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A World of Warcraft Clone ???
porgie
Member Posts: 1,516
I am writing this to understand something. I have played Lord of the Rings Online since the day after it came out and here's what I don't understand.
How is this a World of Warcraft clone?
Before you people who say this is a clone answer me, let me state a few things.
There are a few "similarities" that I have noticed. But the ones I've noticed are few and far between.
The first thing that is evident is the interface. Okay. The interfaces are similar when you first start out. But I can hardly say that justifies it being a WoW clone at all. And for the people who look at that alone and determine it to be a clone, have you tried pressing CTRL and at the same time? Give it a try and you'll see that if that's what bothers you it can be fixed pretty darn quickly.
Another thing I noticed is that you have to go see a trainer to acquire/use some of your skills. Yeah, and that has been the case in just about every MMO that I have played. Not all, but dang near 90% of them. So, I'm kind of confused about this whole thing here too.
Seriously, outside of those two things, what is it that people are saying makes it a WoW clone? I mean, when people were saying it was a WoW clone I was expecting it to be just like WoW. I mean, a "clone" is an exact duplicate. And I know that even if people were using the word loosely you would still expect a good deal of the games to be just alike.
Now, that being said, there have been many things in the game that I have found completely different than WoW.
First, is the way you build your character. There are skills you acquire from doing things in the world. Like if I keep killing the demon dogs in the Barrows, I get a special skill for smashing their killer canine skulls. This is a skill that I can then develop by taking on more of the beasts. I don't see this in WoW.
Second, the way you progress your character development. You take those skills you learned from being out in the world and fighting things (note that the things you fight are completely voluntary, you don't want to build up the skill you get from smashing demon dogs, you can move onto another beastie) and you apply those skills to your character any old way you like by visiting a Bard and placing them on your character sheet. The possibilities are endless here depending on two things. One, what creatures you decided to keep fighting to develop your skill higher, and two which skills from that developed skill set you put into your characters skill tree.
Another thing that is different is the graphics. This one I REALLY do not understand. I read some peoples posts saying that the graphics are the same. No Way!!!! They are completely different. WoW looks like a cartoon. LotRO does not look like a cartoon. It has a different feel to it. I don't know how to describe it, but cartoon does not come to mind. It fits Middle Earth well and does it sincere justice. Having a game look like a cartoon would not do Middle Earth well, in my opinion. I watched the LotR cartoons and never liked them. However, this I do like.
Another difference is the story line in LotRO. It is good. It is enthralling. And it is a very important central part of the game. It's not something half ass thrown together, it is something that you are a part of throughout your journeys. You go on quests with NPC's who lead the way. They talk to you and you talk back to them. You follow them and they lead you through the story. And it all ties together to give you a feeling of being in the middle of an epic tale. This is not in WoW. As a matter of fact, I always felt that Wold of Warcraft would have been more aptly named, "World of leftouttheWar-in-Warcraft". In LotRO there is a battle going on and you live it in the story line.
Another big difference I noticed is the focus turned away from just acquiring goodies. WoW was a raiding game. You went for that big ol loot. That was pretty much the goal of the game. I have not seen one person talking about their "phat loot" while playing LotRO. Why? Because that's not the main focus of the game. That alone changes the whole game to me. You're not there just to slash away and do raiding so that you can look cooler than someone else or kick their butt. This is a story driven game. An interesting story at that. So, I don't miss the PvP. I don't need it to keep me interested in this game.
I could go on and on about the differences, but I think you guys get my point. And I'm going to leave the rest open for whoever wants to post some more. I don't want to make my initial post too long or hog the topic.
I just really think that a lot of people played the beta for a short time, saw the interface, got to level 10 maybe (which is so just the very beginning of the game) and made a quick assumption. They haven't seen the rest of the game nor experienced the neat little things that you get to see later on.
Just me out to do some Mythbusting I guess.
Have fun!
How is this a World of Warcraft clone?
Before you people who say this is a clone answer me, let me state a few things.
There are a few "similarities" that I have noticed. But the ones I've noticed are few and far between.
The first thing that is evident is the interface. Okay. The interfaces are similar when you first start out. But I can hardly say that justifies it being a WoW clone at all. And for the people who look at that alone and determine it to be a clone, have you tried pressing CTRL and at the same time? Give it a try and you'll see that if that's what bothers you it can be fixed pretty darn quickly.
Another thing I noticed is that you have to go see a trainer to acquire/use some of your skills. Yeah, and that has been the case in just about every MMO that I have played. Not all, but dang near 90% of them. So, I'm kind of confused about this whole thing here too.
Seriously, outside of those two things, what is it that people are saying makes it a WoW clone? I mean, when people were saying it was a WoW clone I was expecting it to be just like WoW. I mean, a "clone" is an exact duplicate. And I know that even if people were using the word loosely you would still expect a good deal of the games to be just alike.
Now, that being said, there have been many things in the game that I have found completely different than WoW.
First, is the way you build your character. There are skills you acquire from doing things in the world. Like if I keep killing the demon dogs in the Barrows, I get a special skill for smashing their killer canine skulls. This is a skill that I can then develop by taking on more of the beasts. I don't see this in WoW.
Second, the way you progress your character development. You take those skills you learned from being out in the world and fighting things (note that the things you fight are completely voluntary, you don't want to build up the skill you get from smashing demon dogs, you can move onto another beastie) and you apply those skills to your character any old way you like by visiting a Bard and placing them on your character sheet. The possibilities are endless here depending on two things. One, what creatures you decided to keep fighting to develop your skill higher, and two which skills from that developed skill set you put into your characters skill tree.
Another thing that is different is the graphics. This one I REALLY do not understand. I read some peoples posts saying that the graphics are the same. No Way!!!! They are completely different. WoW looks like a cartoon. LotRO does not look like a cartoon. It has a different feel to it. I don't know how to describe it, but cartoon does not come to mind. It fits Middle Earth well and does it sincere justice. Having a game look like a cartoon would not do Middle Earth well, in my opinion. I watched the LotR cartoons and never liked them. However, this I do like.
Another difference is the story line in LotRO. It is good. It is enthralling. And it is a very important central part of the game. It's not something half ass thrown together, it is something that you are a part of throughout your journeys. You go on quests with NPC's who lead the way. They talk to you and you talk back to them. You follow them and they lead you through the story. And it all ties together to give you a feeling of being in the middle of an epic tale. This is not in WoW. As a matter of fact, I always felt that Wold of Warcraft would have been more aptly named, "World of leftouttheWar-in-Warcraft". In LotRO there is a battle going on and you live it in the story line.
Another big difference I noticed is the focus turned away from just acquiring goodies. WoW was a raiding game. You went for that big ol loot. That was pretty much the goal of the game. I have not seen one person talking about their "phat loot" while playing LotRO. Why? Because that's not the main focus of the game. That alone changes the whole game to me. You're not there just to slash away and do raiding so that you can look cooler than someone else or kick their butt. This is a story driven game. An interesting story at that. So, I don't miss the PvP. I don't need it to keep me interested in this game.
I could go on and on about the differences, but I think you guys get my point. And I'm going to leave the rest open for whoever wants to post some more. I don't want to make my initial post too long or hog the topic.
I just really think that a lot of people played the beta for a short time, saw the interface, got to level 10 maybe (which is so just the very beginning of the game) and made a quick assumption. They haven't seen the rest of the game nor experienced the neat little things that you get to see later on.
Just me out to do some Mythbusting I guess.
Have fun!
-----------------------
</OBAMA>
Comments
And by that, I mean this definition:
Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric.
Equal opportunity troll.
-----------------------
</OBAMA>
We're all Geniuses. Most of us just don't know it.
Equal opportunity troll.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Anyways, most MMOs have a LOT in common, with only few differences between them. Obviously, some are better than other ones, and LOTRO is one of them.
But at the core, every MMO is the same: Hack away at monsters till your fingertips start bleeding, then hack some more. And when you're strong enough, you can go beat big-assed monster in groups of 10 or more, or you can choose to go beat people up and prove how much your character is great. Oh, and pay monthly to do that
Equal opportunity troll.
P.S. Perhaps we could get some of the staunch supporters (like ourselves) from mmorpg.com to join too. Maybe you could talk to Jackdog or Cognetojoe or Kyleran about it. I'm sure they would be happy to join in the fun.
http://www.straightdope.com/
It's really not a big deal except that it gives people who may be considering the game the wrong impression.
I am loving Lord of the Rings, but I had a tough time purchasing at the store. The reason is because I didn't really like WoW all that much and I read a lot of posts saying they were just alike.
I'm glad I went ahead and bought it because it's not like WoW at all! Interfaces is about as far as it goes with the similarities as far as I can tell. But it makes me mad that people just posted stuff to not get people to play. It almost stopped me from purchasing a really cool game.
So, if you're going to make general statements like that, then why not take the time to give some details? I'd be curious to read them.
Equal opportunity troll.
You want arguments?
Well: I think the main reason why people say LotRO is a WoW clone is becouse it doesn't bring any innovation AT ALL. When WoW came out it was something fresh. You could say Blizzard took everything whats best from older MMOs and put it together in 1 great game PLUS some new stuff. Now, almost 3 years later, we get World of Ringcraft witch does exacly the same only, in my opinion, not even half as good as big blue (without the new stuff...).
When WoW put in "questing" (doing quests as a main source of EXP) they turned leveling your character into a realy fun time, so much diferent from the usual monster grind.
When LotRO came up with quests, it was like "oh god not another kill-11-wolfs quest... just a few more of those and I lvl up". You get what I'm saying?
You say LotRO isn't a clone becouse it has SOME other features (witch were already used in other games btw) but it's still the same basic concept: talk to a guy, kill/gather stuff, talk to the guy again get exp+some gold, talk to another guy and so on untill you reach max lv and the endgame witch will probobly be a huge disapointment anyway.
Whatever... I won't try to convince anyone. Thats my opinion. Have fun lvling your hobbits or whatever youre grinding with.
Blizzard: Look! This is our first MMO. We thought we would make it enjoyable for casuals and even for those a little bit more hardcore.
The Crowd: Wooooaaaaaaah...!!!
Turbine: O-o-o-o-o!!! O-o-o-o-o!!! We can do it to!! See??!! Lookit, lookit! We got all the same, only in our game you can make Legolas!!!
The Crowd: Uhh...................yay...?
Have a nice day.
They have a few similarities by virtue of both being MMOs.
That's about as far as you can take it.
Anyone claiming this is a WoW clone is just trying to randomly poop on the game.
Personally I think LOTRO is a bad MMO. It's quite a good online single player game but this will never be an MMO to me.
Riiiight. So by your definition all MMOs will be WoW clones. How nice for Blizzard...
The basic conventions you've decided make any game a WoW clone, are pretty standard conventions for RPG games, dating way back to the oldest and simplest text based games. But obviously they employed gypsies with turbo-charged crystal balls to look into the future to clone WoW.
While I ended up not liking LOTRO, there were innovations in it that I really liked. For example, I really liked the way they implemented Deeds and Traits.
EVE for the men (and badass women), the rest is for the girls. Take care.
hahaha I know you just did not call that micro-management screensaver background piece of crap Eve a real game for men rofl.That game is CRAP try to sell that fanboi hype anywhere Eve online=most overated piece of trash since horrizons.
As for the rest of the case of wow/lotr being alike etc etc.Well it would appear that way to newbs to mmogs who have only ever played wow.Wow brought NOTHING new to the genre of mmogs period sorry but wee had shortcut bars and bag slots in other mmogs years ago.Instanced content? Sorry had those years ago with Ao and Eq1's dungeons or norrath I guess WoW stole that idea eh? Auction house? beaten yet again by Eq1's bazzar and Swg's global market terminals.SO next time one of you WoW newbs who have no clue what your talkin about call another game a "wow" clone do some research and you will see WoW is nothing but a clone of every other mmog thats been dont last 7-10 years.
hahaha I know you just did not call that micro-management screensaver background piece of crap Eve a real game for men rofl.That game is CRAP try to sell that fanboi hype anywhere Eve online=most overated piece of trash since horrizons.
As for the rest of the case of wow/lotr being alike etc etc.Well it would appear that way to newbs to mmogs who have only ever played wow.Wow brought NOTHING new to the genre of mmogs period sorry but wee had shortcut bars and bag slots in other mmogs years ago.Instanced content? Sorry had those years ago with Ao and Eq1's dungeons or norrath I guess WoW stole that idea eh? Auction house? beaten yet again by Eq1's bazzar and Swg's global market terminals.SO next time one of you WoW newbs who have no clue what your talkin about call another game a "wow" clone do some research and you will see WoW is nothing but a clone of every other mmog thats been dont last 7-10 years.
I'm not sure about everyone else but I'm certainly not implying that WoW was totally innovative. I only made it a year on the game before I couldn't take it anymore. I'm saying that LotRO does not add new ideas to the MMO market. They are doing the same thing nearly everyone else has done for years. I will continue to play it in hopes they will add some fun stuff but I cannot see playing long-term.I've played WoW on and off since it launched - even played in open beta for a bit. I can't play that game for more than a month at a time.. It gets ridiculously boring to me. Just way too shallow. It's a very polished game and I give Blizzard props for creating exactly the game they set out to make and the success it's had.. But it's just too watered-down for my tastes.
For starters - it's not entirely surprising that everyone's comparing everything to WoW. For starters, it just happens to be the most popular - or damn close to it - MMO out there now. It's the same with music... when Pearl Jam was the big thing, every new band to come out was compared to Pearl Jam.. and so forth.
Next is that many people are very protective of "their" game, and any competing game is a threat to them - for reasons I'll never understand. So, of course, with the apparent popularity and praise LoTR is enjoying right out of the gate, these raving WoW fanatics are going to try and downplay it as much as possible. Of course, calling it a WoW clone immediately makes it seem a lesser game... to those who actually buy into it.
In any case...
Personally, in just the first few hours I've played LoTRO and having gotten through the introduction quest chain and into the main game, I can already say - this game feels *nothing* like WoW to me. Graphically, no way - not saying better or worse... just different.
As for the interface... with the whole "omg they stole it from WoW" nonsense. Please stop. Right now. None of you saying this have a clue of what you're talking about and, well, you're wrong.
Let me introduce you to a game you may not have heard of, that came out in 2002 and was (unfortunately) pulled in 2005: Asheron's Call 2. It was designed by the same people who brought you Lord of The Rings Online, Turbine. Oh.. and check out This Screenshot from AC2. (ctrl-click to open in new window/tab)
Notice anything similar? Interface looks kinda like LoTR's don't it? And yes... AC2 was out well before WoW was even announced. So if Turbine is guilty of stealing their interface from anyone, it's themselves. So, please.... stop with the claims of them stealing their interface from WoW. They were using that setup long before WoW came along.
So.. gee.. I wonder if that means WoW stole their interface ideas, at least in part, from AC2? Hmmm.... (yes, that was a facetious question)
On that note, Turbine borrowed many things from AC2 - all great ideas. The music system in LoTRO, I'm sure, is a "nod" to the music system in AC2 - only beefed up a bit. The quests started by killing a new mob in LoTRO harkens back to a similar quest system in AC2. If I'm not mistaken, they're even using a "modernized" version of the AC2 engine.
In the end... yes, they both have quests. Yes, they both involve killing mobs. Yes they both have crafting and a number of other things. Just like most every other MMO out there. That doesn't make one a "clone" of the other.
In the end, those of you out there crying "They ripped off WoW!" - Stop. You're wrong.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops