Updates:
- 2007-01-10: Added another difference that I thought of — the game’s lack of different shards.
- 2007-01-02: Corrected information about changing your secondary profession thanks to a comment from The Extremist.
Amanda bought me Guild Wars for Christmas, and it’s proving to be exceptionally fun. Some of my friends probably know that I’m an on-again-off-again EVE Online player and follow the evolution of virtual worlds with a keen interest. While I appreciate the number of things EVE is doing to advance the state of the art in online environments — large-scale, player-run corporations; freedom to follow your own course of action; minimization of restrictions on player activities — it’s a very hard game to get into. It’s alienating and distant, and that makes it hard to bring new players in. I pick it back up every so often, usually after major updates to see what’s new, but I have a hard time sticking with it despite how much I admire what they’re doing. Guild Wars, on the other hand, is much more approachable. It’s a fantasy-themed online role-playing game, and it takes a very different approach to the genre than anything else I’ve played.