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Let's Design a WoW Clone!
sunandshadow
Member RarePosts: 1,985
Ok I am super bored. Lacking an MMO I want to play, I thought it might be interesting to have a discussion about WoW-alikes, because they are a genre which has been fairly thoroughly explored, and might be considered 'over'. Since they are probably not most people's favorite genre, maybe we can have a conversation about them that is more academic and less passionate.
So, what are the basic traits of a WoW-alike MMORPG? Let's establish that before we talk about whether we like these traits or not.
1. This is a themepark type game where there are precreated cities and towns populated with LOTS of NPCs. The game's story is conveyed mainly through NPC dialogue and scripted quests. The NPCs convey a lot of the game's story, and NPC factions and the player's reputation with these factions also underlie a lot of the mechanics around PvP, mount acquisition, and other faction-related gear and recipes.
2. As a themepark, the game usually has an overworld where normal monsters roam in fields, forests, and in some cases underwater or in the sky. Added to this are usually instanced dungeons with elite monsters and bosses. In a few games dungeons can scale down to be solo-able, but by default dungeons are intended for a party of 5-8 players, depending on the specific game. Bosses are usually important for their drops, which may include gear, blueprints for crafting gear, ingredients for crafting gear, and gems or runes for improving gear. More rarely, bosses may reward the player with a pet, a mount, an appearance customization blueprint or consumable, an emote, or a classless skill.
3. Speaking of classes, Wow-alikes usually have both races (more accurately, species) and classes. A race probably has one or two bonuses to some aspect of gameplay, or a special ability. Some races have a penalty to offset a particularly good bonus. This aspect is a direct inheritance from tabletop games. Classes usually add a skill tree or pool on top of this, and between skills and stat points players often have two or three choices for how to build each class. The intersection between race, class, and appearance customization give players a wide enough array of options to feel that each character is an individual, which is important to the feeling of entering a fantasy world.
4. Characters are also differentiated by gathering and crafting professions. Some games limit each character to a few professions, but even in those that don't players will make varied choices about what to invest their time into. Some players really enjoy selling gear in an auction house or shop, some craft for friends/guildmates only, and some prefer to buy others' crafts. The default type of crafting is a simple process of obtaining a recipe and a crafting tool, putting ingredients in to fit the recipe, and then waiting for a craft to come out. But in some games crafting is more like a minigame, and the difference between minigames will also affect which professions each player pursues or avoids. The main products of crafting are gear and consumables, but some games include craftable costumes, dye, pets, mounts, housing, and/or appliances.
5. Gear usually includes two hands worth of weapons and/or shields, between 4 and 8 articles of armor or clothing, and accessories. In some cases pets or mounts give stat bonuses or an additional skill and can be counted as gear. Some games include ammo as a consumable equipment.
6. Xp and levelling control the pacing of players through both the locations in the game (with their gradient of monster difficulty) and the gear treadmill. Levelling up is typically rewarded with stat points as well as unlocking the ability to wear stronger pieces of gear. Crafting XP may have a parallel pacing effect on progression from lower to higher level recipes.
7. A WoW-alike game usually does not feature unrestricted PvP. Instead it may have solo or or small group arenas, large group battlegrounds, guild or realm wars, and/or PvP events. Special types of PvP like sieges or naval battles may also be involved. PvP often rewards players with tokens which can be spent at a prize shop, or territory control which gives PvE or tax bonuses to the controller of the territory. Many games also have non-fatal duels which allow allied players to test their characters against each other.
8. Speaking of "fatal" things, it is generally impossible for characters in a WoW-alike MMORPG to die in a way that's actually permanent. Instead they typically have some sort of respawn mechanic where the character comes back to life in a safe area. In addition to the time lost from dying, some games add various death penalties like loss of XP, loss of money, damage to gear durability, or dropping gear. Corpse runs are a common phenomenon where a revived player runs back to the location of their death for an opportunity to recover dropped items or experience a less costly death penalty compared to resurrecting in a safe area.
Ok, so, tell me if I missed anything about what a WoW-alike MMO is.
So, what are the basic traits of a WoW-alike MMORPG? Let's establish that before we talk about whether we like these traits or not.
1. This is a themepark type game where there are precreated cities and towns populated with LOTS of NPCs. The game's story is conveyed mainly through NPC dialogue and scripted quests. The NPCs convey a lot of the game's story, and NPC factions and the player's reputation with these factions also underlie a lot of the mechanics around PvP, mount acquisition, and other faction-related gear and recipes.
2. As a themepark, the game usually has an overworld where normal monsters roam in fields, forests, and in some cases underwater or in the sky. Added to this are usually instanced dungeons with elite monsters and bosses. In a few games dungeons can scale down to be solo-able, but by default dungeons are intended for a party of 5-8 players, depending on the specific game. Bosses are usually important for their drops, which may include gear, blueprints for crafting gear, ingredients for crafting gear, and gems or runes for improving gear. More rarely, bosses may reward the player with a pet, a mount, an appearance customization blueprint or consumable, an emote, or a classless skill.
3. Speaking of classes, Wow-alikes usually have both races (more accurately, species) and classes. A race probably has one or two bonuses to some aspect of gameplay, or a special ability. Some races have a penalty to offset a particularly good bonus. This aspect is a direct inheritance from tabletop games. Classes usually add a skill tree or pool on top of this, and between skills and stat points players often have two or three choices for how to build each class. The intersection between race, class, and appearance customization give players a wide enough array of options to feel that each character is an individual, which is important to the feeling of entering a fantasy world.
4. Characters are also differentiated by gathering and crafting professions. Some games limit each character to a few professions, but even in those that don't players will make varied choices about what to invest their time into. Some players really enjoy selling gear in an auction house or shop, some craft for friends/guildmates only, and some prefer to buy others' crafts. The default type of crafting is a simple process of obtaining a recipe and a crafting tool, putting ingredients in to fit the recipe, and then waiting for a craft to come out. But in some games crafting is more like a minigame, and the difference between minigames will also affect which professions each player pursues or avoids. The main products of crafting are gear and consumables, but some games include craftable costumes, dye, pets, mounts, housing, and/or appliances.
5. Gear usually includes two hands worth of weapons and/or shields, between 4 and 8 articles of armor or clothing, and accessories. In some cases pets or mounts give stat bonuses or an additional skill and can be counted as gear. Some games include ammo as a consumable equipment.
6. Xp and levelling control the pacing of players through both the locations in the game (with their gradient of monster difficulty) and the gear treadmill. Levelling up is typically rewarded with stat points as well as unlocking the ability to wear stronger pieces of gear. Crafting XP may have a parallel pacing effect on progression from lower to higher level recipes.
7. A WoW-alike game usually does not feature unrestricted PvP. Instead it may have solo or or small group arenas, large group battlegrounds, guild or realm wars, and/or PvP events. Special types of PvP like sieges or naval battles may also be involved. PvP often rewards players with tokens which can be spent at a prize shop, or territory control which gives PvE or tax bonuses to the controller of the territory. Many games also have non-fatal duels which allow allied players to test their characters against each other.
8. Speaking of "fatal" things, it is generally impossible for characters in a WoW-alike MMORPG to die in a way that's actually permanent. Instead they typically have some sort of respawn mechanic where the character comes back to life in a safe area. In addition to the time lost from dying, some games add various death penalties like loss of XP, loss of money, damage to gear durability, or dropping gear. Corpse runs are a common phenomenon where a revived player runs back to the location of their death for an opportunity to recover dropped items or experience a less costly death penalty compared to resurrecting in a safe area.
Ok, so, tell me if I missed anything about what a WoW-alike MMO is.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Comments
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/I rather create a FFXI clone,better game design by far,tremendous LORE done better than Wow and tweak it so it is updated with all the bells and whistles and improved because there is NEVER such thing as a 9/10 anywhere,all games have loads of room to improve.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
1: Quests and progression paths: WoW-like game has quests, progression paths, and other mechanics which funnel players through series of challenges, events, stories and places designed by developers.
There's optional content like hidden chests, rare monsters, and you don't need to complete every quests, but you're still more or less following the path
2: Constant progress: Whether it's levels or gear or something else, all progress along the path brings also progress in your character's power
3: Convenient mechanics: Trading, traveling, finding yourself a group, regenerating resources for next battle, etc. exists in some form but they're not the point of the game. Those mechanics are in and generating a feeling of being in the world, but quick enough that players can quickly feel they've done them well enough and then continue on with their progression path
4: Gathering and crafting as part of the path: There's some gathering and crafting, but it's designed so that necessary nodes are along the progression path.
5: Easy to learn: The game can be hard to master, but the basics should be easy.
Along the game players are given options that affect how their character plays but the aim is to make all choices equally powerful so that you won't accidentally gimp your character.
Also, arguably all MMOs should be easy to learn, and if they aren't it's a failure on the devs' part. But if you were thinking more about mid-game play, then I can agree, it's intended to be understandable for people of an average IQ and high school education, provided they read the wiki or get an explanation from a more experienced player.
They are literally "just make singleplayer RPG with multiplayer support" and that's why sometime i though the developers are nuts . I wonder why they not go off and make whatever they want instead of those ****
Standard WOW clone mostly 50 levels . Base on that we create the hubs for the quests .
Maybe 15 to 20 hubs for 50 levels
Standard tasks are 800 to 1000 tasks (quests) !?
And you have instances at level 20 , 30 , 40 , 45 50
The theme is base on your pick , but it will depend on tasks contents to build the world
Gears are new tier for each 5 level . And instances gears must bind on pickup .
Other things don't matter . Just follow this recipe and you will get a WOW clone
Tutorials tend to be delivered in a sequence that allows players to do some fighting or exploring in between. They seem to usually go like this:
1. Movement and camera controls, talk to first NPC
2. Open your inventory, equip something, kill some monsters
3. Gather quest item drops
4. Get a tour of the starting town and a new skill and maybe a crafting profession
5. Get a quest further away and learn to use the map
6. Encounter a simple boss or elite
7. Etc up through the training dungeon and breadcrumb to the next hub.
8. Gain access to the auction house, bank, and fast travel system(s)
THe thing that makes WoW to continue to succeed is first the timing of its launch with a nice balance of features, but also through times have added a lot of content.
So any new wow clone will end up putting a lot of resources into mediocre content of simple questing.
So a WoW clone would have to be different in many ways, that they take what is nice about WoW but make it work for a new MMO.
For example new;
More action oriented combat
AI and NPC movement, and possibly live political system of NPCs and reshaping of maps
Short story
mini games - racing, card games etc with in game currency gambling
player created content , puzzles/traps, quests, mini games,
music playing
house customization
allow for gw style of pvp of making a basic shell class to try for end game pvp
many classes
many races
more options for character creation customization
Sieges that also incorporates the 'AI' and NPC's
many options to spend in game currency and make in game currency, (crafting, gambling, looting, bounty hunting)
Overall many end game features in prelaunch development, help to retain players, and then development as it shifts to post launch development can luanch content at the normal pace of more story and some more end game
Same;
Cartoony graphics but upgraded for the average pc 2017 and onwards
Story, but make it short
raids
pvp, and bgs
fun quest mechanics
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Blizzard made the Rogue-like playable and enjoyable with their Diablo series. But most importantly they learned the power of addictive loot drops. This is why they introduced the Quality ranking system (common, uncommon, rare, epic, & legendary). Players would see these identifiers and get a rush, then seek out the next rush.
Games with out levels or ranks are flavorless and boring. Players want to feel achievement. Players who complain about levels have a false sense of superiority that is destroyed by their low rank performance. They instead champion so called level-less gaming. In such a game they again experience defeat solely base on their poor performance. The better players feel unrecognized by the lack of indicators and only the mild sense of accomplishment so they leave and the game fails. ALL the WoW haters do is promote failed mechanics time and time again.
@sunandshadow, what do you mean by "usually does not feature unrestricted PvP." I took this to mean open world PvP, rather than full loot. Is that what you mean? Because WoW does have open world PvP, but most players stay away from it, because they are sensible.
Other traits that should be identified are Tab-Target Combat. Another is auto run & WASD movement as appose to point and click as seen in GW. I have used a 5 button mouse for a long time. The Forth button I map to auto run, and the Fifth I map to push to talk. Next would be Mod-able UI. For example the site Thottbot was powered by an add-on mod that collected data like monster drops, weapon stats, monster spawn locations, and character profile data. I am not a fan of player modding, because I don't trust their skills or intentions. Developers own this data, if the player base wants it, then the devs sell it (through advertising) on their own game wiki.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
*jots down overview of FFXIV*
As someone mentioned above, it was very 'single player rpg' like and kinda defeated the purpose of trying to build this virtual world for thousands of players to share in. It's like everyone was just playing a single player game in their own world but could see cross dimensional and high five their friends in a similar yet different dimension.
This quest/play style took discovery out of the game. There is no discovery in clicking on a guy with (!) and going to a blob on the map and killing something and running back to the (?). There was discovery in finding an unmarked NPC that would engage you in conversation, tell you a story, and offer you something in return for something else and give you a vague idea about where you might find such creatures. Then the discovery happens. And I might not go directly out to complete that quest, but I may make a note in my journal so if in my adventures I discovered what he was looking for, I knew where to claim my reward. Or I might never complete that quest, not because I deemed the reward and exp not worth the run to the exact spot on my map, but simply because I never found the location, the items, or was unable to solve the riddle. And honestly, that's OK, because maybe the quest was above me yet. Maybe I couldn't find anything because it was past an area I felt safe to explore but months or years later I would stumble on this very quest again when I find an item in a new zone I'm in and return to that starting city to collect my reward because I don't need to be a certain level for a quest to appear. I don't need to be a certain level to have the (!) appear above someone's head and trigger a dropable item because regardless of my level, that townsman wants his wife's necklace back or wants revenge on the goblins and wants their ears as proof.
So if you want to make a wow-clone, make a very linear, backwards, immersion killing quest system that is very obvious to the players to force them to do what you want them to do, when you want them to do it.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
@Quizar1973
@Thebeasttt
Ok if we have described a basic WoW type game thoroughly enough, the next step of our design process should indeed be to list what specific Wow-type games such as Final Fantasy and WildStar have chosen to do differently. So please do jot down a list for us.
Personally I'll start with Perfect World. Perfect world is very clearly a WoW-clone, but it has an ancient Chinese fantasy theme, more like a wuxia game. Perfect world has some bad things, like gender-locked classes and moneypit crafting, but it has some good things, like flying mobs and the whole world being designed from the beginning for flying as well as underwater combat. In some cases a level 40 or 50 flying zone is directly above a level 20 ground zone, allowing players of different levels to at least see each other playing, even if they can't fight directly together. In the case of the winged elf race wings are actually a 'mount', and you can buy various fancy sets of wings to replace the standard white ones. Perfect world also has a dyeable costume system like many post-wow games, though oddly the mounts aren't dyeable.
@Daranar
It's difficult for me to respond to your complaints about quests because quests in themepark games never felt that way to me. The only quest thing that really bothered me was when your quest completion should make the world look different, but fails to do so or only does so for a few seconds. Well, and quests for killing a named boss don't mesh well with the activity of farming bosses. But how about questing in Skyrim or something like that? Or an NPC-less quest system like A Tale In the Desert uses to guide players through projects and tests? Can you give an example of a game with questing that you liked?
I enjoyed questing in EverQuest. It was very open ended and didn't force you around. Quests didn't have to begin with an NPC, like it said it could begin with finding a strange item. I'm also drawing a blank but I remember a game too that some items when picked up triggered a prompt something along the lines of "this item looks useless to you, perhaps someone else is looking for this" or something like that prompting you of a mysterious quest. No guidance. Skyrim is still too guided in it's quests but I will agree they are more natural feeling than a lot of themepark MMOs and they atleast contain more story elements, even if they are side quests. But as for main story line quests, I understand it's hard to convey the story without some sort of rails.
In short, I hate quest trackers. A quest tracker just reminds me I'm not in an Open Virtual World, but instead playing a linear game that I can wonder off the rails, but wandering off the rails serves no point.
But back to everquest, one thing I liked was that when 'farming mobs' in High Hold Keep or like Crushbone, you could collect goblin ears or crushbone belts. They just dropped off of mobs. Then there were an NPC that would take them and give you experience and rewards. You didn't have to keep collecting the quest from him to get the items to drop and you didn't have to be 'ON' the quest. You just had to give him what he wanted.
However Wow Clones used 'Quests On Rails' from everything to the main storyline (which is understandable) all the way down to trash quests like collecting rat tails (that only dropped if you had the quest).
As for quests changing the world. It's a very difficult if not impossible thing to implement. I always hated those 'features' because they never did change the world like you said. But this is because in a shared virtual world like an MMO, you can't change the world for one player but not the other. Thats kinda what I meant by players seem to live in different dimensions or parallel universes. And if you were to change the world due to player actions, you would then effectively steal opportunities from every other player. I think this could only work in MMOs on a large raid scale. Where dozens of participants can truly change the world for everyone.
I'm actually working now on a game with very dynamic questing. Where NPCs with quests will even respond to you differently depending on your advancement. Something i feel is lacking in games. When I'm low level, send me to collect a couple rat tails from the sewer, but when I am higher level the NPC can know I am capable of finding the rat king in the sewer and I can bring back the jewel he stole, for example. There are also knowledgeable elders in different towns that you can discover and seek out, through NPC interaction. These wise elders can take mysterious items (or any item) and tell you if they know of anyone looking for it and give you that typical quest guidance. Maybe it's vague, 'I head someone 2 towns over is looking for that' or maybe it's specific, 'Oh that bobble belongs to old joe at joe's fine jewelry right here in town, i bet he's been looking for that'. Also perhaps you found a nice cloak called 'Cloak of The Nine Knights' so you equip it because the stats are nice. But as you are walking around town someone spots you and knows you aren't one of the Nine Knights. Maybe it's a guard and now he takes issue with you or maybe it's the wife of the slain knight who used to wear that cloak and she offers you a reward and tells you a heartfelt story. Maybe you refuse and become hated in that town, but hey you got the cloak.
But as for making a Wow clone, make sure there is no twist to quests. Simply click the (!) kill the mobs/collect the item that now will magically spawn from that mob you killed a thousand times and run back and click the (?). And of course make sure the reward item is either green, blue, or purple. We can't be letting the player decide how good an item is, they aren't smart enough ;P
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
Gear colors are kind of silly but I don't really see them as a problem, they're not really different from being able to see the npc sellback price of an item. I'd be fine with making quest items vendor trash instead of things that only drop for someone who has the quest.
I've played games where you were supposed to visit a fortune teller if you needed a quest hint but trying to actually get useful info was terrible.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Seriously, what you really want to clone from Wow to make a hit game is the Blizzard logo. We don't need more of the same and copying a 13 year old game is not so smart as some people seems to think just like copying SWG or UO isn't going to give you a hit game either.
Stop the bloody cloning and just give us something new.
The base idea of a MMORPG is to take a pen and paper roleplaying game, turn it into a computer game and have many players occupying the same world. There is way more interesting things you can do with that concept then just making another game similar to Wow.
My point with talking about WoW clones here isn't to actually make one, but rather to find out what people think about specific features and variations of this type of MMO.