Well, played both WoW and Guild Wars.
(PLEASE don't turn this thread into a WoW is carp, GW is carp thread...
)
For me, WoW takes a lot of time, the "must require human players" for the later dungeons etc makes it hard unless you have a lot of friends/in a good alliance.
If you find a good alliance, there will usually be peeps doing the instances almost every night... But some may require 3~4 hours of your time in one go.
For a n00b to MMO's, then Guild Wars takes less time IMHO.
The average quality of PuG's (Pick up groups - Grabbing people at random and going for a mission) is lower IMHO, but you then have 'henchmen' which you can grab and do the mission, usually better and quicker.
Missions generally don't last more than an hour at any one sitting.
But, if you like to develop your character - WoW has a lot of depth to it, there is a lot more you can do in WoW. For example, rough timescales...
Char to 'top lvl' in GW takes about a week, maybe 2 playing a few hours a night... Minimum a month in WoW.
But you have many other skills to develop, many other weapons and armour sets to collect/make - WoW has loads of extra bits to play with.
Many of the quests involve killing creatures of type X time and time again, but
some quests are actually interesting.
The world of WoW is a joy to discover - Lots of free roaming areas to go around and see. People can 'ninja' loot in WoW - So that drop you have been waiting for for your caster class for 2 weeks goes to a warrior who is only going to sell it on the auction house or even to the merchant... That can be annoying... But that's another reason you need to join a good alliance.
Not played Eve, but it is the biggest time-sooker of them all.
You can 'train' skills etc whilst being offline though... So start learning one thing, then by the time you come back to the PC, you can start learning another.
If time limited, I'm not sure how that results in gameplay for it tho.
One thing about GW... it's the cost of a normal game.
You can then leave it for 6 months, come back and continue playing. Your account never "expires". You never need to spend more money on it.
WoW does have a lot more to offer. More immersive. But also takes longer to get your character up to top-end spec.
In GW, any lvl20 (max) warrior can be the same as the other lvl20 warrior.
There are limited differences in armour, what skills you bring and how you use them is more the defining part of GW, whereas WoW, everyone has the same skills... but their armour/weapons make the difference. (And how the skills you have are used of course)
I'd recommend the free trial of WoW - It is a great start to the game.
(I enjoy that bit the most, got 3 chars up to lvl20. ^_^ Going to take my current char to 60 now tho)
There are occasional free trials of GW - The gameplay gets more interesting quicker, but once you have done the high lvl area's a few times, got a few good groups, know the missions well - The only things to progress your char further are perfect weapons/getting 'fancy' armour (only looks better, doesn't perform any better) etc.
So for longetivity, something you'll be coming back to and back to - WoW (although it costs). For a quick intro to MMO's, GW would save you a bit of cash until you get a feel for them and see what you like most.
If you feel it is lacking in something - WoW has a more 'special' feel to it.
The n00b calling and young 'uns is part of both tho... You just have to put up with it.
