LotRO would have 8 million subs. Everyone would hate on LotRO saying it killed their precious game.
You could also argue that without WoW, LotRO wouldn't be as popular as it is today. A lot of the items LotRO features have been recycled from the very same features that EQ and WoW created.
I would argue that without WOW, LOTRO simply would not exist as we know it. I'd bet it would be a radically different beast altogether.
Yea. It would either be like AC1 and have less than 100,000 players or like AC2 and be terrible. Either way it wouldnt be good. As we have all seen the past with IP based MMOs.. There is only so much a name can do for you.
Umm i would probly have friends and do things outside but no! the greatest game in the world comes by and bad whooo level 80 uh oh im bored now what do i do im 18 and wasted my whole high school life playing WoW
LotRO would have 8 million subs. Everyone would hate on LotRO saying it killed their precious game.
You could also argue that without WoW, LotRO wouldn't be as popular as it is today. A lot of the items LotRO features have been recycled from the very same features that EQ and WoW created.
I would argue that without WOW, LOTRO simply would not exist as we know it. I'd bet it would be a radically different beast altogether.
Yea. It would either be like AC1 and have less than 100,000 players or like AC2 and be terrible. Either way it wouldnt be good. As we have all seen the past with IP based MMOs.. There is only so much a name can do for you.
Why do people like to bash on AC2? The game WAS NOT horrible, the launch was just that bad. It wasn't the AC2 team's fault it sucked, some of it was Turbine and a lot of it was Microsoft, but AC2 development team created a could-have been.
I don't see how some can say WoW represents the mmo genre and without it we wouldn't be successful. WoW is nothing more than a dumbed-down copy of what was out there in 2005. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it is good for you in the long run.
WoW isn't good because it is popular, it is popular because it's good. At lease it's good game for me even i dont' play it anymore.
@Daffid01, I agree that blame is mainly placed on these other companies for releasing unfinished garbage, but it also boggles my mind that some seem to dismiss that because of WoW's massive success in making MMO's not MMO's anymore, or at least not in the sense I explained in my last post, that it didn't have any effect on making these other companies go gaga for mounds of cash and influence some of there terrible decisions in one way or another, even if to a small degree. And WoW did do something fairly new, it added lots of console elements to a genre that stood out at one point because it didn't have a lot of those elements, which is what made it a completely different genre from console gaming. But lately, they are blending into one and the same, and personally it is sad because being a different experience from console gaming is what attracted me, and I'm sure many others, to the genre in the first place.
Oh I agree that wow had an effect on the market. I'm sure many companies changed their focus as a results of wows success, but at the same time those developers are not cloning the right elements.
The are trying to copy the gameplay of wow, instead of emulating the design philosophies that made it the quality game it is. That is what is missing from other developers and it wouldn't matter what kind of games they are trying to make as long as they keep releasing busted mmos with the expectation that people are going to swarm to them.
Sorry guys, I just have to point out the elephant in the room [metaphor for those who don't understand]
You guys are talking about MMO's correct?
MMO definition:
A Massively Multiplayer Online game.
To be blunt I honestly believe blizzard made a true MMO.
As some of you have argued, that MMO's were for a niche community in the past and currently is for a few titles and those who play them. Yet the games are not Niche Multiplayer Online games [NMO?] these are games that at the very essence are aimed at attracting a MASSIVE audience not a niche sector.
There are games such as MW2 that cater for 'niche' markets, yet possibly have more users on simultaneously playing at a single moment in time compared to many MMO's. [though not on the same server, but most MMO's have its population split around too]
Is this not more of a niche market in comparison to what MMO's should be in essence? MW2 caters for the FPS lovers out there and simply at the moment, its doing its job. Just as WOW does its job in the MMO sector.
Though you could argue MMO is a niche market, but thats what WOW changed, in my opinion.
WoW didn't kill the creativity, ingenuity or variety in the MMO sector. It simply gave the sector a quantitative number to measure the word massive.
I don't think we would even have half the mmos we have now without WoW. After WoW investors saw mmos as a chance to make money and dumped money into the genre. It is not WoWs fault that for the most part nothing but junk has been released. WoW didn't make them offer us crap.
Now, Blizzard is an undisputed king of the MMO world. As i scroll through the game list waiting for my time card on WoW to expire i thought to myself, "What would the development of the MMO industry would be today with out world of warcraft?" I am bored of WoW i hit 80 and that was enough for me, but others love the game, and i also heard a report from blizzard that they hit the climax of subscribers in 2008. So in a world with out warcraft not to far away? How would have our lives and society been changed if blizzard hadn't made this multi billion dollar game. Who would be the king of the industry today if it was not blizzard.
I've thought about this a lot as well and I've pretty much come to the conclusion of, "If not WoW, then X." I mean, eventually some game was going to blow up and set the standard for the industry, it's inevitable. It's like D&D (the pen and paper version), there are a lot of RPG's that use the D20 system, but D&D is almost synonymous with pen and paper RPG's, much like WoW is with MMO's.
I can't even begin to guess what would have been the title to be huge if it wasn't WoW, probably Hello Kitty Online.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
I never played WoW and never will just from looking at it I hate the graphics of it and for me its the graphics that can decide whether I stay and play or not. I would rather put my money into a game, yes that has not being around for nearly as long but just doesn't overall bore me into not playing any more.
I think in a world without wow that lotro would be the top mmo in the west for subs. There wouldnt be as many people playing mmo's and that would not be a bad thing considering what wow has brought to the hobby for a community. Nor would there be as many mmo's made because the money grubbers would still consider mmo's as a nich and not a way to make big money and again, that would not be a bad thing. The only thing wow brought to the genre was people and awareness through massive marketing so in the end, a world without wow would probably be a better world for mmo gamers.
World of Warcraft keeps casual MMO gamers GENERALLY only on WoW. I mean, yeah some crawl and try to poison other MMO's, but for the most part they stay on WoW.
Unfortunately too many games try to WoW-clone, thus turning out poorly.
WoW has led to the creation of an annoying amount of gear=skill MMO's, among other things.
A world without WoW would probably be a better one overall, even if the MMO community was smaller. Too many MMO's try to appeal to casual gamers thanks to WoW's success and it often times ruins the game for real MMO gamers.
I think in a world without wow that lotro would be the top mmo in the west for subs. There wouldnt be as many people playing mmo's and that would not be a bad thing considering what wow has brought to the hobby for a community. Nor would there be as many mmo's made because the money grubbers would still consider mmo's as a nich and not a way to make big money and again, that would not be a bad thing. The only thing wow brought to the genre was people and awareness through massive marketing so in the end, a world without wow would probably be a better world for mmo gamers.
I doubt you would be playing Lotro without there being a WoW. The best case would be that you would be playing AC2 still. WoW was a huge factor in Turbine creating Lotro and Lotro turning out the way it did. Turbines original plans was to revive AC1 with the AC2 engine and updated graphics. That would have been Turbines focus if WoW had not come on the scene with its casual gameplay focused on pve. Turbine seen that a preexisting IP could work on the market and thats when full work on Lotro kicked in. WoW had alot of influence on how Lotro turned out with UI modding, quest focused gameplay, instanced areas, ect.
Without World of Warcraft the MMO market would have only seen 1/100th the number of games and ideas we have seen. Most developers where ready to toss in the tow. EA was all but ready to get out of the MMO market entirely and Mythic wasn't doing so hot at the time. But I imagine we would have seen a DaoC2 and now WAR.
I am willing to bet there never would have been a Aion and WAR. CO might have still been released but I doubt it as Cryptic would still be apart of NCSoft and working on the next game in the CoX series.
I imagine things would have been really different and we would not have been here talking about very much. There would only be maybe 10-20 MMO's on the market and most of them would be setting around 50k-100k players or there about.
WoW clone is just a misuse of terms more or less. However, it is a popular saying so oh well.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways. Of course what is being considered as a clone today is rather broad, as long as you are in the mythical type fantasy genre, you will be called WoW clone at least once. Even if you only use similar UI and quest progression system, you are more or less consided WoW clones by players with more extreme opinions.
Oh and A world without WoW would be more or less the same. Earth would still spin, and time would still pass.
WoW clone is just a misuse of terms more or less. However, it is a popular saying so oh well.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways. Of course what is being considered as a clone today is rather broad, as long as you are in the mythical type fantasy genre, you will be called WoW clone at least once. Even if you only use similar UI and quest progression system, you are more or less consided WoW clones by players with more extreme opinions.
Oh and A world without WoW would be more or less the same. Earth would still spin, and time would still pass.
Heh, a serious answer, thanks. Anyway my question was more tongue in cheek because I see that term said way too often. And you are right, people just like to throw it in there for basically any definition of mmos. Heck I've seen EQ2 being called a wow clone.
A game that tries to copy much of what WOW is, in an attempt to achieve similar success. Even massively.com uses the term in it's articles now.
People don't call them EQ clones, because the genre was not mainstream at that time. Most people don't know what EQ is, but almost everyone knows somebody that plays WOW.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
A game that tries to copy much of what WOW is, in an attempt to achieve similar success. Even massively.com uses the term in it's articles now.
People don't call them EQ clones, because the genre was not mainstream at that time. Most people don't know what EQ is, but almost everyone knows somebody that plays WOW.
Most don't call Wow an EQ clone, because the gameplay between the two games feels so drastically different. Most early games that are based on the EQ model offer a very different experience and don't get blasted as being clones, becaus.
To me, the term wow clone refers to games that have gameplay so similar to wow that there is very little difference in the way the game feels. The feeling of 'been there done that' sets in within a few hours of gameplay and there is very little to discover in terms of mechanics or features. It all just plays so familiar that there really isn't a sense of newness to the game.
There are a few games I personally consider wow clones for the above reasons, even though they are all descendants of the same basic model of diku mudds/eq.
It is a very overused term though and many times incorrectly used.
Originally posted by Daffid011 It is a very overused term though and many times incorrectly used.
That's very correct, it's overused and often doesn't make any sense. Many claimed WAR is a WoW clone, but yet many admit if WAR was actually more like WoW, it would be more successful in a way. People like myself have said WAR have tried to cater to both the DAOC RvR crowd and the WoW's PvE crowd, but it failed because it didn't do well at attracting either.
If WAR wanted a slice of the WoW pie, it needed a lot better PvE, needed to have more crafting choices, more instances, more raids, and generally more accessible BG's.
If WAR wanted to attract the old DAOC crowd, it needed to have a much better RvR system, a much better RvR rewards system, a much better RvR endgame such as the relics mechanics that DAOC had. Most of us that have loved DAOC and supported Mythic scratched our heads saying "how in the world can Mythic mess up RvR so badly?"
So to say WAR is a WoW clone, I would argue it really isn't. If it was, it would've been more successful and would've retained more subscribers based on attracting WoW players. This isn't to say I would've been more happy with the game, but it would've done much better than what happened to WAR, which was closing 53 servers within a few months of launch.
On the flip side you can't say WAR is a DAOC clone either, because if it was, it would've had much much better RvR, and would've made more PvP enthusiasts happy. So I would argue WAR isn't a clone of any specific game, and it's because of that they weren't successful at retaining customers. They tried to cater to too many groups of players, and ended up not being good enough for any specific segment of players.
You want to see an example of a world without warcraft, look at WAR and you'll see that being different, changing mechanics, and reaching out to new subscribers won't necessarily work out well. WAR tried many things that are different than the conventional MMO's today. But often the mechanics just don't work out as well as they had planned on the paper. I know when I first read about the zone control & city raid system on their website, I thought "Oh cool that's something different, it may be fun". But when I played it, it wasn't fun, it had lots of flaws to the system. So sometimes when we talk about changing things, it may sound cool here, but it doesn't necessarily play out well. It's also the reason why you don't see a lot of MMO's going bold because they look at MMO's that go offtrack, and see them nose dive hard....they get discouraged to try something different & new.
I know a lot of people have said this but it is completely true. WoW did simplify a lot of aspects of the MMO genre, and made it more accessible. But a lot of people do enjoy the game, just like a lot of people still enjoy their first mmo's. Everyone remembers the first couple mmo's they played like they were amazing and sure they could have been back then but go find a server that still runs classic, and play it. Its completely different than you remember it, the rosy glasses term everyone keeps using. I'll go back to when I played L2. Most L2 players I had played with played pre C3, and they all agree it was so much better back then. That was back before anyone had any good gear and there was rampant world PKing going on everywhere. I died 3 times within the first 10 minutes I played the game. There was no teleporting, and you had to run for 5 hours to get from town to town. People remember that as being awesome, but now a days if they go back and play the classic L2 after trying the newer L2 with teleporting and all that "casual" mmo aspects they realize the game was not as great as it was when they first played it. WoW didn't ruin anything in the mmo genre other than older mmo vets going and trolling about how awesome all their old games were back before WoW. Its completely true that if any other game was this big, SWG for example, people would go around complaining that their game was made to copy SWG.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways.
Thing is, when you see a new MMO in the fantasy genre with core systems similar to WoW, you know they didn't copy those core systems from the pre-WoW games that WoW is descended from: they copied them from WoW.
Then of course there are true WoW clones, like Alganon, where they copied the interface and mechanics down to minute details and didn't even try to deny it.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways.
Thing is, when you see a new MMO in the fantasy genre with core systems similar to WoW, you know they didn't copy those core systems from the pre-WoW games that WoW is descended from: they copied them from WoW.
Then of course there are true WoW clones, like Alganon, where they copied the interface and mechanics down to minute details and didn't even try to deny it.
However, we need to ask why it's so bad to copy good ideas and expand on them. For instance; I hope that another company uses public quests like there are in WAR. Mythic f'ed it up, but its a good idea
However, we need to ask why it's so bad to copy good ideas and expand on them. For instance; I hope that another company uses public quests like there are in WAR. Mythic f'ed it up, but its a good idea
Particular to those PQ's: it ia a perfect example that "an idea on paper" is not always fantastic whem implemented in a video game....
War -like AOC- was full of "potential", but potential doesn't make for good video games.
PQ's: had 3 to 4 stages, each stage more difficult, it was always the same scenario on the same place. First 3 mobs, then 6 mobs, then 8 mobs and en end boss (as an example).
You killed the end boss ... and then it just resets. So what's the meaning of it really.
Starter PQ's at launch could no longer be played ... after 3 weeks when everyone else outleveled the area. So you could take on the first segment ... and then it stopped by lack of players of which the majority already were 10 levels higher.
WAR was a perfect example of cutting up your already (very) limited player base per server. With 2 factions each having around 1000 players : they cut them up in 4 Tiers, in X scenarios per Tier, in X rvr zone per Tier, in X PQ's per Tier.
In the end you ended up with a handfull of players in each choice of content : that resulted in simply NO play in some of the game's areas.
Only recently WAR design staff has really cut on all these choices to regroup players. But by now the game is down to 4 servers and has a fraction of the player base.
Blizzard makes videogames first and puts out mechanism that enhances the gameplay and overall fun element of MMORPG's.
Some may not like that, but it was about time MMORPG's got video gameplay value, because after all: they are .... videogames.
As to the next project of Blizzard: I am quite convinced they themselves didn't even know what the new MMO would be: I think that first they started with the new engine, then the play mechanics and the video game play around it ... and only at the very last minute, they'll add in the skin and "potential" world.
Other companies just buy an exisiting Lore and develop "great potential ideas" and then say to their programmers: hurry up: this is Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Ring, Warhammern Conan, .... now ...with these "potential features"
... program an MMO game around it ...(mostly with a 3rd party engine not adapted to on line play).
We have seen the end results in the last 3 years.....
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Comments
and a lot of guys would be less frustrated ?
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
You could also argue that without WoW, LotRO wouldn't be as popular as it is today. A lot of the items LotRO features have been recycled from the very same features that EQ and WoW created.
I would argue that without WOW, LOTRO simply would not exist as we know it. I'd bet it would be a radically different beast altogether.
Yea. It would either be like AC1 and have less than 100,000 players or like AC2 and be terrible. Either way it wouldnt be good. As we have all seen the past with IP based MMOs.. There is only so much a name can do for you.
Umm i would probly have friends and do things outside but no! the greatest game in the world comes by and bad whooo level 80 uh oh im bored now what do i do im 18 and wasted my whole high school life playing WoW
You could also argue that without WoW, LotRO wouldn't be as popular as it is today. A lot of the items LotRO features have been recycled from the very same features that EQ and WoW created.
I would argue that without WOW, LOTRO simply would not exist as we know it. I'd bet it would be a radically different beast altogether.
Yea. It would either be like AC1 and have less than 100,000 players or like AC2 and be terrible. Either way it wouldnt be good. As we have all seen the past with IP based MMOs.. There is only so much a name can do for you.
Why do people like to bash on AC2? The game WAS NOT horrible, the launch was just that bad. It wasn't the AC2 team's fault it sucked, some of it was Turbine and a lot of it was Microsoft, but AC2 development team created a could-have been.
WoW isn't good because it is popular, it is popular because it's good. At lease it's good game for me even i dont' play it anymore.
Oh I agree that wow had an effect on the market. I'm sure many companies changed their focus as a results of wows success, but at the same time those developers are not cloning the right elements.
The are trying to copy the gameplay of wow, instead of emulating the design philosophies that made it the quality game it is. That is what is missing from other developers and it wouldn't matter what kind of games they are trying to make as long as they keep releasing busted mmos with the expectation that people are going to swarm to them.
What do you mean by console elements?
Sorry guys, I just have to point out the elephant in the room [metaphor for those who don't understand]
You guys are talking about MMO's correct?
MMO definition:
A Massively Multiplayer Online game.
To be blunt I honestly believe blizzard made a true MMO.
As some of you have argued, that MMO's were for a niche community in the past and currently is for a few titles and those who play them. Yet the games are not Niche Multiplayer Online games [NMO?] these are games that at the very essence are aimed at attracting a MASSIVE audience not a niche sector.
There are games such as MW2 that cater for 'niche' markets, yet possibly have more users on simultaneously playing at a single moment in time compared to many MMO's. [though not on the same server, but most MMO's have its population split around too]
Is this not more of a niche market in comparison to what MMO's should be in essence? MW2 caters for the FPS lovers out there and simply at the moment, its doing its job. Just as WOW does its job in the MMO sector.
Though you could argue MMO is a niche market, but thats what WOW changed, in my opinion.
WoW didn't kill the creativity, ingenuity or variety in the MMO sector. It simply gave the sector a quantitative number to measure the word massive.
Tried to make it as short as possible =]
I don't think we would even have half the mmos we have now without WoW. After WoW investors saw mmos as a chance to make money and dumped money into the genre. It is not WoWs fault that for the most part nothing but junk has been released. WoW didn't make them offer us crap.
I've thought about this a lot as well and I've pretty much come to the conclusion of, "If not WoW, then X." I mean, eventually some game was going to blow up and set the standard for the industry, it's inevitable. It's like D&D (the pen and paper version), there are a lot of RPG's that use the D20 system, but D&D is almost synonymous with pen and paper RPG's, much like WoW is with MMO's.
I can't even begin to guess what would have been the title to be huge if it wasn't WoW, probably Hello Kitty Online
.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
im living a dream now, without wow.
Because if you are serious player, wow pulling deeper and deepper yourself to its hole.
Your assigments, daily quests, race of items, race of levels,quests,instances.
nah. im relief at the moment now.
a world with out world of warcraft ?
too easy and healthy.
I never played WoW and never will just from looking at it I hate the graphics of it and for me its the graphics that can decide whether I stay and play or not. I would rather put my money into a game, yes that has not being around for nearly as long but just doesn't overall bore me into not playing any more.
I think in a world without wow that lotro would be the top mmo in the west for subs. There wouldnt be as many people playing mmo's and that would not be a bad thing considering what wow has brought to the hobby for a community. Nor would there be as many mmo's made because the money grubbers would still consider mmo's as a nich and not a way to make big money and again, that would not be a bad thing. The only thing wow brought to the genre was people and awareness through massive marketing so in the end, a world without wow would probably be a better world for mmo gamers.
World of Warcraft keeps casual MMO gamers GENERALLY only on WoW. I mean, yeah some crawl and try to poison other MMO's, but for the most part they stay on WoW.
Unfortunately too many games try to WoW-clone, thus turning out poorly.
WoW has led to the creation of an annoying amount of gear=skill MMO's, among other things.
A world without WoW would probably be a better one overall, even if the MMO community was smaller. Too many MMO's try to appeal to casual gamers thanks to WoW's success and it often times ruins the game for real MMO gamers.
What's a WoW clone?
I doubt you would be playing Lotro without there being a WoW. The best case would be that you would be playing AC2 still. WoW was a huge factor in Turbine creating Lotro and Lotro turning out the way it did. Turbines original plans was to revive AC1 with the AC2 engine and updated graphics. That would have been Turbines focus if WoW had not come on the scene with its casual gameplay focused on pve. Turbine seen that a preexisting IP could work on the market and thats when full work on Lotro kicked in. WoW had alot of influence on how Lotro turned out with UI modding, quest focused gameplay, instanced areas, ect.
Without World of Warcraft the MMO market would have only seen 1/100th the number of games and ideas we have seen. Most developers where ready to toss in the tow. EA was all but ready to get out of the MMO market entirely and Mythic wasn't doing so hot at the time. But I imagine we would have seen a DaoC2 and now WAR.
I am willing to bet there never would have been a Aion and WAR. CO might have still been released but I doubt it as Cryptic would still be apart of NCSoft and working on the next game in the CoX series.
I imagine things would have been really different and we would not have been here talking about very much. There would only be maybe 10-20 MMO's on the market and most of them would be setting around 50k-100k players or there about.
WoW clone is just a misuse of terms more or less. However, it is a popular saying so oh well.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways. Of course what is being considered as a clone today is rather broad, as long as you are in the mythical type fantasy genre, you will be called WoW clone at least once. Even if you only use similar UI and quest progression system, you are more or less consided WoW clones by players with more extreme opinions.
Oh and A world without WoW would be more or less the same. Earth would still spin, and time would still pass.
WoW clone is just a misuse of terms more or less. However, it is a popular saying so oh well.
Basically any game that is fantasy genre and with core systems similar to WoW are called WoW clone. Except WoW didn't invent them, WoW cloned it more or less from other games before its time anyways. Of course what is being considered as a clone today is rather broad, as long as you are in the mythical type fantasy genre, you will be called WoW clone at least once. Even if you only use similar UI and quest progression system, you are more or less consided WoW clones by players with more extreme opinions.
Oh and A world without WoW would be more or less the same. Earth would still spin, and time would still pass.
Heh, a serious answer, thanks. Anyway my question was more tongue in cheek because I see that term said way too often. And you are right, people just like to throw it in there for basically any definition of mmos. Heck I've seen EQ2 being called a wow clone.
A game that tries to copy much of what WOW is, in an attempt to achieve similar success. Even massively.com uses the term in it's articles now.
People don't call them EQ clones, because the genre was not mainstream at that time. Most people don't know what EQ is, but almost everyone knows somebody that plays WOW.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
A game that tries to copy much of what WOW is, in an attempt to achieve similar success. Even massively.com uses the term in it's articles now.
People don't call them EQ clones, because the genre was not mainstream at that time. Most people don't know what EQ is, but almost everyone knows somebody that plays WOW.
Most don't call Wow an EQ clone, because the gameplay between the two games feels so drastically different. Most early games that are based on the EQ model offer a very different experience and don't get blasted as being clones, becaus.
To me, the term wow clone refers to games that have gameplay so similar to wow that there is very little difference in the way the game feels. The feeling of 'been there done that' sets in within a few hours of gameplay and there is very little to discover in terms of mechanics or features. It all just plays so familiar that there really isn't a sense of newness to the game.
There are a few games I personally consider wow clones for the above reasons, even though they are all descendants of the same basic model of diku mudds/eq.
It is a very overused term though and many times incorrectly used.
That's very correct, it's overused and often doesn't make any sense. Many claimed WAR is a WoW clone, but yet many admit if WAR was actually more like WoW, it would be more successful in a way. People like myself have said WAR have tried to cater to both the DAOC RvR crowd and the WoW's PvE crowd, but it failed because it didn't do well at attracting either.
If WAR wanted a slice of the WoW pie, it needed a lot better PvE, needed to have more crafting choices, more instances, more raids, and generally more accessible BG's.
If WAR wanted to attract the old DAOC crowd, it needed to have a much better RvR system, a much better RvR rewards system, a much better RvR endgame such as the relics mechanics that DAOC had. Most of us that have loved DAOC and supported Mythic scratched our heads saying "how in the world can Mythic mess up RvR so badly?"
So to say WAR is a WoW clone, I would argue it really isn't. If it was, it would've been more successful and would've retained more subscribers based on attracting WoW players. This isn't to say I would've been more happy with the game, but it would've done much better than what happened to WAR, which was closing 53 servers within a few months of launch.
On the flip side you can't say WAR is a DAOC clone either, because if it was, it would've had much much better RvR, and would've made more PvP enthusiasts happy. So I would argue WAR isn't a clone of any specific game, and it's because of that they weren't successful at retaining customers. They tried to cater to too many groups of players, and ended up not being good enough for any specific segment of players.
You want to see an example of a world without warcraft, look at WAR and you'll see that being different, changing mechanics, and reaching out to new subscribers won't necessarily work out well. WAR tried many things that are different than the conventional MMO's today. But often the mechanics just don't work out as well as they had planned on the paper. I know when I first read about the zone control & city raid system on their website, I thought "Oh cool that's something different, it may be fun". But when I played it, it wasn't fun, it had lots of flaws to the system. So sometimes when we talk about changing things, it may sound cool here, but it doesn't necessarily play out well. It's also the reason why you don't see a lot of MMO's going bold because they look at MMO's that go offtrack, and see them nose dive hard....they get discouraged to try something different & new.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I know a lot of people have said this but it is completely true. WoW did simplify a lot of aspects of the MMO genre, and made it more accessible. But a lot of people do enjoy the game, just like a lot of people still enjoy their first mmo's. Everyone remembers the first couple mmo's they played like they were amazing and sure they could have been back then but go find a server that still runs classic, and play it. Its completely different than you remember it, the rosy glasses term everyone keeps using. I'll go back to when I played L2. Most L2 players I had played with played pre C3, and they all agree it was so much better back then. That was back before anyone had any good gear and there was rampant world PKing going on everywhere. I died 3 times within the first 10 minutes I played the game. There was no teleporting, and you had to run for 5 hours to get from town to town. People remember that as being awesome, but now a days if they go back and play the classic L2 after trying the newer L2 with teleporting and all that "casual" mmo aspects they realize the game was not as great as it was when they first played it. WoW didn't ruin anything in the mmo genre other than older mmo vets going and trolling about how awesome all their old games were back before WoW. Its completely true that if any other game was this big, SWG for example, people would go around complaining that their game was made to copy SWG.
You're wrong.
Other companies don't emulate WoW. They know they would get their arses kicked if they went up against WoW.
Each company tries to take subs away from WoW by fulfilling some niche. With Warhammer it was world pvp, with Conan it was a mature theme, etc.
You can't be the same as WoW, all the companies know this. If you tried to be the same as WoW, you'd fail.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Thing is, when you see a new MMO in the fantasy genre with core systems similar to WoW, you know they didn't copy those core systems from the pre-WoW games that WoW is descended from: they copied them from WoW.
Then of course there are true WoW clones, like Alganon, where they copied the interface and mechanics down to minute details and didn't even try to deny it.
Thing is, when you see a new MMO in the fantasy genre with core systems similar to WoW, you know they didn't copy those core systems from the pre-WoW games that WoW is descended from: they copied them from WoW.
Then of course there are true WoW clones, like Alganon, where they copied the interface and mechanics down to minute details and didn't even try to deny it.
However, we need to ask why it's so bad to copy good ideas and expand on them. For instance; I hope that another company uses public quests like there are in WAR. Mythic f'ed it up, but its a good idea
A witty saying proves nothing.
-Voltaire
Particular to those PQ's: it ia a perfect example that "an idea on paper" is not always fantastic whem implemented in a video game....
War -like AOC- was full of "potential", but potential doesn't make for good video games.
PQ's: had 3 to 4 stages, each stage more difficult, it was always the same scenario on the same place. First 3 mobs, then 6 mobs, then 8 mobs and en end boss (as an example).
You killed the end boss ... and then it just resets. So what's the meaning of it really.
Starter PQ's at launch could no longer be played ... after 3 weeks when everyone else outleveled the area. So you could take on the first segment ... and then it stopped by lack of players of which the majority already were 10 levels higher.
WAR was a perfect example of cutting up your already (very) limited player base per server. With 2 factions each having around 1000 players : they cut them up in 4 Tiers, in X scenarios per Tier, in X rvr zone per Tier, in X PQ's per Tier.
In the end you ended up with a handfull of players in each choice of content : that resulted in simply NO play in some of the game's areas.
Only recently WAR design staff has really cut on all these choices to regroup players. But by now the game is down to 4 servers and has a fraction of the player base.
Blizzard makes videogames first and puts out mechanism that enhances the gameplay and overall fun element of MMORPG's.
Some may not like that, but it was about time MMORPG's got video gameplay value, because after all: they are .... videogames.
As to the next project of Blizzard: I am quite convinced they themselves didn't even know what the new MMO would be: I think that first they started with the new engine, then the play mechanics and the video game play around it ... and only at the very last minute, they'll add in the skin and "potential" world.
Other companies just buy an exisiting Lore and develop "great potential ideas" and then say to their programmers: hurry up: this is Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Ring, Warhammern Conan, .... now ...with these "potential features"
... program an MMO game around it ...(mostly with a 3rd party engine not adapted to on line play).
We have seen the end results in the last 3 years.....
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.