I think you are wrong on that - Blizzard did not examine the market, they hired some eq1-raiders and let them design the raids. The quest-chains have been implemented by accident during the last stages of beta. Blizz added to that a single player GAME (they really know how to create games, kudos), but they decided not to add a WORLD (see http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=5610#764fa). That concept was sadly successful, mostly driven by the IP, the name "Blizzard" and a big marketing budget.
There is a lot more to wow when it released than just raids and I'm pretty sure the thousands of quests were pretty well established long before the last stages of beta.
If it was as easy as hiring a few players to design content and slap together some last minute ideas then every game would be a major success. I think your view is a bit over simplified and Blizzards approach of A) make it fun and release when ready payed off where so many other games have failed. The result was a game that was similar in nature to games before it, but at the same time so different it blew the wide open.
It still baffles me how people think the Warcraft IP is the reason WoW became popular. Only a small % of WoW players have ever played the Warcraft games. You dont get steady growth over 3+ years and great word of mouth by its players because of an IP.
The three most successful MMORPGS I would say are EQ1, WoW and EvE. these all greatly exceeded expectations and grew year after year based off positive word of mouth. Only one of the three was an IP...
I suppose one could say Rift is a WoW clone, if what was being said was that Rift followed the vanilla WoW model of taking the best parts of every MMO on the market and putting them into one game. Trion definitely did that with Rift.
Those who feel that there isn't enough content in Rift would do well to remember where we stood 6 months out from the launch of WoW. Trion has brought much more to the table then Blizzard had by that point. And since Rift already incorporated the best that WoW had to offer, it's not hard to realize that Rift is a superior game...especially considering the direction Trion will be taking with the Chronicles. Solo/small group instances are a huge appeal for a lot of us.
As for the myth that you will be expected to fill a certain role when you use the LFG tool (ie, all clerics must have a healing build), it's simply not true. Just be smart and queue as DPS. That is, uncheck Healer. That said, you can have up to five roles for your character, so if you play a cleric, you almost certainly have a healing build. But if you don't try to cheat the LFG tool by queueing up as a healer when you want to DPS, you won't have a problem with anyone demanding that you heal. We've all seen people join a group through the LFG tool and be assigned to tank/heal/support but switch to DPS the instant they get in and expect someone else to take that role. So if that's what you're doing, you can expect to be called on it.
Everything in life follows what works and survives best. Food, movies, businesses alike, they all copy paste and edit to give it a new feel. They were older mmorpg's before WoW, WoW just set a new path but if you break it all down EVERY MMORPG will have, classes, factions, pvp, raids, quests, items, pets, mounts and a story to follow. EVERY ONE of them will be the same in some way shape. I do not know what others complain about since it follows the same guide lines as other before it. If you enjoy GW you play GW, if you enjoy WoW you will play WoW, if you enjoyRift, you will play Rift.
I play Rift because I got tired of all hate players on WoW, the blocky graphics, always having to feed the pet, poor antomy of the animal and charetcters, and constant raising of the level cap. A new player will not be able to catch up casually if they started.
I don't like how Rift's music fails to deliver, the limited pets, lack of spell graphics, he false advertisement for their " npc healers" and some smaller issues, but I love the open party Rifts and multiple sub classes, friendly community and storyline.
As a burnt out WoW player I was looking for something different and joined the Rift beta. I was, suprisingly as WoW graphics are not great, underwhelmed with the graphics upon first log in and everything continued downhill from there. Solo combat had no strategy (snares/pulling techniques/invisibility) I hopefully blow up the mob before he blows me up. And while solo combat was suffering and annoying the worst part would be the linear questing...ugh. I can't complain much more as I quit after a couple nights of play.
I can see how some people whom were not burnt out from WoW may find it mildly interesting for a month or so, but I can't imagine much more than that.
As a burnt out WoW player I was looking for something different and joined the Rift beta. I was, suprisingly as WoW graphics are not great, underwhelmed with the graphics upon first log in and everything continued downhill from there. Solo combat had no strategy (snares/pulling techniques/invisibility) I hopefully blow up the mob before he blows me up. And while solo combat was suffering and annoying the worst part would be the linear questing...ugh. I can't complain much more as I quit after a couple nights of play.
I can see how some people whom were not burnt out from WoW may find it mildly interesting for a month or so, but I can't imagine much more than that.
I had a lot of fun in Rift for about a month. 2 if you include betas ... simply because in beta at least, pretty much most of what I did was rifts. I did a few quests here and there .. but the freedom rifts provided was refreshing.
Unfortunately at release rifts were nerfed into the ground and no longer a realistic way to level. You basically were forced to do quests to not become completely insane from staying in a zone for 2 days by just leveling in rifts.
Anyway, made it to endgame. Had some fun. It was nice to at least be playing something different .. but yea after a while .. it sink in. Nothing new really.
And yer right the combat is super boring. No less so than wow .. but yer still right.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
One of the most common statements launched by so-called naysayers when speaking of Trion Worlds' Rift is that "it's a WoW clone". In a new column centered around Rift, MMORPG.com's Phil James takes a look at that statement and weighs in with his thoughts. See what Phil has to say about Rift and then be sure to let us know what you're thinking in the comments below.
As I write this Rift has been out for a little over four months and we have just received update 1.3, Waves of Madness. Trion Worlds promised players an aggressive update schedule and I would say that so far they have delivered. March 30th saw the release of update 1.1, River of Souls which had death rifts popping up all over Telara. There was a world event which players of all levels could participate in leading up to the unlocking of the River of Souls raid zone. There were also a boat load of fixes and tweaks and a handy feature allowing you to capture video and upload it to Youtube while in-game. Not a bad start.
(2) PvP that is meaningless in regards to how it affects your faction/race/culture/realm
(3) PvP that rewards with gear
(4) PvP that ignores medieval fantasy siege warfare mechanics (you know, like in the fantasy novels that many of us love so much)
(5) Two factions
(6) Classes can be the same in each of the 2 factions
(7) Popular flavor of the month class builds mimic each other on both factions
(8) Races are purely cosmetic. There is no unique culture defined by a King, borders, territory that is protected by its own
armies and garrisons, castles, towers, etc.
(9) Pve treadmills to get gear = end game
(10) Specific stat and build requirements for pve end game
I can't blame Trion for this. They are following the "corporate model" of mmorpgs. The basic code is that you must appeal to an ages 14-24 audience that more often then not is high on marijuana. Laugh if you will, but if you've been in the genre as long as I have, the undereducated overly and overtly immature community supports this statement. And what a crying shame this is the industry now. $$ has beaten creativity. Creativity and individual identification in the genre WAS the competitive style when the genre began. Now it's moreso like an overly processed food product, where WoW is the proverbial Twinkie.
Look, I have nothing against WoW or Rft. Rift uniquely borrowed the Warhammer Public Quest and made some fun changes and whatnot.WoW itself is a well bit albeit overly processed mmorpg that has changed the genre from the Everquest/Dark Age of Camelot/Ultima model to what we see cut and paste on a shelf today.
Before people defend the OP, remember you this: Even Trion advertised "You aren't in Azeroth Anymore!" as one of their most infamous slogans. After a ton of trash talk about the instanced BGs and the treadmill grinds for gear - that slogan conveniently - disappeared.
/nuff said - about to log into Dark Age of Camelot - graphcis are so so, the UI is clanky, but the content has been addictive for years. Rift can have their "unique" 2 faction model with cosmetic classes and races. I have 3 separate 1-50 level realms with castles and borders for each. No crossover quests here kiddies, this is Medieval Total War meets the mmorpg genre.
I suppose one could say Rift is a WoW clone, if what was being said was that Rift followed the vanilla WoW model of taking the best parts of every MMO on the market and putting them into one game. Trion definitely did that with Rift.
Those who feel that there isn't enough content in Rift would do well to remember where we stood 6 months out from the launch of WoW. Trion has brought much more to the table then Blizzard had by that point. And since Rift already incorporated the best that WoW had to offer, it's not hard to realize that Rift is a superior game...especially considering the direction Trion will be taking with the Chronicles. Solo/small group instances are a huge appeal for a lot of us.
WoW at launch is still 2-3 times the size as rift now, sorry. Funny, you didnt see much complaints then about how bored people were and how little there was to do.
Before people defend the OP, remember you this: Even Trion advertised "You aren't in Azeroth Anymore!" as one of their most infamous slogans. After a ton of trash talk about the instanced BGs and the treadmill grinds for gear - that slogan conveniently - disappeared.
My only real gripe with Rift is the lack of content variety. The levelling path is the same for all races and classes on each faction, as someone that loves levelling alts this is disappointing.
Long live SWTOR!
I agree 100%
You have to do the exact same quests. That makes it very boring to me.
And you foolishly think swtor will be different?
Actually, yes it will be. Each class has their own, unique story. There is also two starting planets per faction, making four starting areas in total. Add in the fact that each story has you making choices that will affect your stories in different ways.
Meaning you could play through a class story as a darkside character, then play through it again as a lightside character and have completely different events transpire simply because your actions were different. Making it a different experience even though you're playing the same class and story.
So, yeah, I'd say it's a bit different.
This is how people 'think' it is going to be, let's see how it will be when the game actually launches.
Imagine if for every time you have a class quest, you have to do 6 other side quests, that is precicely the same for each faction. Then I think it would be very boring to create a new character.
Imagine the starting planet is just the first 2-3 hours? Will it really make such a difference then?
Imagine if..swtor is not able to cure cancer, save the world and brew coffee?
A WoW clone is a "non complimentry term used whenever a game uses a large amount of the "same old same old" that WoW created in order to keep players playing. Its a gimmick, and unlike EQ and UO which came out before WoW, used no such gimmick.
The gimmicks such as TOKENS! GRINDING FOR FREAKING TOKENS is a WoW innovation that almost every MMO since has copied, thus making them WoW clones.
Then after you grind for said tokens, and get your gear, they release a new season of gear to grind for and then allow the previous seasons gear to be available in vendor stores to buy fro money or lower tokens.
Also, grinding the same dungeons over and over makes a WoW clone.
And locking out players from Raids is a WoW innovation...basically any gimmick that gets you to play anad pay more is a WoW innovation and makes for a WoW Clone.
INSTEAD of trying to keep players subscribing by creating a fun, challenging, non repetitive, non boring game that holds your interest.
I think you are wrong on that - Blizzard did not examine the market, they hired some eq1-raiders and let them design the raids. The quest-chains have been implemented by accident during the last stages of beta. Blizz added to that a single player GAME (they really know how to create games, kudos), but they decided not to add a WORLD (see http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=5610#764fa). That concept was sadly successful, mostly driven by the IP, the name "Blizzard" and a big marketing budget.
There is a lot more to wow when it released than just raids and I'm pretty sure the thousands of quests were pretty well established long before the last stages of beta.
If it was as easy as hiring a few players to design content and slap together some last minute ideas then every game would be a major success. I think your view is a bit over simplified and Blizzards approach of A) make it fun and release when ready payed off where so many other games have failed. The result was a game that was similar in nature to games before it, but at the same time so different it blew the wide open.
Actually it is that easy, hire 10 guys from this forum and let them create a concept, implement it and add some graphical gimmicks. What do you think what made the big hits in the industry outstanding? They have all been created by players, not by business men!
Eq, Lineage, WoW, DaoC, UO etc - they all had lead designers with no idea about time to market or return on investment, but they knew what is fun.
No idea what your trying to say, but ok. Class system is nothing like rifts and is no comparison at all.
WoW has 9 classes with 3 tree's each limiting how much is customizable.
Rift has 4 classes with 9 tree's each increasing customization exponentially.
Not only is it about how many roles each class can fill but how they can fill them. You can litterally play how you want to play.
As far as whats expected from each class.... well you have people from WoW that expect a healer to heal, rouge to DD but experienced players know better lol. Clerics can top damage charts, Bards and mages can top healing charts,etc.
Every class in Rift can fill a minimum of 3 roles well. Rouges can fill 4. Support, Tank, DD and Healer. Not only that but they can do it in numerous ways. Your tank spec won't be like mine. My healing spec won't be like yours.
Actually the class sytems are nearly identical. The only difference is WoW you are given a static three trees, but in Rift you are given a choice of 8 for your three trees. Yes, you have greater flexibility in Rift to an extent, but that flexibility comes at a price: people are expected to perform roles they dont like to, and a lot of the souls themselves arent very well developed or different from enough from the others.
Cut off here as this is all I read. The only similarities are the aesthetics in how the skills are shown to the player. Beyond that it's as similar to WoW's class system as it is any others.
Give me some specifics on what you mean because beyond the fact that rouges have stealth and that kind of stuff which is common among all MMO's the only other similarity is how it is presented.
And no, it's not expected to perform certain roles. Thats something that you only get from the new players comming from games like WoW. Those that make it to later levels wise up fast especially when they just had half there life bar taken off by one melee hit from a cleric.
Yes the expectations are there in the begining with the new players, but that kind of attitude doesn't seem to exist beyond 30 or so when players actually start to learn the game.
As I said I stopped reading here. Since this part was so far off base I didn't see any benefit in reading the rest.
Now you wouldn't get much of an argument from me calling most of the other portions of the game a WoW clone as you would have a point on most of it lol. This just happens to be one area they wen't a fairly original route. Play the game and find out for yourself as it seems you are mainly going off of what you heard. No one that has played could be this way off in there info.
The gimmicks such as TOKENS! GRINDING FOR FREAKING TOKENS is a WoW innovation that almost every MMO since has copied, thus making them WoW clones.
Also, grinding the same dungeons over and over makes a WoW clone.
And locking out players from Raids is a WoW innovation...basically any gimmick that gets you to play anad pay more is a WoW innovation and makes for a WoW Clone.
The dungeon token system is most definitely NOT a WoW innovation, Everquest had it before WoW even launched (LDoN). However, the EQ dungeons were somewhat randomized and you could choose different objectives. thank there were something like 40 different layouts for those LDoNs, and the goal was in different places during different runthroughs. WoW didnt adopt this until a few years after it was out and didnt fully embrace it until about a year and a half ago.
EQ had their own form of raid lockouts: spawn timers shared through the server.
And all games want you to play and pay more. AAs for instance, not to mention slow leveling curve.
Cut off here as this is all I read. The only similarities are the aesthetics in how the skills are shown to the player. Beyond that it's as similar to WoW's class system as it is any others.
Give me some specifics on what you mean because beyond the fact that rouges have stealth and that kind of stuff which is common among all MMO's the only other similarity is how it is presented.
I mean this. When you ding, you assign a skill point to one of three trees. Also, every 2 levels you ahve to go upgrade your old abilities (which WoW had for 6 years until removed with Cata). The ONLY difference is you get a greater selection of trees to choose from, but tis still just three trees. The trees are even structured similarly to WoWs.
Now other games? In EQ/EQ2 you level and assign AAs at your own pace. LOTRO you customize your skills and stats via the trait system. Runes of Magic has a real multi class sytem wher epicking certain combinations unlock unique skills to that combo.
DAoC used a three tree system but it was completely different then what WoW and Rift use, which is again identical only except the fact that you choose 3 trees out of 8.
And no, it's not expected to perform certain roles. Thats something that you only get from the new players comming from games like WoW. Those that make it to later levels wise up fast especially when they just had half there life bar taken off by one melee hit from a cleric.
Yes the expectations are there in the begining with the new players, but that kind of attitude doesn't seem to exist beyond 30 or so when players actually start to learn the game.
As I said I stopped reading here. Since this part was so far off base I didn't see any benefit in reading the rest.
Now you wouldn't get much of an argument from me calling most of the other portions of the game a WoW clone as you would have a point on most of it lol. This just happens to be one area they wen't a fairly original route. Play the game and find out for yourself as it seems you are mainly going off of what you heard. No one that has played could be this way off in there info.
I played for a month and a half. It was before the dungeon finder was introduced so maybe that changed things. I saw people got kicked for not having a bard or chloro off spec, more than once despite being taken as a dps. I was the tank so I never had to worry about being flexible.
This game is done. I played it for exactly 24 days (I had more days on account and still did not play). The problem with a Wow clone is the fact that Wow is already long in the tooth; this game was doomed before I played it and I should have known better:/
The problem with Rift is that there is absolutely no challenge whatsoever. It is one of those games that you press 1,2,3 to max level...with your eyes closed.
I soloed to 50 in less than a month and NEVER DIED. The game is to easy. Aside from that the content is nothing but different colored rifts. This game is for mmo newbies.
The problem with Rift is that there is absolutely no challenge whatsoever. It is one of those games that you press 1,2,3 to max level...with your eyes closed.
I soloed to 50 in less than a month and NEVER DIED. The game is to easy. Aside from that the content is nothing but different colored rifts. This game is for mmo newbies.
If you want a real mmo experience play Vanguard.
I dunno, I died plenty of times due to the annoyingly dense population of mobs packed into Rift's tiny gameworld and the fact that my character could barely take on more than two enemies at a time. I died more times in Rift than I ever did in WoW or even EQ2.
The author did not touch on the subject of the "WoW clone" (or any othe clone) at all.
The key questions here is "What defines the MMORPG genre?" and "How many points of congruency does it take before you say Game A is very similar to Game B?"
The MMORPG genre has pretty much been defined by the Three Pillars, Exploration, Combat, and Character Development. You can argue this point if you like, but when you see the variety that has been historically possible I think you'd bee a fool to try to narrow it down beyond that. Look at UO (the first MMO, we're not going back to MUDs here), compare it to its successors EQ and WoW, as well as to radically different MMORPGs such as EVE Online, CoH, SWG, and I going to go out on a limb here and add GW (although, stricly speaking, it's not an MMO).
Next, let's take a look at the similarities betwen Rift and WoW (just to keep it simple). You can do other games for yourself.
Both games have a trinity based teaming mechanic, 3 vertical tiered skill trees (requiring 5 skill points in the current tier before spending skill points in the next tier), and are gear-centric with gear dropped from raids for end game character progression.
I don't really see enough difference in the core style of game play (despite some innovative changes in Rift) to interest me if I don't want to play WoW.
i played rift for about 2 months. within 5 days gametime i was at max lvl, and i was not effective at all. level cap have been hit in 2 days as far as i know. then i had about a month worth of content which mainly consists of grinding alot of mobs and stuff from mobs.
if its a wow clone its a small clone. not that these themepark games are my kind of game anyways. but it was just a big grind, thats all. give me a sandbox game instead of this. crafting is a direct copy from wow it seems, and thats not a good thing.
this game is just another simplified game. im just wondering when its gonna go f2p, and when they are gonna introduce a cash shop for people to buy vanity and/or actual useful items.
and this thing with everyone being able to have any build within their class is a complete deal breaker for me. i think that people should have their fixed class and do the best they can with that raither than the fact that you can just switch classes at any time when raiding or farming or whatever.
i played rift for about 2 months. within 5 days gametime i was at max lvl, and i was not effective at all. level cap have been hit in 2 days as far as i know. then i had about a month worth of content which mainly consists of grinding alot of mobs and stuff from mobs.
Lets put it in these terms:
In Vanilla WoW, which at the time was considered a fast leveling game, the fastest to max level was over 4 days. This was after 18+ months of research, and addons to help quest faster and pre planning routes.
People leveled to Max in Rift in half that time as soon as the servers opened.
Comments
There is a lot more to wow when it released than just raids and I'm pretty sure the thousands of quests were pretty well established long before the last stages of beta.
If it was as easy as hiring a few players to design content and slap together some last minute ideas then every game would be a major success. I think your view is a bit over simplified and Blizzards approach of A) make it fun and
release when ready payed off where so many other games have failed. The result was a game that was similar in nature to games before it, but at the same time so different it blew the wide open.
It still baffles me how people think the Warcraft IP is the reason WoW became popular. Only a small % of WoW players have ever played the Warcraft games. You dont get steady growth over 3+ years and great word of mouth by its players because of an IP.
The three most successful MMORPGS I would say are EQ1, WoW and EvE. these all greatly exceeded expectations and grew year after year based off positive word of mouth. Only one of the three was an IP...
I suppose one could say Rift is a WoW clone, if what was being said was that Rift followed the vanilla WoW model of taking the best parts of every MMO on the market and putting them into one game. Trion definitely did that with Rift.
Those who feel that there isn't enough content in Rift would do well to remember where we stood 6 months out from the launch of WoW. Trion has brought much more to the table then Blizzard had by that point. And since Rift already incorporated the best that WoW had to offer, it's not hard to realize that Rift is a superior game...especially considering the direction Trion will be taking with the Chronicles. Solo/small group instances are a huge appeal for a lot of us.
As for the myth that you will be expected to fill a certain role when you use the LFG tool (ie, all clerics must have a healing build), it's simply not true. Just be smart and queue as DPS. That is, uncheck Healer. That said, you can have up to five roles for your character, so if you play a cleric, you almost certainly have a healing build. But if you don't try to cheat the LFG tool by queueing up as a healer when you want to DPS, you won't have a problem with anyone demanding that you heal. We've all seen people join a group through the LFG tool and be assigned to tank/heal/support but switch to DPS the instant they get in and expect someone else to take that role. So if that's what you're doing, you can expect to be called on it.
Everything in life follows what works and survives best. Food, movies, businesses alike, they all copy paste and edit to give it a new feel. They were older mmorpg's before WoW, WoW just set a new path but if you break it all down EVERY MMORPG will have, classes, factions, pvp, raids, quests, items, pets, mounts and a story to follow. EVERY ONE of them will be the same in some way shape. I do not know what others complain about since it follows the same guide lines as other before it. If you enjoy GW you play GW, if you enjoy WoW you will play WoW, if you enjoyRift, you will play Rift.
I play Rift because I got tired of all hate players on WoW, the blocky graphics, always having to feed the pet, poor antomy of the animal and charetcters, and constant raising of the level cap. A new player will not be able to catch up casually if they started.
I don't like how Rift's music fails to deliver, the limited pets, lack of spell graphics, he false advertisement for their " npc healers" and some smaller issues, but I love the open party Rifts and multiple sub classes, friendly community and storyline.
As a burnt out WoW player I was looking for something different and joined the Rift beta. I was, suprisingly as WoW graphics are not great, underwhelmed with the graphics upon first log in and everything continued downhill from there. Solo combat had no strategy (snares/pulling techniques/invisibility) I hopefully blow up the mob before he blows me up. And while solo combat was suffering and annoying the worst part would be the linear questing...ugh. I can't complain much more as I quit after a couple nights of play.
I can see how some people whom were not burnt out from WoW may find it mildly interesting for a month or so, but I can't imagine much more than that.
I absolutely agree.
I had a lot of fun in Rift for about a month. 2 if you include betas ... simply because in beta at least, pretty much most of what I did was rifts. I did a few quests here and there .. but the freedom rifts provided was refreshing.
Unfortunately at release rifts were nerfed into the ground and no longer a realistic way to level. You basically were forced to do quests to not become completely insane from staying in a zone for 2 days by just leveling in rifts.
Anyway, made it to endgame. Had some fun. It was nice to at least be playing something different .. but yea after a while .. it sink in. Nothing new really.
And yer right the combat is super boring. No less so than wow .. but yer still right.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
(1) Instanced Battlegrounds
(2) PvP that is meaningless in regards to how it affects your faction/race/culture/realm
(3) PvP that rewards with gear
(4) PvP that ignores medieval fantasy siege warfare mechanics (you know, like in the fantasy novels that many of us love so much)
(5) Two factions
(6) Classes can be the same in each of the 2 factions
(7) Popular flavor of the month class builds mimic each other on both factions
(8) Races are purely cosmetic. There is no unique culture defined by a King, borders, territory that is protected by its own
armies and garrisons, castles, towers, etc.
(9) Pve treadmills to get gear = end game
(10) Specific stat and build requirements for pve end game
I can't blame Trion for this. They are following the "corporate model" of mmorpgs. The basic code is that you must appeal to an ages 14-24 audience that more often then not is high on marijuana. Laugh if you will, but if you've been in the genre as long as I have, the undereducated overly and overtly immature community supports this statement. And what a crying shame this is the industry now. $$ has beaten creativity. Creativity and individual identification in the genre WAS the competitive style when the genre began. Now it's moreso like an overly processed food product, where WoW is the proverbial Twinkie.
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Look, I have nothing against WoW or Rft. Rift uniquely borrowed the Warhammer Public Quest and made some fun changes and whatnot.WoW itself is a well bit albeit overly processed mmorpg that has changed the genre from the Everquest/Dark Age of Camelot/Ultima model to what we see cut and paste on a shelf today.
Before people defend the OP, remember you this: Even Trion advertised "You aren't in Azeroth Anymore!" as one of their most infamous slogans. After a ton of trash talk about the instanced BGs and the treadmill grinds for gear - that slogan conveniently - disappeared.
/nuff said - about to log into Dark Age of Camelot - graphcis are so so, the UI is clanky, but the content has been addictive for years. Rift can have their "unique" 2 faction model with cosmetic classes and races. I have 3 separate 1-50 level realms with castles and borders for each. No crossover quests here kiddies, this is Medieval Total War meets the mmorpg genre.
WoW at launch is still 2-3 times the size as rift now, sorry. Funny, you didnt see much complaints then about how bored people were and how little there was to do.
Now they advertise 'join our Horde'
Wow had 6 starts zones to start....6 tracks that went to 5 leveling routes....Rift did 2 that went to....2 routes.
This is how people 'think' it is going to be, let's see how it will be when the game actually launches.
Imagine if for every time you have a class quest, you have to do 6 other side quests, that is precicely the same for each faction. Then I think it would be very boring to create a new character.
Imagine the starting planet is just the first 2-3 hours? Will it really make such a difference then?
Imagine if..swtor is not able to cure cancer, save the world and brew coffee?
Let us see what we get when we get it
YOU MISSED THE WHOLE POINT!
A WoW clone is a "non complimentry term used whenever a game uses a large amount of the "same old same old" that WoW created in order to keep players playing. Its a gimmick, and unlike EQ and UO which came out before WoW, used no such gimmick.
The gimmicks such as TOKENS! GRINDING FOR FREAKING TOKENS is a WoW innovation that almost every MMO since has copied, thus making them WoW clones.
Then after you grind for said tokens, and get your gear, they release a new season of gear to grind for and then allow the previous seasons gear to be available in vendor stores to buy fro money or lower tokens.
Also, grinding the same dungeons over and over makes a WoW clone.
And locking out players from Raids is a WoW innovation...basically any gimmick that gets you to play anad pay more is a WoW innovation and makes for a WoW Clone.
INSTEAD of trying to keep players subscribing by creating a fun, challenging, non repetitive, non boring game that holds your interest.
Actually it is that easy, hire 10 guys from this forum and let them create a concept, implement it and add some graphical gimmicks. What do you think what made the big hits in the industry outstanding? They have all been created by players, not by business men!
Eq, Lineage, WoW, DaoC, UO etc - they all had lead designers with no idea about time to market or return on investment, but they knew what is fun.
Currently playing: EverQuest
Waiting for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
The games a wow clone , what else can be said...
I think it's a wow clone, that is better than the actual game itself tho, so that is a positive for I suppose...
[Mod Edit]
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
Cut off here as this is all I read. The only similarities are the aesthetics in how the skills are shown to the player. Beyond that it's as similar to WoW's class system as it is any others.
Give me some specifics on what you mean because beyond the fact that rouges have stealth and that kind of stuff which is common among all MMO's the only other similarity is how it is presented.
And no, it's not expected to perform certain roles. Thats something that you only get from the new players comming from games like WoW. Those that make it to later levels wise up fast especially when they just had half there life bar taken off by one melee hit from a cleric.
Yes the expectations are there in the begining with the new players, but that kind of attitude doesn't seem to exist beyond 30 or so when players actually start to learn the game.
As I said I stopped reading here. Since this part was so far off base I didn't see any benefit in reading the rest.
Now you wouldn't get much of an argument from me calling most of the other portions of the game a WoW clone as you would have a point on most of it lol. This just happens to be one area they wen't a fairly original route. Play the game and find out for yourself as it seems you are mainly going off of what you heard. No one that has played could be this way off in there info.
The dungeon token system is most definitely NOT a WoW innovation, Everquest had it before WoW even launched (LDoN). However, the EQ dungeons were somewhat randomized and you could choose different objectives. thank there were something like 40 different layouts for those LDoNs, and the goal was in different places during different runthroughs. WoW didnt adopt this until a few years after it was out and didnt fully embrace it until about a year and a half ago.
EQ had their own form of raid lockouts: spawn timers shared through the server.
And all games want you to play and pay more. AAs for instance, not to mention slow leveling curve.
This game is done. I played it for exactly 24 days (I had more days on account and still did not play). The problem with a Wow clone is the fact that Wow is already long in the tooth; this game was doomed before I played it and I should have known better:/
Character limits suck!
I soloed to 50 in less than a month and NEVER DIED. The game is to easy. Aside from that the content is nothing but different colored rifts. This game is for mmo newbies.
If you want a real mmo experience play Vanguard.
I dunno, I died plenty of times due to the annoyingly dense population of mobs packed into Rift's tiny gameworld and the fact that my character could barely take on more than two enemies at a time. I died more times in Rift than I ever did in WoW or even EQ2.
are you joking? Rift is indeed a wow clone.
The author did not touch on the subject of the "WoW clone" (or any othe clone) at all.
The key questions here is "What defines the MMORPG genre?" and "How many points of congruency does it take before you say Game A is very similar to Game B?"
The MMORPG genre has pretty much been defined by the Three Pillars, Exploration, Combat, and Character Development. You can argue this point if you like, but when you see the variety that has been historically possible I think you'd bee a fool to try to narrow it down beyond that. Look at UO (the first MMO, we're not going back to MUDs here), compare it to its successors EQ and WoW, as well as to radically different MMORPGs such as EVE Online, CoH, SWG, and I going to go out on a limb here and add GW (although, stricly speaking, it's not an MMO).
Next, let's take a look at the similarities betwen Rift and WoW (just to keep it simple). You can do other games for yourself.
Both games have a trinity based teaming mechanic, 3 vertical tiered skill trees (requiring 5 skill points in the current tier before spending skill points in the next tier), and are gear-centric with gear dropped from raids for end game character progression.
I don't really see enough difference in the core style of game play (despite some innovative changes in Rift) to interest me if I don't want to play WoW.
i played rift for about 2 months. within 5 days gametime i was at max lvl, and i was not effective at all. level cap have been hit in 2 days as far as i know. then i had about a month worth of content which mainly consists of grinding alot of mobs and stuff from mobs.
if its a wow clone its a small clone. not that these themepark games are my kind of game anyways. but it was just a big grind, thats all. give me a sandbox game instead of this. crafting is a direct copy from wow it seems, and thats not a good thing.
this game is just another simplified game. im just wondering when its gonna go f2p, and when they are gonna introduce a cash shop for people to buy vanity and/or actual useful items.
and this thing with everyone being able to have any build within their class is a complete deal breaker for me. i think that people should have their fixed class and do the best they can with that raither than the fact that you can just switch classes at any time when raiding or farming or whatever.
Lets put it in these terms:
In Vanilla WoW, which at the time was considered a fast leveling game, the fastest to max level was over 4 days. This was after 18+ months of research, and addons to help quest faster and pre planning routes.
People leveled to Max in Rift in half that time as soon as the servers opened.