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[Column] World of Warcraft: The Top 5 Free-to-Play WoW Clones
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The term “WoW Clone” gets thrown around a lot these days. While it may not really be fair to claim that any game should be labeled a clone of another game, it is the reality that we live in. World of Warcraft is, by far, the biggest and most popular MMORPG in the world and as the old saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, copy ‘em,” or something like that.
Read more of David Jagneaux's The List: The Top 5 Free-to-Play WoW Clones.
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Comments
Seriously David, there is nothing free about any of those games you listed. All require item shop purchases. Sure you can avoid the item shop if you so desire, but that disallows you from a significant portion of the game.
Basically most of these games require you to gamble as you have to buy chance boxes to advance play.
I've played two of five of those games (Allods and RoM) on and off for a few years. Had a lot of fun, never spent a dime. Now I'll admit, I'm a pretty casual player. I suppose if you're a hardcore content locust type player, it will be a different experience, but I can only comment on mine.
Rift is the best F2P clone of WoW
True Story.
l2p
mmorpg junkie since 1999
Truth. Plus, it's a great F2P model.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I know it wasn't originally free to play, but to not even have it on this list as one of the top free to play WoW clones seems rather silly to me.
Interesting choice of games.
Forsaken World - Chinese
4Story - Korean
Alganon - American
Allods Online - Russian
Runes of Magic - Taiwanese
I can't think of why these games were chosen over some of the others. Four of them were made from the beginning to be free to play (Alganon wasn't), four of them were made to compete with WoW (4Story wasn't), four of them are heavy PvP focuses (Alganon isn't)...
Whatever, if you want to play WoW, play WoW. If you don't want to pay for it, doesn't matter what themepark MMO you pick, they're all pretty average.
SWTOR is actually a WoW clone as well but it's nowhere on the list although it does share some of the things that these games require like an actual pay to play design rather than free to play.
Ahh the lack of honesty in the media continues.
Too innovative maybe? To be fair, they did have some cool features and deep talent trees.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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There we go again... arguing about literal meaning of WOW CLONE. Typical. A MMO doesn't have to to be similar in 'looks' alone to be considered a wow clone.
Rift was a blatant rip off of WOW if you didn't know that then i blame it on willful ignorance.
Yeah Blizzard also own White House.
You know and i know what the term WOW CLONE means. It is about the context and not the literal meaning of it. Just like how people like to argue around P2W.
Did Rift suddenly change into FPS over the years? nope. It is still a tab targetted MMO with linear questing and carbon copy of WOW's end gear (gated content) treadmill. Just few of the many features made standard by WOW.
Did you play EQ2 at launch? it underway heavy changes after WOW's success. To say Rift modeled itself after EQ2 when EQ2 modeled itself after WOW gives this a whole new level of irony.
While I would hesitate to call it a "blatant rip off" of WoW, I did feel, while playing Rift, that it was somewhat similar in its combat design.
I never played EQ2, though, so forgive me for not having the MMO experience some others may have. But to me, Rift felt a lot like WoW in the way that it played.
Now granted, the talent tree system was different enough that different builds could have vastly different abilities, and even with the same souls two players could have completely different specialization focuses.
Still, it felt like WoW to me, even though it wasn't an exact copy.
I did appreciate what they did with Rifts. I think more games should implement dynamic PvE content in that way.
Ehem, people aren't reading the title..."f2p WoW CLONES". If you look at the games on top, they're virtually copy-pasted games in terms of visuals, concept, UI, everything!
The question is rather, WHY would anyone play these?
Indeed, a list for WoW-like MMOs (themepark with similar combat system and strong PvE focus) would include:
1). Rift
2). SWTOR (not fantasy tho...)
3). Aion (sort of?)
etc.
TERA has nothing to do with WoW other than being a fantasy MMORPG, sorry folks.
Aion is a mu clone
same with cabal