It is funny how many people are quick to claim that wow did not create anything new and it made up of elements of mmos that already existed. Yet somehow it is also responsible for single handely ruining the entire genre.
It shouldn't be that hard a concept to understand. Blizz used mechanics from around the genre, and placed them together within a coherent flexible package. Yet at the same time they brought down the level of complexity in the design, for a casual audience. Other companies have been following in uniform since.
Blizz still borrows from current MMO's in its updates to WOW. More often than not, so it would seem anyway.
If blizzard uses the same systems, then what is the big hold up for other games to reach the same levels of critical acclaim blizzard has reached? Blizzard didn't just aim for the casual player and they got every segment of the market. PvP, PvE, casual and hardcore alike.
Don't confuse something that is cumbersome or needlessly time consuming as being complex.
A company doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to create a better product. All they have to do is take the available systems that its competition is misusing or under utilizing and make them better. Plain and simple that is what happened.
Taking off the rose colored nostalgia glasses for a moment it isn't hard to see the problems previous mmos had and how much room for improvement there was. The basic philosophy of old mmos went something like this
Release a half finished game and players will fund the last years of development with subscriptions.
Punish players for everything. This will slow down progress and keep them subscribing longer
Limit access to content and this will keep players subscribing longer
Forced downtime is good, again to extend subscription length
Rush out as many additional payment features as fast as possible, because players will still pay
There is more, but that is the basic mindset developers had in the old days. Some enjoyed that, I did, but it clearly was holding back the market to a small niche group of people and not because it was to complex. It was just prohibitive to fun most of the time.
I enjoyed my years of playing mmos prior to 2004, but it just wouldn't be honest if I said those years were filled with complex game designs, they were the pinnacle of mmo systems or something I would ever want to go back to. Quality was extremely lacking, gameplay was filled with frustration and annoyances, mechanics were very simple and game desing tended to be a complete crap shoot with each expansion. Many games suffering horrible declines or setbacks by one poorly designed expansion.
Sure there were a few examples of games that had some complexity or some quality, but even those games were filled with more problems than things were done right.
When a company comes into its competitions backyard and uses their own tools to beat the living crap out of them, then it is pretty easy to see someone was doing something very wrong.
OK OP, i will concede to a point. There IS such a thing as a "WoW clone" Runes of magic. And ONLY because it copied the UI graphics, and gameplay graphics from WoW. Everything else is an MMORPG.
zaxxon I have a question or two for you. Honestly don't know the answer.
Were C&C and Warcraft called Dune 2 clones? You basically did the same thing. Build a base, get some units and attack the opponent.
Were Wolfenstein, Quake or Unreal called Doom clones? You just had some weapons and proceeded to kill everything.
I think similarities are just the signs of a game genre and not a clone.
To answer the first question, yes i'm sure somebody called them that.... obviously not clones, because, well, nobody knew the term back then, nobody knew internet either.
C&C was very similar to dune, VERY VERY. No, it wasn't the genre at all. The genre is real-time-strategy. It could happen without bases(Myth: the fallen lords, my favorite RTS) or it could happen with only 3 units(Pyro's beloved Commandos), it could happen without structures but only units(the beautiful, never forgotten Homeworld)
I repeat, it wasn't the genre, those were stygmatized standards that C&C and warcraft chose to reuse as they were. But the genre evolved, see Company of Heroes, see the concept of holding peripheric ground points.
Doom was about pushing buttons that open doors and finding secrets. YES, Quake did represent that scheme. Why couldn't they, it's the same software company
No, Unreal was completely different from Doom, there was no pushing buttons AFAIR, it was a long seamless run, it was an adventurous space opera, completely different. And what about Rainbow Six? Can you say it works like Doom? What about Operation Flashpoint, does it work like Doom? What about Portal where you don't kill anyone, does it play like Doom?
No, you can't talk bout weapons and killing, that's too generic. You have to ANALYZE CRITICALLY and attentively the gameplay mechanics.
And finally MMO's. If it's the genre having PvE how come Planetside had none? If it's the genre having levels how come EVE has none? If it's the genre having quests coming from NPC's how come Anarchy online had none? If it's the genre having a level-progression that's about visiting a sequence of maps scaled to your level, how come Anarchy online didn't have that either?
You actually helped complete what I was going at. In the beginning games from a certain genre were similar. I know wow is not the beginning of the mmo genre, but it is the beginning of the accessible, wide market type of mmo. That's why, in time, I believe even this format can evolve, but it takes time because of the high costs of such a game. GW2 for example, does share certain elements with wow, but at the same time tries to bring new things to the table. Rift is trying to make classes more diverse with changeable talent trees. SWTOR is trying to add a real story. RTS didn't jump from Dune 2 to Supreme Commander or CoH. You can't bring out something completely different because first of all people like to see similarities even if they want something new and secondly I doubt investors will let anyone do radical changes. That's how I see it anyway.
You actually helped complete what I was going at. In the beginning games from a certain genre were similar. I know wow is not the beginning of the mmo genre, but it is the beginning of the accessible, wide market type of mmo. That's why, in time, I believe even this format can evolve, but it takes time because of the high costs of such a game. GW2 for example, does share certain elements with wow, but at the same time tries to bring new things to the table. Rift is trying to make classes more diverse with changeable talent trees. SWTOR is trying to add a real story. RTS didn't jump from Dune 2 to Supreme Commander or CoH. You can't bring out something completely different because first of all people like to see similarities even if they want something new and secondly I doubt investors will let anyone do radical changes. That's how I see it anyway.
when talking about game evolution there is a factor I never considered when I was younger which is time as a gamer. My personal gaming experience demands more evolution in games, but if my age bracket is not of intrest to the gaming community games will not continue to evolve with my needs.
To bring more people into the gaming market for the long term they will want to focus on younger folks and expose them to parts of gaming that I have already been greatly exposed to, which is sad for me.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
You actually helped complete what I was going at. In the beginning games from a certain genre were similar. I know wow is not the beginning of the mmo genre, but it is the beginning of the accessible, wide market type of mmo. That's why, in time, I believe even this format can evolve, but it takes time because of the high costs of such a game. GW2 for example, does share certain elements with wow, but at the same time tries to bring new things to the table. Rift is trying to make classes more diverse with changeable talent trees. SWTOR is trying to add a real story. RTS didn't jump from Dune 2 to Supreme Commander or CoH. You can't bring out something completely different because first of all people like to see similarities even if they want something new and secondly I doubt investors will let anyone do radical changes. That's how I see it anyway.
when talking about game evolution there is a factor I never considered when I was younger which is time as a gamer. My personal gaming experience demands more evolution in games, but if my age bracket is not of intrest to the gaming community games will not continue to evolve with my needs.
To bring more people into the gaming market for the long term they will want to focus on younger folks and expose them to parts of gaming that I have already been greatly exposed to, which is sad for me.
That sounds really sad and something I never thought about at my age. Hope your playstyle won't become obsolete. Though of an example that might bring some hope to you. I really like point and click adventure games. When I was a kid they were in abundance. Then came a large period when there were almost none, but in the latest time more and more are coming out, good ones too.
It is funny how many people are quick to claim that wow did not create anything new and it made up of elements of mmos that already existed. Yet somehow it is also responsible for single handely ruining the entire genre.
It shouldn't be that hard a concept to understand. Blizz used mechanics from around the genre, and placed them together within a coherent flexible package. Yet at the same time they brought down the level of complexity in the design, for a casual audience. Other companies have been following in uniform since.
Blizz still borrows from current MMO's in its updates to WOW. More often than not, so it would seem anyway.
If blizzard uses the same systems, then what is the big hold up for other games to reach the same levels of critical acclaim blizzard has reached? Blizzard didn't just aim for the casual player and they got every segment of the market. PvP, PvE, casual and hardcore alike.
Don't confuse something that is cumbersome or needlessly time consuming as being complex.
A company doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to create a better product. All they have to do is take the available systems that its competition is misusing or under utilizing and make them better. Plain and simple that is what happened.
Taking off the rose colored nostalgia glasses for a moment it isn't hard to see the problems previous mmos had and how much room for improvement there was. The basic philosophy of old mmos went something like this
Release a half finished game and players will fund the last years of development with subscriptions.
Punish players for everything. This will slow down progress and keep them subscribing longer
Limit access to content and this will keep players subscribing longer
Forced downtime is good, again to extend subscription length
Rush out as many additional payment features as fast as possible, because players will still pay
There is more, but that is the basic mindset developers had in the old days. Some enjoyed that, I did, but it clearly was holding back the market to a small niche group of people and not because it was to complex. It was just prohibitive to fun most of the time.
I enjoyed my years of playing mmos prior to 2004, but it just wouldn't be honest if I said those years were filled with complex game designs, they were the pinnacle of mmo systems or something I would ever want to go back to. Quality was extremely lacking, gameplay was filled with frustration and annoyances, mechanics were very simple and game desing tended to be a complete crap shoot with each expansion. Many games suffering horrible declines or setbacks by one poorly designed expansion.
Sure there were a few examples of games that had some complexity or some quality, but even those games were filled with more problems than things were done right.
When a company comes into its competitions backyard and uses their own tools to beat the living crap out of them, then it is pretty easy to see someone was doing something very wrong.
I wouldn't simply say "Blizzard took the tools of their competitors and did it better" as the basic idea of what happened in WoW. I mentioned earlier that one mechanic WoW did have that other MMO's did not have with the possible exception being Final Fantasy and Star wars was an already ardent fan base built on their Warcraft franchise. Having players who were loyal to the series did create a large audience who would've picked up the series solely on the basis of familiarity of the title and curiosity as well.
However, unlike FF, WoW was designed to cater the general US market at first while FF catered initially to the Japanese market. Both games did spread to other venues and areas but their roots started in different areas and that's of particular important as the overall percentage of a population of gamers and overall revenue created by each country will favor the US; the US has more "gamers" in raw numbers and spends more on gaming overall. While S. Korea and Japan have a dedicated gamer base like the US, both lack the overall population numbers that favor the US. This is something that tends to also get missed often with the WoW debate and its place among mmo's.
I'd also say the creation of Diablo helped WoW understand better the mechanics of how they would implement multi-player and game items. Studio recognition also couldn't have hurt as well.
Your basic assessments also on "old~school mmo's" aren't also entirely correct nor are my views "rose-nostalgia colored". One thing I'd say is because a mmo did have a different mechanic, it doesn't mean they were driving in the same direction or evolving to some later stage. I really don't get the idea of saying "WoW did this better than EQ" or the "they beat the competition at their own game". Excuse me, competition? The current market is competition. The market WoW launched under had tons of mmo's but (1) not as many as there are now and (2) of these games only FF and Star Wars had a pror fan base as far as the video game market went.
This doesn't obviously take away from what WoW has accomplished but it does mean that it isn't a case of "WoW did it better than everyone else" either. No matter how you place your argument in support of WoW it will always boil down to the "number of subscribers" because that is really where WoW is "original" or the first among mmo's. One thing that is funny is if this were a college classroom I'd say most WoW arguments rely on the "bigger game based on numbers" is an argumenten ad populum. Big word huh! But it basically boils down to saying I'm right and your wrong because more people believe I am right.
You have tons of ppl who see WoW as a cancer of MMO's and other who love and defend it ardently. There is something that I have to agree with to an extent that WoW, due to its success, has limited and barred developers from exploring the more creative end of designing mmo's and games in general. I remember how when they interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto years ago about Zelda and Wii he said that he wanted to avoid the "Realism of graphics" element in Zelda; that he wanted customers to remember while playing it was a game and that they should be having fun. With all due respect, in light of what the PS3 and Xbox 360 produce, he has a point about where the emphasis lays with respect to realism in graphics and display. I think that most people have that same viewpoint with WoW; its commercial success makes other companies less confident and willing to release something too far ahead of the curve and risk a financially failed product. I also doubt companies are willing to build up their franchise the way WoW has done ever since Warcraft's first premiere. What WoW does is good and shows good evolution in the industry in terms of how the tools, graphics and basis of the game are being continually developed; WoW is an evolution of mmo's from EQ (which is in turn an evolution of Ultima). However I think WoW supports and fans miss a big gaping fact when they say everything is a "WoW clone" or that "WoW does it better than everyone else" and that is the fact that WoW is still a large, active and prime game. EQ was active but no longer considered prime and lets face it without an overall to support new hardware and graphic displays, the game wouldn't compete. FF was a relative unknown for many in the US market. Star Wars lost its fan base in droves when SOE took it online.
Saying "WoW" took the tools of their competitor to beat the crap out of them and its easy to see where it went wrong is pretty erroneous of a statement. How did they do that? Punish players for everything? That's rather over-stating something now isn't it? Forced downtime? Not exactly was the case. There is downtime too in WoW that can be considered forced as well whether its a recast or delayed ability timer so no I don't see that argument holding water either. Release a half-finished game and players will fund the rest? Well then if that's your point why did WoW bother releasing expansions because in theory saying a game is "complete" means nothing other than no additions or add-ons to game content and the existing pools of items. So seriously get off the crap and realize that not every game is "Conan" or what not. And what's with the "rush out as many additional payment features". Really wouldn't this be an idiotic thing to actually include. Shouldn't we better assess a game based on game content and not payment method? We can also say "limited content to force longer periods of subscription fees" but the fact is that its also prevalent in WoW. Its true you can probably start your end game faster in WoW than most other mmo's. But if we go into the merits or lack of it, then your argument would always be based on the argumenten ad populum; it boils down to the number in WoW as a premise as to why it works. Frankly my argument of why ppl prefer stuff faster has had its roots in lack of mmo' gaming dominance pre-WoW and general attitudes of gaming developed from console games (faster and easier rewards, easier and faster progression and straight forward plots and storylines).
But at the end it doesn't matter. ppl who love WoW will always defend it. Its why the internet has words like "nuthugger", fanboy and stuff. I give a fair critique of WoW; its a good game but I'[m not blind as to what may or may not have contributed to its success and its impact on the market. James Cameron has shown with Avatar that something changing only a few things while keeping all else the same can make a storyline like Pocohontas..err I mean Avatar, look good, be successful and have everyone call it a "creative work of art and original in its development".
I wouldn't simply say "Blizzard took the tools of their competitors and did it better" as the basic idea of what happened in WoW.
<<clipped to keep things short>>
A very well done post sdeleon. I don't agree with all of it, but it was very well said.
First, the words you quote above I may have said or agree with, but they are first and formost the words of naysayers who say wow didn't do anything new. That it just stole ideas and polished them up, which essentially is true. It does really summarize what happened quite well though, but most people don't see that wow was about evolution and instead focus complaints about the lack of revolution (ie innovation). Sort of like complaining that the 2012 model year for a car is better than the 2009 model, but complain that it can't fly or something else that cars have never done.
As for popular franchises, star wars is certainly larger and I can only guess that final fantasy is much larger as it looks to have sold 97 million copies sold (I am not very familiar with FF). Lets not forget the sims online which is the most popular PC title of all times.
There are also many other IPs that have had equally big or larger fan bases. Warhammer, Conan, Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the rings, Star Trek, etc etc. Just like there have been many other well funded experienced development houses involved in the market. Electronic Art, Microsoft, NCSoft, Sony, etc.
The point it that it takes more than an IP, funding, experience and marketing to make a success story in mmos. Nor it is just an argument based on subscriptions being bigger in wow and therefor it must be the best as you suggest. That is the result of what happened and should not be confused as the reason for something happening. I'm sure we both understand that.
All one needs to look at is the initial reviews and ratings of wow at release and compare it to the rest of the market at the time. Consistant scores of 90% plus, rave reviews, awards and recommendations. 'Polish' wasn't a description that was used to describe mmos prior to wow if that says anything about the standards it set. The dominant mentality of the time was that mmos were released incomplete, buggy and needed a minimum of 12+ months to get things to a functional state. We are not talking about minor tweaks either. Just look at the condition of EQ2 for an example of what companies considered to be an acceptable condition for a game to release in. That is what I meant when I said games were not "finished".
Maybe I didn't do a good job of describing my points in the previous post or you are just missing them, I don't know. Sorry if I wasn't clear though.
I will say this though. I'm sure many here see me as some crazy fanboy ow wow (yes I got your message), but truth is I am just as ready for a new mmo as everyone else here. I'm just as dissatisfied with the genre as everyone else is, but I am less bored with wow than other games. I just don't feel the failures of so many other companies are the fault of the few companies that did things well and have prospered as a result of setting goals and reaching them.
Just so you don't misunder stand again, when I say things "right" I mean to an acceptable level. Like having dungeons itemized with level appropriate gear (or itemized at all), a crafting system that isn't filled with broken/missing recipes and doesn't need a complete overhaul, a class system that is so bloated and illdesigned that it requires a complete overhaul after players have spent a year developing their characters and then have their primary playstyle completely altered into something that barely represents what they originally enjoyed.
I think we all expect bugs and performance issues, but there is such a world of difference in the degree of many mmos in terms of quantity and severity of those problems. Thats why I don't think it is being genuine when people generalize these issues as "all games have problems" as saying that makes them all equal in nature.
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
Sounds like a fan boy, must be a fan boy. Your ignorance is quite amusing.
So a bunch of teenage boys and/or ignorant tards that plays a game that leads the industry is privileged to call any game to come after it a "WoW Clone"? You fail.
Why would people that despise WoW create a word like WoW Clone, thnk about it, You make absolutely no sense, you need to start thinking before you click submit, seriously. WoW clone used by WoW players because they think WoW is superior to all others which makes all games NOT as good so "supposely" they copied it from WoW. Go back to your game and let the grown ups debate.
Like I said, go on with your bad self arguing insubstantial novelties as differentiating factors. The rest of us aren't fooled. We'll call a spade a spade.
IMO you're being obtuse for the simple sake of playing the troll and bait game. You'll only get a reply out of me when you make arguments worth debating. Until then, it's just blah blah blah from you which I'll happily ignore.
Yeah and you're argument is superb, totally ignoring my reply. Good job! You have no experience in games to be able to explain anything.
You're just being completing closed minding equaling ignorance. WoW's a mmorpg, yes, but for you to say every other MMORPG after it a clone of it, is ridiculous. But nothing before it is called a WoW clone. Awesome! All mmorpgs must be clones than. Any MMORPGs that have classes, quests, weapons, crafting, monsters, etc.
I am so glad to see so many people sick of the "accessibility standards".
I have to agree with you there, as most of the posters have covered I have been following this thread through out the day at work and now just getting the chance to respond, as stated before WOW didnt re-invent the wheel, it borrowed off many concepts from other MMOs and refing and improving on them and streamlining it for the masses , success doesn't come instantly for the MMORPG genre it built its playerbase over time and excessive polish to their game, however WOW does have its flaws seperate from the extremely flawed and rabid community , you have a accessible , polished game that over time up to today has been watered down to the point where at each expansion it is basically a reset as another poster put it, what does WOW really offer, after the leveling to the (endgame) a word I don't like using because MMO's don't end , we have raids and achievements, and loot treadmills that get reset every expansion? What else is there to do?
You have newer MMO's that try emulate WOW's success but cant match the polish or the development cycle or budgets, then you have MMO's that blatantly try and produce a knock off (Allods, RoM, Alaganon). WOW was meant to open the doors to first time MMO players and nongamers this is where accessibility comes in, ok its been 6 yrs why do you need more accessible (training wheel MMOs) do we really need? How many super casual MMOs do we need? For the casual camp, the arguement of not having time to play these games, if newer MMOs and mostly all of them are casual themed how do they find time to play one game let alone 10-15 others made poorly and offer little to no difference to WOW?
How many of these great WOW type alternatives are doing well with strong casual based communities? I could say most WOW players have played nothing but WOW and never tried another MMO in their lives and the ones who have look down on it cause it didnt meets the standards of WOW? Why does a MMO need millions of subs? A good game has a solid community of experienced players who help and come together and go out of their way to make their time in that world and others as enjoyable experience as it can get?
Clones and yes there are quite a few out there today and more on the way, what do they have to offer that WOW doesn't ? Small differences? Story? Voice Overs? Cutscenes? Disguised Grinding? What can set apart an obivious WOW clone and a unique experience? Features that have been purposely left for years and people longing for them to return.
Where's the world building? Player Housing? Decorating? In-depth Crafting that has meaningful value? Resource gathering that everything isn't the same? World Politics? Player economy? Non-Combat Roles? Taverns and social hubs that have great minigames to tide over the wait for the next group to form? Casinos? Dyanmic World Bosses , GM Events, Naval Combat, Dyanmic NPCs, Hidden Areas and secrets, Hidden Quest Lines in the form of random chance encounters with a traveling NPC, In-depth customization of characters, Alliances, 3 or more factions, etc.
Where is all that I listed above in MMO's these days? More than likely most WOW players have never played a game with any of those features and ones that have played with those features involved where flawed or horribly implmented or just needed to be refined and polished. Who's to say those features arent important if they never tried to improve on them maybe people just might pick up on it and might like it? Of course these studios are seeing the $$$ signs because of WOW and want to make a profit, but to offer the same game with a different skin and offering nothing but achievements and raids isn't going to make much of a profit for long term if you don't give more features to play with. Not once yet have I seen a studio implment yet over the last 6 yrs features that I list that are missing today make the effort to improve on the flaws of these systems and make them where people would play them or make them optional, how are people going to know what their missing if they don't know about them?
Wow, I have a whole lota pages thread based on my quote. Thanks for making me famous. Lemme expand by "WoW clone".
My first MMO was Ragnarok Online open beta. This is back in high school when there were 2 servers with 5k people on each and a response time of 1000+ ms because the servers were very congested. So, what was RO?
RO, was at core, a grinder and semi-sandbox. I then moved onto Final Fantasy XI a few years later and it was the exact same thing. It was a grinder and a semi-sandbox. In both games, things weren't laid out for you to do, you had to research, be social, find friends and you'd have the occasional (rare) quest that would give you a reward which was highly saught for. In otherwords, quests weren't the main source of exp, it was through party grinds. From what I've read, this gameplay style was heavily borrowed off Everquest I.
Then, one day, World of Warcraft launched. Since WoW has came out, every game and their mother has been a theme park game. You do quests to level up, you hit end game, and you farm for items. The ONLY game that is different from this is EvE Online.
Think back to the pre-WoW era. Most Korean MMOs were grinders; pure complete grinders. No quests, no in game story, just grind grind grind PK PK PK. Why? They were based off the most successful MMO at that time, Lineage. There were also many MMOs based off Diablo 2 (hell, Diablo 2 could have been an MMO).
Lets take a look at some recent MMOs
Age of Conan: This game is utter garbage. I tried it, twice, once at launch...and once after the expansion. It copies World of Warcraft so damn hard in the leveling system, and then goes onto put a bunch of 5-mans here and there. I do not give a rats ass about PvP because I spend 30 minutes to my entire day PvPing in StarCraft where it's about reading your opponent and not bullshit numbers. In the end, AoC, was just another WoW clone (with BGs to boot).
Warhammer Online: Do I really need to talk about this? It's the same crap as the above. If I can't get past level 20 without thinking "Holy shit, this is like WoW" I might as well just cancel the sub and go back to WoW!
Aion: Oh what a hypefest you were, and I loved your graphics: too bad you were another WoW clone. I was one of the first people to hit 50 in Aion. Granted, I botted my ass off, but that's because we ended up running out of quests. For the love of God, even Aion had grindable 5-mans. The problem? Well, PvP sucked, so I went to go play Bad Company 2. But here I was again, doing the same fucking quests, and the same fucking 5 mans, thinking I might as well just go play WoW.
Runes of Magic: LOL Go look at the starter town. It even looks like the starting human town in WoW. And here we go with the same damn grind, w/ the same damn instances.
So what is a WoW clone?
A WoW clone is a game that follows this formula: quest grind into 5 man instance grinds into raids
What did WoW do that FFXI and Everquest didn't? They changed grinding into theme park/quest grinding and added heavy instancing. What is every game doing now? SAME CRAP AS ABOVE.
Now sometimes a game is able to mask it's WoW-cloniness with a great battle system or something, an example is Atlantica Online....however....I'll end my post w/ a very simple point:
Why the fuck would you copy a formula from a MMO that has the world's largest subscriber base? If they're constantly expirementing to see what raises subs and what lowers sub, then another company copies, those companies are ALWAYS going to be one step behind. So they want a piece of the pie? TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Insanity is doing the same shit over and over again expecting different results. Many games have done the same shit (ie. what WoW did) to try and 'dethrone' WoW....you'd think the devs would have learned off each other.....or not.
I think my biggest problem with the WoW formula is the outright murder of exploration as an element of game play. The questing formula is relatively standard... However, the guess-work and thought of quests is removed. The questing scheme is the same: Start in quest hub, do all of quests in hub, follow quest that sends you to next hub, rinse, repeat. Exploration is ultimately superfluous; where once you could wander around a zone and encounter quests you'd never seen before, or areas with unique elements, you're instead railroaded from quest hub to quest hub each filled with bland and uninteresting quests.
Vanilla WoW was actually pretty decent about this. Exploration actually meant something beyond an achievement flashing across the bottom of your screen, and you could sometimes encounter quests in areas you normally had very little reason to actually go, or strange little areas that had a whole lot of personality but no direct XP gain purpose. Burning Crusade started the railroad, and Wrath of the Lich King established it completely. In Northrend, if it's not the local quest hub, or a quest doesn't send you there, chances are it's an empty space filled with a few random mobs that otherwise has no meaning.
Exploration was once a fun and rewarding way to pass the time that involved a bit more thought, curiosity, and spirit than racing through a zone as quickly as possible on your mount to get the achievement flashes. Since the WoW-style Quest Hub Or Bust system has become the norm, that element no longer means anything at all.
Yeah and you're argument is superb, totally ignoring my reply. Good job! You have no experience in games to be able to explain anything.
You're just being completing closed minding equaling ignorance. WoW's a mmorpg, yes, but for you to say every other MMORPG after it a clone of it, is ridiculous. But nothing before it is called a WoW clone. Awesome! All mmorpgs must be clones than. Any MMORPGs that have classes, quests, weapons, crafting, monsters, etc.
I guess Runescape is a WoW clone as well.
Not every game is a wow clone. Fallen Earth and Darkfall certainly aren't, and of course Eve isn't. But most mmos that have released after wow are wow clones. Vanguard, AOC, WAR, STO, LOTRO, Aion. Those are the most hyped up AAA releases in the last few years and all have been wow clones. Small variations, but essentially the same game different skin. I will concede that Vanguard and WAR at least tried to tack on something a bit different (Vanguard had player housing and much more in-depth crafting and WAR had PVP lakes), but they're still essentially the same in the end.
I've at least provided examples in my posts numerous times, you just flame. So who here really has any gaming experience to back up their claims. The one providing examples or the numbnut flaming away.
At this stage ... it is any mmorpg being produced since WOW.
And still not being able to reproduce (by a LONG shot) the unhampered, fast, responsive controls of the avatars:
At least .... : that's the view of those 20.000.000 past and present players. We ignore for practical purposes the 215 forum grinders logged in on this site. Because they represent 0.00001075% of the players.
At this stage ... it is any mmorpg being produced since WOW.
And still not being able to reproduce (by a LONG shot) the unhampered, fast, responsive controls of the avatars:
At least .... : that's the view of those 20.000.000 past and present players. We ignore for practical purposes the 215 forum grinders logged in on this site. Because they represent 0.00001075% of the players.
I think you hit on something WoW does that more recent releases fail to do. WoW has smooth gameplay, can be played on quite old (by modern standards) computers, and uses minimal internet connections. A friend of mine sticks with WoW because he doesn't have access to high-speed internet, and WoW runs fine with his dial up connection.
Perhaps an MMO company should stress these points. With mediocre graphics, perhaps they could reduce their dev costs enough to take some risks with gameplay features. Perhaps the real competition for WoW won't be a step forward (WoW with better graphics) but a step sideways (not better engine but different gameplay).
Yeah and you're argument is superb, totally ignoring my reply. Good job! You have no experience in games to be able to explain anything.
You're just being completing closed minding equaling ignorance. WoW's a mmorpg, yes, but for you to say every other MMORPG after it a clone of it, is ridiculous. But nothing before it is called a WoW clone. Awesome! All mmorpgs must be clones than. Any MMORPGs that have classes, quests, weapons, crafting, monsters, etc.
I guess Runescape is a WoW clone as well.
Not every game is a wow clone. Fallen Earth and Darkfall certainly aren't, and of course Eve isn't. But most mmos that have released after wow are wow clones. Vanguard, AOC, WAR, STO, LOTRO, Aion. Those are the most hyped up AAA releases in the last few years and all have been wow clones. Small variations, but essentially the same game different skin. I will concede that Vanguard and WAR at least tried to tack on something a bit different (Vanguard had player housing and much more in-depth crafting and WAR had PVP lakes), but they're still essentially the same in the end.
I've at least provided examples in my posts numerous times, you just flame. So who here really has any gaming experience to back up their claims. The one providing examples or the numbnut flaming away.
What examples have you provided? Examples that are obvious to everyone but you dumbing it down to make it seem like you're right? 3D Fantasy MMORPG's have been around years before WoW's time. You say WoW is superior because they have been leading the industry for 5 years that's why every game after WoW ("except for FE & DF") is called a WoW clone, but what about the AAA games (at that time) before it? Let's call that game "X game" was leading before WoW, why isn't a term "X game clone" ever existed then? Because WoW CLEARLY had to copy mechanics from other games, and if you don't believe that than I'm done talking to you.
You make it sound like WoW was the first 3D MMORPG ever to be created to use WASD to move, mouse to view and attack, quests, monsters, crafting etc. That's the vibe i'm getting from you. If i'm wrong, tell me, but every argument you keep coming out with is the same crap which isn't explaining anything. You're saying the same mechanics with different skins, what do you think previous MMORPGs were like before WoW?
Let me ask you something though, when you say WoW clone, are you referring the word as actually a World of Warcraft clone or do you mean the word WoW actually means MMORPG in general? I would rreally like to know. You're bouncing back and forth saying MOST games released after WoW are actually WoW clones but at the same time, you're saying mechanics of games are the same meaning the word WoW actually means MMORPG.
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I am so glad to see so many people sick of the "accessibility standards".
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If blizzard uses the same systems, then what is the big hold up for other games to reach the same levels of critical acclaim blizzard has reached? Blizzard didn't just aim for the casual player and they got every segment of the market. PvP, PvE, casual and hardcore alike.
Don't confuse something that is cumbersome or needlessly time consuming as being complex.
A company doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to create a better product. All they have to do is take the available systems that its competition is misusing or under utilizing and make them better. Plain and simple that is what happened.
Taking off the rose colored nostalgia glasses for a moment it isn't hard to see the problems previous mmos had and how much room for improvement there was. The basic philosophy of old mmos went something like this
Release a half finished game and players will fund the last years of development with subscriptions.
Punish players for everything. This will slow down progress and keep them subscribing longer
Limit access to content and this will keep players subscribing longer
Forced downtime is good, again to extend subscription length
Rush out as many additional payment features as fast as possible, because players will still pay
There is more, but that is the basic mindset developers had in the old days. Some enjoyed that, I did, but it clearly was holding back the market to a small niche group of people and not because it was to complex. It was just prohibitive to fun most of the time.
I enjoyed my years of playing mmos prior to 2004, but it just wouldn't be honest if I said those years were filled with complex game designs, they were the pinnacle of mmo systems or something I would ever want to go back to. Quality was extremely lacking, gameplay was filled with frustration and annoyances, mechanics were very simple and game desing tended to be a complete crap shoot with each expansion. Many games suffering horrible declines or setbacks by one poorly designed expansion.
Sure there were a few examples of games that had some complexity or some quality, but even those games were filled with more problems than things were done right.
When a company comes into its competitions backyard and uses their own tools to beat the living crap out of them, then it is pretty easy to see someone was doing something very wrong.
OK OP, i will concede to a point. There IS such a thing as a "WoW clone" Runes of magic. And ONLY because it copied the UI graphics, and gameplay graphics from WoW. Everything else is an MMORPG.
You actually helped complete what I was going at. In the beginning games from a certain genre were similar. I know wow is not the beginning of the mmo genre, but it is the beginning of the accessible, wide market type of mmo. That's why, in time, I believe even this format can evolve, but it takes time because of the high costs of such a game. GW2 for example, does share certain elements with wow, but at the same time tries to bring new things to the table. Rift is trying to make classes more diverse with changeable talent trees. SWTOR is trying to add a real story. RTS didn't jump from Dune 2 to Supreme Commander or CoH. You can't bring out something completely different because first of all people like to see similarities even if they want something new and secondly I doubt investors will let anyone do radical changes. That's how I see it anyway.
when talking about game evolution there is a factor I never considered when I was younger which is time as a gamer. My personal gaming experience demands more evolution in games, but if my age bracket is not of intrest to the gaming community games will not continue to evolve with my needs.
To bring more people into the gaming market for the long term they will want to focus on younger folks and expose them to parts of gaming that I have already been greatly exposed to, which is sad for me.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
That sounds really sad and something I never thought about at my age. Hope your playstyle won't become obsolete. Though of an example that might bring some hope to you. I really like point and click adventure games. When I was a kid they were in abundance. Then came a large period when there were almost none, but in the latest time more and more are coming out, good ones too.
I wouldn't simply say "Blizzard took the tools of their competitors and did it better" as the basic idea of what happened in WoW. I mentioned earlier that one mechanic WoW did have that other MMO's did not have with the possible exception being Final Fantasy and Star wars was an already ardent fan base built on their Warcraft franchise. Having players who were loyal to the series did create a large audience who would've picked up the series solely on the basis of familiarity of the title and curiosity as well.
However, unlike FF, WoW was designed to cater the general US market at first while FF catered initially to the Japanese market. Both games did spread to other venues and areas but their roots started in different areas and that's of particular important as the overall percentage of a population of gamers and overall revenue created by each country will favor the US; the US has more "gamers" in raw numbers and spends more on gaming overall. While S. Korea and Japan have a dedicated gamer base like the US, both lack the overall population numbers that favor the US. This is something that tends to also get missed often with the WoW debate and its place among mmo's.
I'd also say the creation of Diablo helped WoW understand better the mechanics of how they would implement multi-player and game items. Studio recognition also couldn't have hurt as well.
Your basic assessments also on "old~school mmo's" aren't also entirely correct nor are my views "rose-nostalgia colored". One thing I'd say is because a mmo did have a different mechanic, it doesn't mean they were driving in the same direction or evolving to some later stage. I really don't get the idea of saying "WoW did this better than EQ" or the "they beat the competition at their own game". Excuse me, competition? The current market is competition. The market WoW launched under had tons of mmo's but (1) not as many as there are now and (2) of these games only FF and Star Wars had a pror fan base as far as the video game market went.
This doesn't obviously take away from what WoW has accomplished but it does mean that it isn't a case of "WoW did it better than everyone else" either. No matter how you place your argument in support of WoW it will always boil down to the "number of subscribers" because that is really where WoW is "original" or the first among mmo's. One thing that is funny is if this were a college classroom I'd say most WoW arguments rely on the "bigger game based on numbers" is an argumenten ad populum. Big word huh! But it basically boils down to saying I'm right and your wrong because more people believe I am right.
You have tons of ppl who see WoW as a cancer of MMO's and other who love and defend it ardently. There is something that I have to agree with to an extent that WoW, due to its success, has limited and barred developers from exploring the more creative end of designing mmo's and games in general. I remember how when they interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto years ago about Zelda and Wii he said that he wanted to avoid the "Realism of graphics" element in Zelda; that he wanted customers to remember while playing it was a game and that they should be having fun. With all due respect, in light of what the PS3 and Xbox 360 produce, he has a point about where the emphasis lays with respect to realism in graphics and display. I think that most people have that same viewpoint with WoW; its commercial success makes other companies less confident and willing to release something too far ahead of the curve and risk a financially failed product. I also doubt companies are willing to build up their franchise the way WoW has done ever since Warcraft's first premiere. What WoW does is good and shows good evolution in the industry in terms of how the tools, graphics and basis of the game are being continually developed; WoW is an evolution of mmo's from EQ (which is in turn an evolution of Ultima). However I think WoW supports and fans miss a big gaping fact when they say everything is a "WoW clone" or that "WoW does it better than everyone else" and that is the fact that WoW is still a large, active and prime game. EQ was active but no longer considered prime and lets face it without an overall to support new hardware and graphic displays, the game wouldn't compete. FF was a relative unknown for many in the US market. Star Wars lost its fan base in droves when SOE took it online.
Saying "WoW" took the tools of their competitor to beat the crap out of them and its easy to see where it went wrong is pretty erroneous of a statement. How did they do that? Punish players for everything? That's rather over-stating something now isn't it? Forced downtime? Not exactly was the case. There is downtime too in WoW that can be considered forced as well whether its a recast or delayed ability timer so no I don't see that argument holding water either. Release a half-finished game and players will fund the rest? Well then if that's your point why did WoW bother releasing expansions because in theory saying a game is "complete" means nothing other than no additions or add-ons to game content and the existing pools of items. So seriously get off the crap and realize that not every game is "Conan" or what not. And what's with the "rush out as many additional payment features". Really wouldn't this be an idiotic thing to actually include. Shouldn't we better assess a game based on game content and not payment method? We can also say "limited content to force longer periods of subscription fees" but the fact is that its also prevalent in WoW. Its true you can probably start your end game faster in WoW than most other mmo's. But if we go into the merits or lack of it, then your argument would always be based on the argumenten ad populum; it boils down to the number in WoW as a premise as to why it works. Frankly my argument of why ppl prefer stuff faster has had its roots in lack of mmo' gaming dominance pre-WoW and general attitudes of gaming developed from console games (faster and easier rewards, easier and faster progression and straight forward plots and storylines).
But at the end it doesn't matter. ppl who love WoW will always defend it. Its why the internet has words like "nuthugger", fanboy and stuff. I give a fair critique of WoW; its a good game but I'[m not blind as to what may or may not have contributed to its success and its impact on the market. James Cameron has shown with Avatar that something changing only a few things while keeping all else the same can make a storyline like Pocohontas..err I mean Avatar, look good, be successful and have everyone call it a "creative work of art and original in its development".
A very well done post sdeleon. I don't agree with all of it, but it was very well said.
First, the words you quote above I may have said or agree with, but they are first and formost the words of naysayers who say wow didn't do anything new. That it just stole ideas and polished them up, which essentially is true. It does really summarize what happened quite well though, but most people don't see that wow was about evolution and instead focus complaints about the lack of revolution (ie innovation). Sort of like complaining that the 2012 model year for a car is better than the 2009 model, but complain that it can't fly or something else that cars have never done.
As for popular franchises, star wars is certainly larger and I can only guess that final fantasy is much larger as it looks to have sold 97 million copies sold (I am not very familiar with FF). Lets not forget the sims online which is the most popular PC title of all times.
There are also many other IPs that have had equally big or larger fan bases. Warhammer, Conan, Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the rings, Star Trek, etc etc. Just like there have been many other well funded experienced development houses involved in the market. Electronic Art, Microsoft, NCSoft, Sony, etc.
The point it that it takes more than an IP, funding, experience and marketing to make a success story in mmos. Nor it is just an argument based on subscriptions being bigger in wow and therefor it must be the best as you suggest. That is the result of what happened and should not be confused as the reason for something happening. I'm sure we both understand that.
All one needs to look at is the initial reviews and ratings of wow at release and compare it to the rest of the market at the time. Consistant scores of 90% plus, rave reviews, awards and recommendations. 'Polish' wasn't a description that was used to describe mmos prior to wow if that says anything about the standards it set. The dominant mentality of the time was that mmos were released incomplete, buggy and needed a minimum of 12+ months to get things to a functional state. We are not talking about minor tweaks either. Just look at the condition of EQ2 for an example of what companies considered to be an acceptable condition for a game to release in. That is what I meant when I said games were not "finished".
Maybe I didn't do a good job of describing my points in the previous post or you are just missing them, I don't know. Sorry if I wasn't clear though.
I will say this though. I'm sure many here see me as some crazy fanboy ow wow (yes I got your message), but truth is I am just as ready for a new mmo as everyone else here. I'm just as dissatisfied with the genre as everyone else is, but I am less bored with wow than other games. I just don't feel the failures of so many other companies are the fault of the few companies that did things well and have prospered as a result of setting goals and reaching them.
Just so you don't misunder stand again, when I say things "right" I mean to an acceptable level. Like having dungeons itemized with level appropriate gear (or itemized at all), a crafting system that isn't filled with broken/missing recipes and doesn't need a complete overhaul, a class system that is so bloated and illdesigned that it requires a complete overhaul after players have spent a year developing their characters and then have their primary playstyle completely altered into something that barely represents what they originally enjoyed.
I think we all expect bugs and performance issues, but there is such a world of difference in the degree of many mmos in terms of quantity and severity of those problems. Thats why I don't think it is being genuine when people generalize these issues as "all games have problems" as saying that makes them all equal in nature.
Yeah and you're argument is superb, totally ignoring my reply. Good job! You have no experience in games to be able to explain anything.
You're just being completing closed minding equaling ignorance. WoW's a mmorpg, yes, but for you to say every other MMORPG after it a clone of it, is ridiculous. But nothing before it is called a WoW clone. Awesome! All mmorpgs must be clones than. Any MMORPGs that have classes, quests, weapons, crafting, monsters, etc.
I guess Runescape is a WoW clone as well.
I have to agree with you there, as most of the posters have covered I have been following this thread through out the day at work and now just getting the chance to respond, as stated before WOW didnt re-invent the wheel, it borrowed off many concepts from other MMOs and refing and improving on them and streamlining it for the masses , success doesn't come instantly for the MMORPG genre it built its playerbase over time and excessive polish to their game, however WOW does have its flaws seperate from the extremely flawed and rabid community , you have a accessible , polished game that over time up to today has been watered down to the point where at each expansion it is basically a reset as another poster put it, what does WOW really offer, after the leveling to the (endgame) a word I don't like using because MMO's don't end , we have raids and achievements, and loot treadmills that get reset every expansion? What else is there to do?
You have newer MMO's that try emulate WOW's success but cant match the polish or the development cycle or budgets, then you have MMO's that blatantly try and produce a knock off (Allods, RoM, Alaganon). WOW was meant to open the doors to first time MMO players and nongamers this is where accessibility comes in, ok its been 6 yrs why do you need more accessible (training wheel MMOs) do we really need? How many super casual MMOs do we need? For the casual camp, the arguement of not having time to play these games, if newer MMOs and mostly all of them are casual themed how do they find time to play one game let alone 10-15 others made poorly and offer little to no difference to WOW?
How many of these great WOW type alternatives are doing well with strong casual based communities? I could say most WOW players have played nothing but WOW and never tried another MMO in their lives and the ones who have look down on it cause it didnt meets the standards of WOW? Why does a MMO need millions of subs? A good game has a solid community of experienced players who help and come together and go out of their way to make their time in that world and others as enjoyable experience as it can get?
Clones and yes there are quite a few out there today and more on the way, what do they have to offer that WOW doesn't ? Small differences? Story? Voice Overs? Cutscenes? Disguised Grinding? What can set apart an obivious WOW clone and a unique experience? Features that have been purposely left for years and people longing for them to return.
Where's the world building? Player Housing? Decorating? In-depth Crafting that has meaningful value? Resource gathering that everything isn't the same? World Politics? Player economy? Non-Combat Roles? Taverns and social hubs that have great minigames to tide over the wait for the next group to form? Casinos? Dyanmic World Bosses , GM Events, Naval Combat, Dyanmic NPCs, Hidden Areas and secrets, Hidden Quest Lines in the form of random chance encounters with a traveling NPC, In-depth customization of characters, Alliances, 3 or more factions, etc.
Where is all that I listed above in MMO's these days? More than likely most WOW players have never played a game with any of those features and ones that have played with those features involved where flawed or horribly implmented or just needed to be refined and polished. Who's to say those features arent important if they never tried to improve on them maybe people just might pick up on it and might like it? Of course these studios are seeing the $$$ signs because of WOW and want to make a profit, but to offer the same game with a different skin and offering nothing but achievements and raids isn't going to make much of a profit for long term if you don't give more features to play with. Not once yet have I seen a studio implment yet over the last 6 yrs features that I list that are missing today make the effort to improve on the flaws of these systems and make them where people would play them or make them optional, how are people going to know what their missing if they don't know about them?
Wow, I have a whole lota pages thread based on my quote. Thanks for making me famous. Lemme expand by "WoW clone".
My first MMO was Ragnarok Online open beta. This is back in high school when there were 2 servers with 5k people on each and a response time of 1000+ ms because the servers were very congested. So, what was RO?
RO, was at core, a grinder and semi-sandbox. I then moved onto Final Fantasy XI a few years later and it was the exact same thing. It was a grinder and a semi-sandbox. In both games, things weren't laid out for you to do, you had to research, be social, find friends and you'd have the occasional (rare) quest that would give you a reward which was highly saught for. In otherwords, quests weren't the main source of exp, it was through party grinds. From what I've read, this gameplay style was heavily borrowed off Everquest I.
Then, one day, World of Warcraft launched. Since WoW has came out, every game and their mother has been a theme park game. You do quests to level up, you hit end game, and you farm for items. The ONLY game that is different from this is EvE Online.
Think back to the pre-WoW era. Most Korean MMOs were grinders; pure complete grinders. No quests, no in game story, just grind grind grind PK PK PK. Why? They were based off the most successful MMO at that time, Lineage. There were also many MMOs based off Diablo 2 (hell, Diablo 2 could have been an MMO).
Lets take a look at some recent MMOs
Age of Conan: This game is utter garbage. I tried it, twice, once at launch...and once after the expansion. It copies World of Warcraft so damn hard in the leveling system, and then goes onto put a bunch of 5-mans here and there. I do not give a rats ass about PvP because I spend 30 minutes to my entire day PvPing in StarCraft where it's about reading your opponent and not bullshit numbers. In the end, AoC, was just another WoW clone (with BGs to boot).
Warhammer Online: Do I really need to talk about this? It's the same crap as the above. If I can't get past level 20 without thinking "Holy shit, this is like WoW" I might as well just cancel the sub and go back to WoW!
Aion: Oh what a hypefest you were, and I loved your graphics: too bad you were another WoW clone. I was one of the first people to hit 50 in Aion. Granted, I botted my ass off, but that's because we ended up running out of quests. For the love of God, even Aion had grindable 5-mans. The problem? Well, PvP sucked, so I went to go play Bad Company 2. But here I was again, doing the same fucking quests, and the same fucking 5 mans, thinking I might as well just go play WoW.
Runes of Magic: LOL Go look at the starter town. It even looks like the starting human town in WoW. And here we go with the same damn grind, w/ the same damn instances.
So what is a WoW clone?
A WoW clone is a game that follows this formula: quest grind into 5 man instance grinds into raids
What did WoW do that FFXI and Everquest didn't? They changed grinding into theme park/quest grinding and added heavy instancing. What is every game doing now? SAME CRAP AS ABOVE.
Now sometimes a game is able to mask it's WoW-cloniness with a great battle system or something, an example is Atlantica Online....however....I'll end my post w/ a very simple point:
Why the fuck would you copy a formula from a MMO that has the world's largest subscriber base? If they're constantly expirementing to see what raises subs and what lowers sub, then another company copies, those companies are ALWAYS going to be one step behind. So they want a piece of the pie? TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Insanity is doing the same shit over and over again expecting different results. Many games have done the same shit (ie. what WoW did) to try and 'dethrone' WoW....you'd think the devs would have learned off each other.....or not.
I think my biggest problem with the WoW formula is the outright murder of exploration as an element of game play. The questing formula is relatively standard... However, the guess-work and thought of quests is removed. The questing scheme is the same: Start in quest hub, do all of quests in hub, follow quest that sends you to next hub, rinse, repeat. Exploration is ultimately superfluous; where once you could wander around a zone and encounter quests you'd never seen before, or areas with unique elements, you're instead railroaded from quest hub to quest hub each filled with bland and uninteresting quests.
Vanilla WoW was actually pretty decent about this. Exploration actually meant something beyond an achievement flashing across the bottom of your screen, and you could sometimes encounter quests in areas you normally had very little reason to actually go, or strange little areas that had a whole lot of personality but no direct XP gain purpose. Burning Crusade started the railroad, and Wrath of the Lich King established it completely. In Northrend, if it's not the local quest hub, or a quest doesn't send you there, chances are it's an empty space filled with a few random mobs that otherwise has no meaning.
Exploration was once a fun and rewarding way to pass the time that involved a bit more thought, curiosity, and spirit than racing through a zone as quickly as possible on your mount to get the achievement flashes. Since the WoW-style Quest Hub Or Bust system has become the norm, that element no longer means anything at all.
Not every game is a wow clone. Fallen Earth and Darkfall certainly aren't, and of course Eve isn't. But most mmos that have released after wow are wow clones. Vanguard, AOC, WAR, STO, LOTRO, Aion. Those are the most hyped up AAA releases in the last few years and all have been wow clones. Small variations, but essentially the same game different skin. I will concede that Vanguard and WAR at least tried to tack on something a bit different (Vanguard had player housing and much more in-depth crafting and WAR had PVP lakes), but they're still essentially the same in the end.
I've at least provided examples in my posts numerous times, you just flame. So who here really has any gaming experience to back up their claims. The one providing examples or the numbnut flaming away.
What is a WoW clone?
Whats worst than the WOW clone is the "Asian Grinder" Clone.
At this stage ... it is any mmorpg being produced since WOW.
And still not being able to reproduce (by a LONG shot) the unhampered, fast, responsive controls of the avatars:
At least .... : that's the view of those 20.000.000 past and present players. We ignore for practical purposes the 215 forum grinders logged in on this site. Because they represent 0.00001075% of the players.
The way the term is used, it sure seems like it is.
People use the term as an insult but it is so random. People use that to describe something when they can't think of anything else.
I think you hit on something WoW does that more recent releases fail to do. WoW has smooth gameplay, can be played on quite old (by modern standards) computers, and uses minimal internet connections. A friend of mine sticks with WoW because he doesn't have access to high-speed internet, and WoW runs fine with his dial up connection.
Perhaps an MMO company should stress these points. With mediocre graphics, perhaps they could reduce their dev costs enough to take some risks with gameplay features. Perhaps the real competition for WoW won't be a step forward (WoW with better graphics) but a step sideways (not better engine but different gameplay).
What examples have you provided? Examples that are obvious to everyone but you dumbing it down to make it seem like you're right? 3D Fantasy MMORPG's have been around years before WoW's time. You say WoW is superior because they have been leading the industry for 5 years that's why every game after WoW ("except for FE & DF") is called a WoW clone, but what about the AAA games (at that time) before it? Let's call that game "X game" was leading before WoW, why isn't a term "X game clone" ever existed then? Because WoW CLEARLY had to copy mechanics from other games, and if you don't believe that than I'm done talking to you.
You make it sound like WoW was the first 3D MMORPG ever to be created to use WASD to move, mouse to view and attack, quests, monsters, crafting etc. That's the vibe i'm getting from you. If i'm wrong, tell me, but every argument you keep coming out with is the same crap which isn't explaining anything. You're saying the same mechanics with different skins, what do you think previous MMORPGs were like before WoW?
Let me ask you something though, when you say WoW clone, are you referring the word as actually a World of Warcraft clone or do you mean the word WoW actually means MMORPG in general? I would rreally like to know. You're bouncing back and forth saying MOST games released after WoW are actually WoW clones but at the same time, you're saying mechanics of games are the same meaning the word WoW actually means MMORPG.