ESO is NOT a WoW Clone

klash2def

Before I start, don't take this as an attack on WoW, I am only speaking to my experience. It's my opinion, you may disagree. 

I started WoW in 2005. It was fun back then and I enjoyed my time in it. I stopped playing WoW fulltime in 2011. I started playing ESO in beta around 2013. I'm still playing it, although I admit not as much as I did before, just do to life. I have 1200CP in ESO. My WoW character is around 380iLVL.  I returned to try WoW again for 3 expansions, WoD, Legion, and BFA. All 3 left a bad taste in my mouth, like "Why did I return to this, nothing has changed"  I am no longer playing WoW. I don't care about playing Classic. 

I'm sick of people calling ESO a WoW clone, its the furthest thing from it.  I've spent a lot of time playing both of these games. Let's do a comparison, I'm not going to go deep into this, I only need the surface level to make my point.

Storytelling:

WoW: I think WoWs' story is the most inconsistent in MMORPG history. So many plotholes and it almost feels as if they winged the whole thing. They had some interesting parts to their story but it always falls flat ultimately or they have to retcon certain things just to make others make sense. It's confusing. Questing? Well, it is still read a text and go type of quests, it starts to feel like there is a task that needs to be done and not a story that I'm a part of. WoW has a lot of busywork type of quests, kill 10 pigs all the way to endgame. You do get occasional cool quests here and there, like world quests and stuff but most of the quests here are pretty bland. It just feels like they have run out of stories to tell. They keep rehashing the same stories. The Cinematics are amazing, I'll give them that. Props to Blur. 

ESO: Elder Scrolls, in general, has very deep and compelling lore. Everyone knows this.  It's also very consistent. The Loremasters for ESO have done a very good job of making sure the story is in line with the lore. Each quest is fully voice acted and the voice actors are very good. That being said, ESO wipes the floor with WoW in this department. It feels alive and like you are actually partaking in this world. NPCs even have a work/sleep schedule. At times it feels like I'm playing a single-player RPG. It's hard to not get immersed in this game. I'm just talking surface level too. There is so much to uncover in ESO. Also, they have amazing cinematics. 

Combat/Classes: 

WoW: Pick a race, class, and a role. tank, DPS, healer. learn it. that's it. 

Not all races can be all classes. tab targeting combat. there is only one way to play each role. every class uses the same skill trees, same gear, limited variety, and limited skill customization. Not much to speak of here..seriously.  They added some classes over the years for variety like DeathKnight, Demonhunter, and Monk but those classes play the same as the others just different animations. As a whole, they don't feel different enough.

ESO: Pick a class and race, and that's where the WoW similarities stop.

Any race can be any base class. Once you pick a class in ESO, you have picked your base class, but that's it. IE: you can pick a Khajiit (Cat Race), Nightblade (DPS base class) and end up as a Healer or Tank. For those not in the know, Nightblade is the closet thing to WoW's Rogue class. The difference here is, you can be a tanking rogue, a healer rouge or a swashbuckling type of rouge, or even a ranger type of rouge. You can wear heavy, light or medium armor, or a mix of all three..use any weapon, there are endless ideas and that's just one class.

It's based on your gear, weapons, and skills that YOU pick. ESO has a ridiculous amount of skills and customizations to pick from. It's overwhelming for most new players but over the years they have gotten better at introducing skills during the leveling process. ZERO TAB TARGETING. ESO takes a lot more skill to play and master than WoW and I think that its the scariest part of it for WoW players. Its an entirely new system. I see a lot of people complaining about ESO's combat but my question for those people is what are you comparing it to?  I can't think of ONE MMO with better combat. BDO has better-looking combat but its very 1D. What else are you comparing it to? Darksouls? lol. That must be it, people compare ESO combat to Darksouls. Give me a break.. its an MMO. ESO also allows Weapon/Skill switching literally on the fly, I could go on and on about the combat/class system as it is MILES beyond what WoW has. Character freedom here is key. 

Exploration: 

WoW: WoW has a massive world. It's just not rewarding to explore it. WoW's world feels like a glorified farm. 

ESO: ESO is very rewarding to people who love exploring. There are actual secrets to find, stories to uncover, etc, just from exploring this massive world. Each Zone has regions that have things going on, that you can only do if you explore the zone. Things lead to other things. It's not just fetch quests and farming. For instance, nobody told me to do this, but, I was in a graveyard, killing a few undead, and looted a corpse. The corpse had a skull on it, and the skull started talking to me. It asked me to take it to its home, so I did and when I got there the home was overrun with Orc necromancers. I got rid of the orc necros and his family returned to their home.. the skull thanked me and broke into dust. The family thanked me for my service I was on my way. That whole thing took about 5-10 minutes but it was very engaging. I could've also missed it had I not visited that graveyard.

It felt random but well thought out. That is a superior quest design in my book. 



Conclusion:

I can go on and on, but this post is already getting too long. There's the cash shop (ESO has a much better CS) where you get free currency to spend every month, and the game is buy to play. Some of the cs things are overpriced IMO. Gear is never obsolete, only new combos of gear giving you different results. I'm talking about CP 160, once you get that first set you can use it for everything, leave for a year come back, and that 160 gear is still good. Obviously, there is a meta for min/max people but again you may discover the NEW meta by just experimenting but You don't have to follow any meta to have fun and succeed. What else...There's the Player housing, Cyrodill PVP(They break the skill balance often warning), CRAFTING (wayyyy better than WoW), Justice/Bounty system (yes you can level up from just stealing things from people) loads of DLC stuff, man! I could go on... I just wanted to point out some key differences between ESO and WoW.

My point is ESO is far from a WoW clone, and in my opinion, ESO is the better product. It gets dramatically better each year.  Imagine what it's going to be at year 15. 

AAAMEOW

I dont' know anything about ESO.  Would you say it is a themepark game though?

I think when people say wow clone, they really mean themepark game.  And some people prefer their game to be more sandboxy.

klash2def

AAAMEOW said:

I dont' know anything about ESO.  Would you say it is a themepark game though?

I think when people say wow clone, they really mean themepark game.  And some people prefer their game to be more sandboxy.

Hmmm..I would say ESO is both Themepark and Sandbox at the same time. It doesn't fully commit to either but it has elements of both. I would say now is the perfect time to jump in, they are actually having a sale right now! 

delete5230

All this would be good, except ESO combat is too easy making it all worthless. This makes skills worthless and everything you strive to learn.

klash2def

OG_Zorvan said:

No such thing as a WoW clone, when WoW didn't invent or really contribute anything to MMO design. WoW itself is just a grab-bag mixture of other mmos before it with the difficulty turned down.

Hm, I disagree. I do think there are a lot of WoW clones, I'm saying ESO isn't one of them. I'm saying that because so many people say it around here. WoW didn't invent anything I agree with that, but they did make MMORPGs a lot more accessible and IMO that is what changed the entire genre. Thousands of games copied that exact formula without adding anything new. That to me is a WoW clone

klash2def

delete5230 said:

All this would be good, except ESO combat is too easy making it all worthless. This makes skills worthless and everything you strive to learn.

Define easy? ESO endgame PVE or PVP isn't easy.. maybe leveling up is easy yeah..i think that's most MMOs but get into some trials and vet cyrodiil you may rethink your statement!

BeansnBread

I never thought it was a WoW clone. I didn't know that was a thing for this game.

klash2def

BeansnBread said:

I never thought it was a WoW clone. I didn't know that was a thing for this game.

It is a thing around here.. over the years I've seen it said a lot actually. It comes up in almost every thread about ESO. So much so that I felt the need to explain how different they are. If you don't think so great, I was more addressing those who do

delete5230

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

I never thought it was a WoW clone. I didn't know that was a thing for this game.

It is a thing around here.. over the years I've seen it said a lot actually. It comes up in almost every thread about ESO. So much so that I felt the need to explain how different they are. If you don't think so great, I was more addressing those who do

I've never viewed any game as a WoW clone,  
You have first second and third generations mmorpgs.  They all play 60% the same in their classification. 

The only thing I can say that's its fun to say it's a "wow clone".... It's more like a dig, or a derogatorily remark. 

Scot

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

BeansnBread

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

Edit: Whoops, I think you were joking.

klash2def

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

you "guess" ...Wait, excuse me, are you saying you thought I was making this up? Do you think that there is just simply ONE person who thinks this way?

I'm not even sure Scot is saying he does but assuming he does.. he wouldn't be the only one. Again, you may not think that way, but that does not mean that there aren't a lot of people that actually do consider ESO a WoW clone. I mean tbh all you have to do is read the ESO articles or threads here and you will for sure see it. 

Agent_Joseph

ESO is SP+MP  RP game,WOW is MMORPG.I just playing ESO it is funny  game!

BeansnBread

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

you "guess" ...Wait, excuse me, are you saying you thought I was making this up? Do you think that there is just simply ONE person who thinks this way?

I'm not even sure Scot is saying he does but assuming he does.. he wouldn't be the only one. Again, you may not think that way, but that does not mean that there aren't a lot of people that actually do consider ESO a WoW clone. I mean tbh all you have to do is read the ESO articles or threads here and you will for sure see it. 

No, I don't actually believe you're correct. For instance, not a single person has tried to refute your claim yet. We'll see if anyone does. Can you at least link a single poster that has said this before? To me it just looks like you perceived something that wasn't there and wrote a short little analysis of your strawman.

Scot

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

Edit: Whoops, I think you were joking.

I think ESO it is closer to WoW than the games you mentioned apart from Rifts (not played FFIV or RoM). But how long is a piece of string? ESO is not a WoW clone nor are any of the others. ESO just seems closer in gameplay and feel than SWTOR or LotR. This is a very subjective area.

BeansnBread

Scot said:

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

Edit: Whoops, I think you were joking.

I think ESO it is closer to WoW than the games you mentioned apart from Rifts (not played FFIV or RoM). But how long is a piece of string? ESO is not a WoW clone nor are any of the others. ESO just seems closer in gameplay and feel than SWTOR or LotR. This is a very subjective area.

"I think ESO it is closer to WoW than the games you mentioned apart from Rifts (not played FFIV or RoM)."

That's a strange point of view in my opinion, but, cool.

Nanfoodle

AAAMEOW said:

I dont' know anything about ESO.  Would you say it is a themepark game though?

I think when people say wow clone, they really mean themepark game.  And some people prefer their game to be more sandboxy.

Is not a traditional theme park. At level 1 you can do any quest/story content. Some stuff needs to be teamed but you can team with anyone if any level and the content scales for everyone in the team. So is a sense it has some sandbox elements. 

klash2def

BeansnBread said:

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

you "guess" ...Wait, excuse me, are you saying you thought I was making this up? Do you think that there is just simply ONE person who thinks this way?

I'm not even sure Scot is saying he does but assuming he does.. he wouldn't be the only one. Again, you may not think that way, but that does not mean that there aren't a lot of people that actually do consider ESO a WoW clone. I mean tbh all you have to do is read the ESO articles or threads here and you will for sure see it. 

No, I don't actually believe you're correct. For instance, not a single person has tried to refute your claim yet. We'll see if anyone does. Can you at least link a single poster that has said this before? To me it just looks like you perceived something that wasn't there and wrote a short little analysis of your strawman.

So you are saying that in the entire time you have been here not once have you ever seen someone refer to or infer that ESO is a WoW clone? Not once?

Amazing. I guess I'm the first person who thought of this. Nobody else just me. I'm as you put it "Perceiving something that wasn't there" for what gain? What do I have to gain by making this up? It's silly and tbh I don't care to defend why I'm saying it. I don't owe you an explanation. If you want to, go look it up yourself, you have fingers and eyes right? 

As I said, I've seen it several times over the years around this place. I refuse to provide you with something you can simply find yourself. As I said read the forums. People not refuting my claim here doesn't mean it's not true. Why do you assume it must be false because there is nobody there to refute it? Why does it need to be refuted? I didn't write anything to debate with you personally whether or not I have grounds to make a statement. I have grounds, end of discussion. 

I was simply providing details on why the 2 games are different. What's your issue with that? 

Curious.. what do you get out of trying to prove me wrong? It's super weird. I said I was addressing people who do think this way if you aren't part of that, what are you trying to prove? 

BeansnBread

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

you "guess" ...Wait, excuse me, are you saying you thought I was making this up? Do you think that there is just simply ONE person who thinks this way?

I'm not even sure Scot is saying he does but assuming he does.. he wouldn't be the only one. Again, you may not think that way, but that does not mean that there aren't a lot of people that actually do consider ESO a WoW clone. I mean tbh all you have to do is read the ESO articles or threads here and you will for sure see it. 

No, I don't actually believe you're correct. For instance, not a single person has tried to refute your claim yet. We'll see if anyone does. Can you at least link a single poster that has said this before? To me it just looks like you perceived something that wasn't there and wrote a short little analysis of your strawman.

So you are saying that in the entire time you have been here not once have you ever seen someone refer to or infer that ESO is a WoW clone? Not once?

Amazing. I guess I'm the first person who thought of this. Nobody else just me. I'm as you put it "Perceiving something that wasn't there" for what gain? What do I have to gain by making this up? It's silly and tbh I don't care to defend why I'm saying it. I don't owe you an explanation. If you want to, go look it up yourself, you have fingers and eyes right? 

As I said, I've seen it several times over the years around this place. I refuse to provide you with something you can simply find yourself. As I said read the forums. People not refuting my claim here doesn't mean it's not true. Why do you assume it must be false because there is nobody there to refute it? Why does it need to be refuted? I didn't write anything to debate with you personally whether or not I have grounds to make a statement. I have grounds, end of discussion. 

I was simply providing details on why the 2 games are different. What's your issue with that? 

Curious.. what do you get out of trying to prove me wrong? It's super weird. I said I was addressing people who do think this way if you aren't part of that, what are you trying to prove? 

I don't think you're doing this for some kind of gain. I just think you're wrong about people holding the opinion that ESO is a WoW clone. And I completely agree that the two games are different. I mean, that's my whole point. Everyone (or almost everyone) already agrees with this.

klash2def

BeansnBread said:

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

klash2def said:

BeansnBread said:

Scot said:

Well it is closer to WoW than any other old school MMO I can think of, so let the clone wars begin.

I think SWTOR, FFXIV, Rift, Runes of Magic, and LotRO are all largely considered WoW-clones to a lot of people. There are a lot of fundamentals that make ESO different than what makes those games similar. I don't think ESO is very good (I don't like the combat or the character building aspects), but I wouldn't call it a WoW clone. 

I guess the OP was right, there is at least one person that sees ESO as a WoW-clone.

you "guess" ...Wait, excuse me, are you saying you thought I was making this up? Do you think that there is just simply ONE person who thinks this way?

I'm not even sure Scot is saying he does but assuming he does.. he wouldn't be the only one. Again, you may not think that way, but that does not mean that there aren't a lot of people that actually do consider ESO a WoW clone. I mean tbh all you have to do is read the ESO articles or threads here and you will for sure see it. 

No, I don't actually believe you're correct. For instance, not a single person has tried to refute your claim yet. We'll see if anyone does. Can you at least link a single poster that has said this before? To me it just looks like you perceived something that wasn't there and wrote a short little analysis of your strawman.

So you are saying that in the entire time you have been here not once have you ever seen someone refer to or infer that ESO is a WoW clone? Not once?

Amazing. I guess I'm the first person who thought of this. Nobody else just me. I'm as you put it "Perceiving something that wasn't there" for what gain? What do I have to gain by making this up? It's silly and tbh I don't care to defend why I'm saying it. I don't owe you an explanation. If you want to, go look it up yourself, you have fingers and eyes right? 

As I said, I've seen it several times over the years around this place. I refuse to provide you with something you can simply find yourself. As I said read the forums. People not refuting my claim here doesn't mean it's not true. Why do you assume it must be false because there is nobody there to refute it? Why does it need to be refuted? I didn't write anything to debate with you personally whether or not I have grounds to make a statement. I have grounds, end of discussion. 

I was simply providing details on why the 2 games are different. What's your issue with that? 

Curious.. what do you get out of trying to prove me wrong? It's super weird. I said I was addressing people who do think this way if you aren't part of that, what are you trying to prove? 

I don't think you're doing this for some kind of gain. I just think you're wrong about people holding the opinion that ESO is a WoW clone. And I completely agree that the two games are different. I mean, that's my whole point. Everyone (or almost everyone) already agrees with this.

Okay. As I said, I'm addressing only the people who think or *thought its a clone. If you don't, great its not for you. 

Forgrimm

I don't think I've ever heard or read of anyone calling ESO a WoW clone tbh.

Azmodeus

I kind of wish it was a WOW clone.  ESO would be a great game if they revamped the god awful combat especially the staff combat pulses and ani cancels.   I am the biggest Necro fan on earth, and I never even bought the expansion to try the ESO necro.. bad just bad.

Palebane

Hit things with sticks. Gain level.

klash2def

"nO 1 hAs eVeer cALLeD eSO a wOw cLoNe"

I told myself I wouldn't do this because all of you saying this can just use your fingers and eyes to find these yourself.

So I guess threads like this one must be from another website then? 

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/434181/in-what-ways-is-eso-a-generic-wow-clone/p2

An entire thread with people discussing how much of a clone ESO is.. but you guys swear it never happened? So there are no people in that thread saying its a clone? This is one example. I've seen several of these over the years, threads, comments, etc. 

Hell just recently HERE an article was written about ESO and the writer said he thought ESO was a WoW clone at first. So to say that not ONE person ever had the thought is silly. To say that nobody thinks so even right now is just as silly. I don't care that you don't think so. great. It does not make it less valid what I'm saying. Just because you haven't seen it does not mean it hasn't happened.

I was more so talking to the ones that do and have considered it a WoW clone. I'm not here to debate which of you said so. I just know people have said it several times over the years and I saw it again recently. 

It's like you guys are trying so hard to disprove something. I don't understand what you gain from it though. My writing isn't to debate "The People that said ESO is a WoW Clone" Idc frankly. My point is more about the difference between the two. How one is superior to the other in many ways. 

EDIT: You realize that not everyone has played ESO right? What if they heard it was a clone a few years back and wrote it off? I think it helps to hear a current opinion.
Instead, people are in this thread trying to dispute if they said it, or heard it. weird.

klash2def

I cannot stress this enough, my point is not about WHO said anything. Idc who said it. It was said.. my point is about the differences between the two. I thought that was obvious.

Theocritus

ESO wishes it was good enough to be considered a WoW clone. Pure garbage.