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Breaking the "WoW Clone" Mold
mhay71
Member UncommonPosts: 34
It seems that every game on these forum(s) is called a "wow clone." Question.....
What would it take for an mmorpg to NOT be considered a "wow clone." Please be specific.
Ing the Conqueror
Comments
- First and foremost, It'd help that its developers didn't claim that their basing their game on wow directly or indirectly by using terms like "not reinventing the wheel".
- if the game is about BGs, Raids and instanced dungeons with a similar wow-ish control, subjected to the holy trinity and class-locked with talent trees, it may be considered a "wow clone".
But the truth is that by "wow clone" what I think they really mean is "already seen". There's place for innovation but most of the studios and publishers don't feel like investing in innovation but in working formulas. We can't really blame them, but we don't have to support this narrow-minded strategy either.
Simply put, WoW is a frame of reference... it's been around 7 years, just about everyone has played it. So it stands that people will use it as a their stepping off point. The genre wasn't created by Blizzard, they just used the formula in their game, which is also why people say it wasn't the first this or that to do this or that. Everyone copies and borrows from everyone else, so nothing new there.
You can only break the clone mold by not creating a MMORPG. That is the mold which is now moldy. The story, the setting, the clothes, the era... these things don't change the mold, they merely change it's appearance. Right now, MMORPGs are like the Pong of old... been played to death by everyone and no matter what you do to it, it's still Pong in the end. What players are looking for is something completely different than a MMORPG, RPG, FPS, RP, what have you... they are looking for the guy to come up with a completely new type of game that isn't merely replicating that which we've seen and done a thousand times before.
Remember the game Master Mind? We're going back a good 20-25 years here, but the guy that came up with that game made a mint off of a simple idea... one that really had never been seen before. Rubik's Cube, another great example. Games today really don't do anything new and exciting... people equate better graphics or audio or smoother animation as an indicator of better design but in the end, if it was crappy graphics, audio, and jerky animation you'd have exactly what you have now under the hood. A clone of what has always worked and sold.
You will continue to see clones so long as it is profitable to make them. People buy them, so why stop producing them? I think it's almost fitting that the latest introduction is SW:TOR... for we have officially entered into The Clone Wars.
I think designers and coders who have never played or seen WoW would probably be better than someone who has. Companies can't seem to avoid copying the gameplay and interface of WoW, some down to the letter.
Then again, maybe they want to copy WoW, to enjoy the fruits of a succesfull MMO, instead of wanting to differentiate.
I disagree there.
The genre is big enough to deliver differentiated games: From UO to WOW through Lego, Wakfu, kitty online, EVE, matrix online, FFXI, mapplestory, DaoC, Tabula Rasa or Darkfall.
It is a dumb buzzword, particularly since Wow copied as much of EQ as any clone of Wow and EQ copied it from M59.
But I think a game needs to feel like you havn't played it for years after 3 days of playing to not be considered a Wow clone today. You know the game if you played any, you start out and recognize 99% of the game from the start. Same crafting, same questing and so on.
Take Rift, well made game but besides how you customize your character with several sub classes and some random spawns it is exactly the same game we played as Wow, EQ2, LOTRO and so on. A lot of MMO players finally tired of playing the same but reskinned game over and over.
Unfortunately, you would be looking for somebody that had never played a MMORPG. It is not an insult to say there is almost nothing original in WoW. It is simply the way it is. No doubt Blizzard has put their own spin on various things to bring them into the game. They have WoW-flavor.
Generally speaking, calling something a "WoW-clone" is akin to going to Applebee's and calling their french fries a McDonald's-clone.
If a game has a UI, it's a WoW-clone. If a game has quests, it's a WoW-clone. If a game has dungeons, it's a WoW-clone. If a game has levels, it's a WoW-clone. If a game has anything that has existed in gaming at any point, even if it is not something in WoW . . . somebody is going to call the game a WoW-clone.
The term is often misused. The term is often abused.
"Knock-offs" have been around for a long time. If a game is an actual "knock-off" of WoW, then no doubt it deserves to be called a WoW-clone. I've never seen a WoW knock-off.
Game developers simply need to make games that they would want to play, with the features they would want - etc. Then they need to bring in more people and make adjustments as needed. Eventually the game goes to alpha. Eventually the game goes to beta. Eventually the game is launched. People that like it will play it. People that do not will not. It's that simple.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I think a lot of the younger MMO players just haven't seen anything outside of WoW.
Poor frame of reference/sheltered gaming life.
All games are designed based on current trends and demograpics. SWTOR is shooting for Kotor fans. and they also want to appeal to whats termed as "casual gamers". they also want to appeal to the fleeing masses coming from WOW.
So not moving away from industry standard features appeals to many gamers. plus the larger a project is,the more likly it wont take many risk experiemnting with new game mechanics.
So at launch, a game company wont take many chances with forumula. but they can start to alter after launch. All MMOs follow the money. the bigger they are the more they follow that money.
If you look at World of Wacraft and how the devlopers have been so bi-polar on nerfing. you have to start to realize the suits follow the trends. and those trends right now tell them to start heavily martketing asian players.It's clear they have seen north america is up for grabs for at least 3 games coming soon.
If you understand the trends (Follow the money) then it's east to predict the rate of change an MMOs devlopment will follow.
Right now MMOs follow the standard EQ mechanics and play. Cookie cutter and some renovation upon EQ mechanics add some UO here and there and you have every MMO in devlopment for the next 10 years. But if TOR succeeds in changing the way we quest, voice actors will have steady incomes.
To understand where WOW is headed you first follow the money. then you divide by north american subscriber loss totals and you can glean what type of game it will be by the end of MoP. It will become a simplistic game re-designed for asian players who stop in at a cafe play 30 minutes and are off.
From looking at blizzard right now, they see at some point they will have to go free to play. i predict once D3 brings in alternate cash flow they will open the game for free play. the mechanics will also be made very simple for younger players and casuals.
Once they finish squishing mana and talents they will be off to change raid dungeons and somethign else.
GW2 kind of cookie cutter as well. but they are only AA MMO and the money they want to garner appears to be players who enjoy competive PVP. so it may be niche, but at least for now they seem to be the only company not following the money with such a bold and obvious lying face.
Sad To say that cookie cutter games are here to stay. some will mix it up, but if it has MMO in the title thats they way it will be.
WoW took different ideas from older games and make them better. Thats one of the reasons WoW owns.... Sadly all newer mmos are considered wow clones because they try to take WoW's freatures and make it better (but so far they are only mediocre, not better)... When a mmo comes out and take every single feature in WoW and make it Way better than WoW itself (plus new unique features of course)... even though its "cloning" it, the greater success would be enough reason not to call it a clone ( but a killer)... in so many years that has not happened and it wont happen for some more years....
its just my opinion, but im glad WoW is still the king because i didnt have the opportunity to play vanilla so i try to have fun with every new expansion (tho im not subbed right now)
A lot of MMORPGs are "WoW clones". But many aren't. Such as the one I'm playing right now: Uncharted Waters Online. Or the one I played before it: Spiral Knights. Or A Tale in the Desert or Puzzle Pirates, which I've played in the past.
When people think everything is a WoW clone, it's a statement on what games they've played, not on what is out there.
As for what makes it not a WoW clone, here, read this:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/555/view/forums/thread/332238/Well-this-is-different-a-review.html
And if that is too long for you, then the game isn't for you, as you wouldn't play it enough to get past the "hopelessly confused about what to do" phase.
There is plenty of designs that could make game have diffrent design than WoW or games that can be called "WoW clones" (EQ2, Lotro, Rift, AoC, AioN, etc), but I will try:
First of all I am talking about mmorpg's, not taking into account games like mmofps, mmorts, corpgs,etc
Game that would not be WoW clone COULD differentiate for example by:
- Should NOT be concentrated solely on combat and having other things be just side-kicks to it
- Offer Crafting, Herding, Taming maybe trading as alternate 'career' playstyles that are equally or close to as important as 'combat way'
- Game world should be designed as "world ecosystem" + quests should be added to world. In WoW and similar games, game world / zones are designed around quests so it is other way around. Currently all places in WoW-kind of games are tied to quests and those that are not are filled with hordes of mobs.
- Instances should be ADDITION to gameplay and not BE gameplay - currently most of gameplay is concentrated in instances, open world is used for mindless levelling and then abandoned after player hit "end-game". Add cross-server LFG tool and game change into lobby-like "dungeon runner" game.
- Items philoposchy in game- currently in WoW games, items are handled (at least majority and those most worthy) mostly by NPC and / or gathered from loot from instances. Game progress by ading more instances with better loot so people exchange it and so on. <-- Handle this diffrently.
Ok this is just tip of iceberg and only one possible differentation. There are other ones possible, but I don't feel like writing and thinking about it longer atm.
Anyway hope I am understandable.
LOL @ wow being an EQ1 clone. sorry but i have played both EQ1 and WoW and if you think WoW is an Eq1 clone you need your head examined.
I honestly think the only game that deserves the title of "WoW clone" right now is Rift. While the game isn't an exact copy or clone, they definitely design around and mirror WoW's mechanics as much as possible, and the game has been going further and further into mirroring WoW since release.
That doesn't mean Rift isn't a great game, and there is no reason you can't enjoy a good clone. Titan's Quest and the Sacred series are examples of great Diablo clones.
That said there are plenty of examples of games that aren't WoW clones, and I've seen a lot of people label stuff WoW clones that really shouldn't be considered clones either (AoC and EQ2 for example play VERY differently from WoW). There is loads of variety in the genre such as games mentioned here and more variety on the horizon with games like GW2 and TSW.
I do think the term is overused on this site, though it doesn't hurt to call out designers from time to time when they don't make an effort to try something new. You cannot beat the behemoth at it's own game, so you might as well try different.
Oh you mean the EQ clone? Here let me fix that for you.
I usually tend to just ignore forum members who use the term "wow clone", they for the most part have very little idea of what a good MMO is or are generally new to the genre. This does not imply that WoW is not a great game, it simply implies that they are not knowledgable enough to know that WoW didn't invent the genre so no point in feeding into their troll bait.
- Make it challenging.
- No "!" or "?" BS for quests.
- No in-game GPS
- More all around game content and less "End game" raiding crap.
- No world chat
- No world AH, but instead localized AH's.
- Not a ton of instancing
- Not a ton of instant travel
- No cartoony graphics
- The Creativity and a passion for making something different/great and not hopping on the hampster wheel of lazy dev development standards.
The mold has already been broken and games like these already exist by the way.
Can someone explain to me what EQ has in common with WoW?
EQ had a completely different interface and UI setup. It was extremely uninitutive.
EQ had no reliance on quests and quest hubs for leveling. Quests gave almost no experience, were difficult, and typically weren't done till later levels.
EQ was open world while WoW was heavily instanced.
EQ one raid sizes were significantly larger than WoW's raid sizes.
EQ had significantly more dungeons that were more complex.
In EQ you camped areas of a dungeon for spawns, while in WoW you clear dungeons and wait for a reset.
EQ had you choose factions where killing a member of one faction would cause you to lose faction with another. In WoW you can generally raise all factions.
EQ had a harsh death penalty of EXP loss and corpse recovery without gear. WoW has a fairly lenient death penalty.
EQ had almost no PvP outside of PvP servers with varying rulesets and FFA looting, the complete opposite of WoW's PvP.
EQ had massive attunement time sinks for end game raiding.
EQ had gear from previous expansions that was still considered useful. WoW's end game gear is outdated by greens in later expansions.
EQ had month to year long quests for epic weapons. WoW's legendary weapons drop off bosses.
EQ's combat was significantly slower than WoW's. Also, you were limited to the number of spells you could have on your hotbar. WoW has no such limit.
EQ had no maps or other exploration aids beyond /loc.
In EQ anyone could loot a corpse and the party that did the most damage get EXP credit. In WoW, you "tag" MOBs for EXP and loot credit.
How is this a clone again?
Amen to that.
Wasn't that list the first mold that was broken by EQ2?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well EQ2 came out a lil' before WoW, but it had a world chat, a global AH (well 2), cartoony graphics, in game GPS (glowy trails!). A bit of instancing, but they recycled a lot of those. Instant travel's alright, they added glowing feathers shortly after, some end game.
Really if you look at WoW and EQ2 they answered a lot of the concerns people had with games like EQ1 and AC.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Yes it did but during all these years game has undergone a lot of changes. I don't think that original features worked very well for them because people already had an EQ and didn't want another version of it but something different.
Yes, I am quite aware there have been MMO's that hold most of what I mentioned already, but until it becomes the new model on a more permanent or semi-permanent basis....I wouldn't say (personally) that the mold has been broken. STILL WAY TOO MANY cookie-cutter hampster wheel MMO's being produced.
well wow has um landmasses and um npcs and cities. thats about all i can come up with as to how WoW is an Eq1 clone. yeah i don't get it when people say WoW is an EQ clone.
The sad thing is, WoW has a lot of what was listed, or different variations of what that dope listed. I'm not sure what the big deal is, comparing the two isn't necessarily saying they are exactly the same. Cool down there, guy.
the person Magnum quoted said WoW was an EQ1 clone, so yeah he is saying they are the same.