Can't they make MMORPGs with the quality of WOW and the features of the newer ones?
No, they can't. Blizzard has the resources of a small planet to use to create their games. Many companies who are making MMO's do not have the capital to produce games at the quality level that Blizzard puts out because Blizzard is a juggernaut in gaming. Basically every game they make sells off the charts. If you want a new game with the quality of WoW just keep playing WoW until World of Starcraft or World of Diablo makes its debut, otherwise realize that the new MMO's that release just will not meet your expectations unless a couple of game giants join forces to bring the Behemoth down. I find it hard to believe it's that expensive to make a solid 3D engine, good controls and good animations. For the videos I've seen, Warhammer seems to have good animations and models. Hope good controls too. And many single player games have that too. And Age of Conan looks good too. We'll see.
The reason why WoW's animations look so good is twofold.
First, they understand well that most people do not play these games zoomed in, but with some degree of zooming out to get a better sense of surroundings, movement and the overall tactical situation. Because most players spend most of the game zoomed out, it's much more effective to have animations that are more exaggerated rather than subtle if you expect players to actually see them. The realization that the zoomed out view is the context in which animations will normally be seen is what drove that design decision, at least in part, and it's a reason why it's been successful in the eyes of the players. It's similar to the diference between the presentation made by a stage actor when compared with a screen actor -- a stage actor has to use more exaggerated actions so that the audience, which is far away, can pick up on them, whereas a screen actor needs to be more subtle because the camera makes everything close up.
Second, WoW has extremely detailed animations. If you just play around with a character, watching its actions and so forth, you can tell that an extreme attention to detail was put into the animations -- they are very specific, they are sensible, the way things move, the way various parts of the body move in sync, it's all done very well, and undoubtedly this did require a great deal of effort and, as a result, money to achieve.
I like LOTRO's graphics, mind you, but the animations are not as smooth as WoW's and compared to WoW the controls are a tad sluggish -- neither of these is a game-breaking issue for me.
Bad animations, bad looking textures, sluggish control, tiny skill buttons, no idea what they do, not different from each other, just press the little buttons, al the time staring at those buttons, what the hell is this?
Yes, back to WOW.
It seems you just wanted a WOW clone and were impatient at having to learn something new. Character animations aren't as smooth as wow. UI feedback is kind of underwhelming. But once you get into it - it can be great fun.
"I played a clone and didn't like the clone so no I go back to the exakt same game"
Comments
The reason why WoW's animations look so good is twofold.
First, they understand well that most people do not play these games zoomed in, but with some degree of zooming out to get a better sense of surroundings, movement and the overall tactical situation. Because most players spend most of the game zoomed out, it's much more effective to have animations that are more exaggerated rather than subtle if you expect players to actually see them. The realization that the zoomed out view is the context in which animations will normally be seen is what drove that design decision, at least in part, and it's a reason why it's been successful in the eyes of the players. It's similar to the diference between the presentation made by a stage actor when compared with a screen actor -- a stage actor has to use more exaggerated actions so that the audience, which is far away, can pick up on them, whereas a screen actor needs to be more subtle because the camera makes everything close up.
Second, WoW has extremely detailed animations. If you just play around with a character, watching its actions and so forth, you can tell that an extreme attention to detail was put into the animations -- they are very specific, they are sensible, the way things move, the way various parts of the body move in sync, it's all done very well, and undoubtedly this did require a great deal of effort and, as a result, money to achieve.
I like LOTRO's graphics, mind you, but the animations are not as smooth as WoW's and compared to WoW the controls are a tad sluggish -- neither of these is a game-breaking issue for me.
who me ?
Good call. Sramota is just clueless apparently.