3

[cowmuflage]

I have to say I'm not really that much of a fan of realistic style graphics but I admit GW2 looks nice but I still wish more MMOS did not go down the realistic route as it gets kinda boring.

[Vephriel]

I have to say I'm not really that much of a fan of realistic style graphics but I admit GW2 looks nice but I still wish more MMOS did not go down the realistic route as it gets kinda boring.

I'm with you there cow. I've never been a fan of games that try too hard to do photo realism since most of the time it ends up looking bland and washed out. Realism in some games means no experimenting with colours or fantasy landscapes which leaves an overall drab, brown/grey look. That's what I've encountered in any case. GW2 seems to have hit the perfect compromise right in between a fantasy stylization and realism. It's not too strong on either side, so the result is really pleasing to me.

[Silivren]

I have to say I'm not really that much of a fan of realistic style graphics but I admit GW2 looks nice but I still wish more MMOS did not go down the realistic route as it gets kinda boring.

I'm with you there cow. I've never been a fan of games that try too hard to do photo realism since most of the time it ends up looking bland and washed out. Realism in some games means no experimenting with colours or fantasy landscapes which leaves an overall drab, brown/grey look. That's what I've encountered in any case. GW2 seems to have hit the perfect compromise right in between a fantasy stylization and realism. It's not too strong on either side, so the result is really pleasing to me.

If you notice sometime when you look in the background around yourself you can see the background almost like it was painted with watercolor or sketched quickly with a pencil. I saw it with some of the human buildings in Divinities Reach and it was BEAUTIFUL! I love how drastic all the different races cities are and the fact I find all races to be amazing to look at.

[Aleu]

I was always under the impression Blizzard purposely hasn't upgraded the graphics to make it so the game could run (fairly) well on low end PCs. I know by now, most of WoW's models are outdated and from what I heard, is being updated in MoP. Eh, I do strongly believe WoW will be the last big traditional MMO.

I just love how that balance between artistic design and graphics are struck. On top of it... the music. God do I love the music. T_T I need the soundtrack.

[cowmuflage]

I think MMOs in general are a dieing breed. Even the big Free2play ones are not doing as well as everyone was thinking they would do a few months back. Even the ones that do something different are not doing well look at The secret world it's failing big time.

I think people are getting fed up on how MMOs work. I mean deep down they all work the same.

I mean GW2 I think is going to be one of the last big name MMOs.

[Zuilu]

I don't think they're going to die as a genre, I think the art of creating a lasting MMO is just very difficult to do. When it's a good game though, like WoW or GW2, they last for a very long time. When it's a flop like SW:ToR or Rift, they die quickly.

The other thing is I think a lot of WoW players have been very frustrated and vocal lately because of how Cata flopped. People are getting agitated that they don't have an MMO to play, and most of the ones released over the last few years have been sub-par at best.

[Lupis]

I'm pretty happy with the graphics that I've seen. I can't say I like them more than WoW's- I'm very, very fond of WoW's graphics. But to me, they're different enough that I don't need to compare them, really, I can just enjoy both for what they are.

[cowmuflage]

I do wonder how long GW2 will last. I have got nothing against it at all but I do find it a bit silly when you hear people and reviewers right now saying it's a success (Of course not saying you are (: ) when it's only been out for a little bit. Then again that's what a lot of people do nowadays when it comes to anything >.>

[Snowy]

I'm pretty happy with the graphics that I've seen. I can't say I like them more than WoW's- I'm very, very fond of WoW's graphics. But to me, they're different enough that I don't need to compare them, really, I can just enjoy both for what they are.

This. Yes, GW2's graphics *are* more advanced than WoW's... But what do you expect? GW2 is a brand new game. WoW's been out for, what was it, seven years? I love WoW's graphics. Sure, it could do with a big chunk of work and as someone said before, the older models stick out like a sore thumb next to the new ones. I'm so excited for the character model updates!

[Zuilu]

I don't KNOW that it'll be a success Cowmu, but I know it's a much higher quality MMO than any others that have been released in the last few years. I'd be extremely surprised if GW2 wasn't a longstanding MMO given the quality of it and how much people love the Guildwars franchise. Unless Arenanet pulls a Blizzard and releases something like Cataclysm as an expansion, I think they'll have a reasonable amount of players for quite some time.

[cowmuflage]

I don't KNOW that it'll be a success Cowmu, but I know it's a much higher quality MMO than any others that have been released in the last few years. I'd be extremely surprised if GW2 wasn't a longstanding MMO given the quality of it and how much people love the Guildwars franchise. Unless Arenanet pulls a Blizzard and releases something like Cataclysm as an expansion, I think they'll have a reasonable amount of players for quite some time.

Never said you said it was. :3 I said OTHERS did.

[Snowy]

Unless Arenanet pulls a Blizzard and releases something like Cataclysm as an expansion, I think they'll have a reasonable amount of players for quite some time.

And then suddenly, they're no longer called ArenaNet. It's ActivisionNet.