I can answer this question
(caveat: been a WoW player since beta, have 5 level 70s, raided high-end content a lot and done some pvp. it was my first MMO, before that i played mostly FPS such as TFC/CS, UT etc)
I always saw WoW as a great PvE game, with some PvP bolted on the side. I did most of my PvP in pre-Battlegrounds days, which was good fun. However, some poor decisions on Blizzard's part made that difficult, such as penalties for killing npc guards, which discouraged attacking cities, leaving PvP to small scale skirmishes. Once battlegrounds came in, PvP got relegated almost exclusively to there, with Arenas being bolted on the side as well. There was no real benefit to PvP aside from gear, it didn't change anything in the world.
Having said that, the progression side of WoW, the lore tying in with the advancement of your character, the seamless travelling, and the instances, from deadmines/wailing caverns through to molten core and beyond, made it an exceptional game. Anyone who did the Onyxia attunement quest chain first time round will attest to that. There was an amazing sense of progression, both in your character and your discovery of the world.
Newer changes, such as adding rewards for reputation levels, added to that (though also made it a bit more grindy in my opinion).
Okay, so is WAR all that and a bag of chips? Because lets face it, it's got to be in order to compete.
The introductory areas are just as hand-holding as WoWs (well, close), the early quests are good too. The one criticism I've had so far is it doesn't hand-hold you to the first instances - there is at least one lowish (12-20) level one on each side, but travel between zones is actually quite intricate and could do with a bit more explaining. That is my major criticism so far.
The main difference between WAR and WoW is, WAR is a game with PvP at its heart. Rather than being tacked on, I'd say it's easily a 50/50 split. Not that there is simply a lot of PvP available, but that it intertwines seamlessly with the PvE content. If you wanted WoW to feel like you were really at war with the other side, rather than 2 sets of people playing separate games and sometimes ganking one another, then you should play WAR.
Some examples of how these intertwine:
- Every area has a PvP (or RvR as they call it) area where everyone is PvP on, and there are objectives, a combination of PvP and PvE things to do. Though some servers are OpenRvR, ie PvP always on.
- Siege weapons, omg. Ballistas where you correct for windspeed, battering rams you need several people to operate, etc.
- The Hierarchy of PvP status. When one side conquers all 4 tiers (level ranges), it opens up the capital city of that area for capture. When all 3 capital cities are captured, it opens up the side's main city for siege. This means both that PvP activity has a purpose (it leads into this hierarchy), and also that low level PvP also counts, as the low tiers also need to be taken, and they feed into the higher tiers too.
- There are public quests available to both sides, with different objectives. One side beating the other to the objective opens the next stage for their side and pushes the others back.
- And of course there are many battlegrounds too. IMHO better than the WoW ones.
In summary, I think it would be reasonably difficult, though possible, to play WAR as PvE only. You'd miss out on a lot of fun, though the PvE is high quality as well.
There are many unique PvE additions too (Public Quests, Morale/tactic abilities, Guilds progressing in levels) and some features that make PvP more strategic than tactical (eg, you can't run through enemy players, and tanks can intercept attacks for people behind them - you can chokehold an area, and alternatively you can outflank the enemy and decimate them), and I have to add that the Lore is AWESOME. As a longtime WFRP player, I am always laughing at what they're doing. The greenskins are hilarious, the elves haughty as all hell, the dwarves dour and fierce, the humans fanatical against chaos... it's actually worth reading through the quest text, talking to NPCs and just investigating.
As a last note, the crafting skills are a bit more limited, and do need some fixing, but are a lot of fun and quite unpredictable.
WoW is great. WAR looks like it's also going to be great, so far. The one thing I haven't yet tried are the instances in WAR - it's asking a lot for them to be as good as WoW's, but I hope they will be. I won't stop playing WoW, and will be giving WotLK a good go. But right now, I'm playing more WAR and loving it.
