RuneScape is fundamentally better than World of Warcraft

I believe RuneScape is a better game in general and fundamentally than World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft does have RuneScape beat in graphics, and UI, but the flaws in WoW compared to the depth of RuneScape, make RS a far better choice. First, I'd like to thank whoever my opponent is in advance and would like to say let us keep it clean and talk about the Fundamental aspects of each game, not judge it on pretty objects and graphics (as to be fair, their are games with far better graphics than WoW, which pale in comparison to WoW). World PvP: RS: Has dangerous World PvP where you can force the loss of armour from your opponent. WoW: Only has safe World PvP. No penalty. Safe PvP: RS: Offers over 15 different forms of safe PvP. WoW: Offers only 3 forms of ANY PvP, all which are safe. Subscription Price: RS: You can pay nothing and always play the game on F2P. You can pay $5-$6 (depending if you are an old member) and play P2P. WoW: You must pay $15 a month to play, including the price of $40 per expansion when they are first released. Expansions: RS: Has no expansions, you get frequent updates every week at no additional costs. WoW: You must purchase expansions for the continued updates, otherwise face playing in a non-updated part of the game. Expansions costs $40 when they are first released. Not to mention you have to purchase the game itself. Purchasing of Game: RS: The game is free to download, and then you choose to play for free, or subscribe to members, to access Memeber Areas of the world. WoW: The game originally cost $40 when first released, you must purchase the game, and then subscribe to continue playing, then purchase the expansions. There are currently 2 expansions, 1 planned next year, and then the price of the main game (along with the monthly subscription fees). Free to Play: RS: If you want to stop paying, you can revert to F2P status and still have access to your character and do whatever, outside the scope of P2P WoW: If you don't pay, you don't play. Period Disk Space: RS: The game takes up less than 100mb WoW: The game takes up over 20 Gigabytes. (Over 200x the size of RS) Class Limitations: RS: There are no limitations to what your character can do, you can mage, melee, or range if you choose, without having to start all over. WoW: You are forced to start over (re-roll) a character and play and different class if you want to try Mageing instead of Meleeing. You have to redo all the quests, leveling, and areas you already beaten once before, for each class you choose to play as. There is a limit of 9 classes per server. Skill Limitations: RS:You can raise any skill you choose, without having to unlearn anything previously. WoW: You can only learn two trade skills, and then you have to re-roll a different character or delete the skills and levels you have learned on that character. Server Limitations: RS: You can play on any server you wish, with the same character. Meaning you can play with friends/people anywhere WoW: You can only play on the server you created the character on, meaning if you have a friend that plays WoW, but he/she plays on a different server, you have to start all over on that server, or pay a $20 transfer fee. Factions: RS:You can battle/intermingle/group with whoever you want in RuneScape, no matter the server, or who they are. WoW: You also cannot trade, talk, or group with people of the opposing faction. Challenge of the Game: RS: You actually have to put effort and time into the game, the Max Combat level is 138, and that is just in combat, not skills. It takes time, and a lot of effort to reach the Max Level, it is impossible to do it in 2 months, and for the casual gamer would take over a year. The point isn't to reach Max Level asap, it is to enjoy the game while reaching Max Level, if raising levels isn't what people like doing, then they shouldn't be playing an MMORPG, play the Sims, or a FPS like Halo. WoW: You can reach Max Level in 2-3 days. Trust me, I had 7 Max Level characters in WoW at the time 70 was Max, and I put very little effort into them. WoW also has halved the XP required to level characters since I quit, and added the linked account system, where your friends can level you up. The result being nearly everyone on WoW has a max level character and thinks they are awesome, it breeds cockiness, and arrogance; which ruins the community. The world isn't a nice place, but neither is a world ruled by immature 13 year olds. Loot System: RS: You can lootshare to split the loot as you kill boss NPC's which tend to be very difficult to kill, or you can coinshare which automatically sends the item to GE, and splits the cash with your entire party. Even if you don't get the weapon you want, you can earn enough money from fighting it enough times, to purchase it. WoW: You can redo the exact same dungeon a hundred times and be no closer to obtaining the item you want, then you were the first time. There is a Need/Greed system, which allows you to "need" on items you really want, but the fact anyone can do it, and chances are if you need the item, there is a reason for it and so does someone else needs it also. Not only are some items extremely rare drops, it is an all or nothing gamble, that gets old, especially if you raid. You generally have to run a whole dungeon again, just to attempt to fight a boss, which if the time it takes to run a dungeon at no benefit to you (as you get no XP after a certain point), you can only do it if you have a group of people willing to do it with you. .. and don't get me started on how your group has to be smart and not those that "drop group" if the boss they need doesn't drop what they want. Needing Groups: RS: You do not need a group to be successful in RuneScape, anything you need to be successful in RS you can do it alone without relying on anyone. However there are things that having a group makes it easier and more fun to do things with. Like maybe you can kill a Boss NPC 4-5 times instead of the 1 time if it was just you, the difference being you now would split the loot to be fair. WoW: You will need a group to be successful, there are quest that REQUIRE groups, instances REQUIRE groups, raids REQUIRE groups. The best PvP gear (arena) REQUIRES groups. You can't advance to a certain part of the story, or make it to certain areas without groups either. It is very group oriented for gear especially, which means the majority of your success will be if you can depend on your group members and their schedules, it is not uncommon to waste your time in an instance, or to spend time waiting for an instance or raid to start, simply because of the grouping aspect. ------------- I have more points, but sadly have run out of Argument Room, maybe next round I'll list my last few points. Again, I would like to have an intellectual and friendly debate, as this is of course always a matter of opinion (based on aspects and facts) and people hold different values when it comes to entertainment. I would prefer my opponent to be someone who is familiar with both RuneScape and World of Warcraft so we can have a challenging and insightful debate. This is not "hating" on WoW or RS, not to mention it is easier to make a case to the untrained eye that WoW is the better game, at the very least, let those that read this debate leave with a little bit more knowledge about both games then they had coming into this debate.