To me someone who speaks about WoW-clones is a person with a limited playstyle, often the click mission/quest/accept without reading it and go to the marker on the map type of player. One that doesn't read or get's involved with the games lore/story will also consider many MMO's to be WoW Clones.
I played or tested many MMORPG, been playing MMORPG since meridian59 and have yet to see a WoW Clone due to HOW I play games in this genre.
A wow clone is not an exact copy, but it retains a very similar formula. For example, AOC was a wow clone. There were some minor variations in combat, a bit of instanced guild housing, and a bit easier to navigate quests on the minimap. Other than those few changes, it was essentially the same game with a different skin (and of course half the polish and half the content of wow, which is also a staple of a wow clone nowadays).
So technically you're right, AOC is not a wow "clone" in the strictest sense of the word. However it is so close to the same playstyle and formula that wow clone is a very apt term to describe it. There's nothing "limited" in that. If you wanna get all picky you go for it, but that's not gonna change the minds of reasonable people out there.
It's not important whether WoW invented something or not.
It's important that after WoW, every MMO(not sandbox, obv) has quests, and levels.
And not just quests, but quests presented EXACTLY like WoW. And not just levels, but the levels handled exactly like WoW does, with an experience bar.
Sure, the experience bar and levels existed before WoW, but after WoW, every MMO did it like that.
Then why do people criticize the concept of calling a game a WoW-clone? Because they THINK that since WoW didn't invent those things, the new MMO's would have been as they are even if WoW never existed. They would have copied Everquest and been exactly the same.
And that's precisely where they're wrong. If WoW hadn't been such a big success, the genre would have continued having no "succesful" standards, every game would have been an original amazing and PERSONAL vision of virtuality and persistancy.
Without "standards" any IP, such as Warhammer, or Star Trek, wouldn't have had "genre standards" to "respect" and use because of market, if WoW never existed there wouldn't have been "market demands" to respect, the developers would have been forced to take inspiration from the brands themselves, extrapolating original gameplay EVERYTIME.
And the genre would have been amazingly creative, progressive, experimental. And we would be happier.
Well I don't know about that. Even before WOW most games carried over mechanics from the last. This is how Videogame development is done. Innovative game-play is a rareity everywhere.
They would have went with what ever design seemed popular for the most part. Had SWG been wildly successful and beat out WOW, most games would follow it's path, because to companies, the more people that like a certain approach, the better chance it has at a repeating success.
WOW is the model that seems to garner the most revenue. Now why that is, is still a mystery. It's really hard to say what makes it so successful, there are many factors that could lead to that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think there are a couple of real WoW clones: Alganon, RoM, Allods.
Those games copied everything from art direction to gameplay mechanics...
Other than those games, I don't think most of the others that people call WoW clones are deserving of the name. Sure, they may share some successful mechanics with WoW, but that does not make them clones. Obviously developers are going to use whatever has been proven to work. WoW just so happens to have set the standard for a lot of the mechanics that have been proven successful. It is no suprise that others emulate them...
But then again, that is exactly what good game developers do.. INCLUDING Blizzard!
To me someone who speaks about WoW-clones is a person with a limited playstyle, often the click mission/quest/accept without reading it and go to the marker on the map type of player. One that doesn't read or get's involved with the games lore/story will also consider many MMO's to be WoW Clones.
I played or tested many MMORPG, been playing MMORPG since meridian59 and have yet to see a WoW Clone due to HOW I play games in this genre.
A wow clone is not an exact copy, but it retains a very similar formula. For example, AOC was a wow clone. There were some minor variations in combat, a bit of instanced guild housing, and a bit easier to navigate quests on the minimap. Other than those few changes, it was essentially the same game with a different skin (and of course half the polish and half the content of wow, which is also a staple of a wow clone nowadays).
So technically you're right, AOC is not a wow "clone" in the strictest sense of the word. However it is so close to the same playstyle and formula that wow clone is a very apt term to describe it. There's nothing "limited" in that. If you wanna get all picky you go for it, but that's not gonna change the minds of reasonable people out there.
WoW people are hilarious. AoC is nothing like WoW. It just happens to have characteristics that every MMORPG have, even the ones that came out before your obsession. Stop calling them "wow Clones" and making yourself look extremely narrow minded and start calling them MMORPG's
It's not important whether WoW invented something or not.
It's important that after WoW, every MMO(not sandbox, obv) has quests, and levels.
And not just quests, but quests presented EXACTLY like WoW. And not just levels, but the levels handled exactly like WoW does, with an experience bar.
Sure, the experience bar and levels existed before WoW, but after WoW, every MMO did it like that.
Then why do people criticize the concept of calling a game a WoW-clone? Because they THINK that since WoW didn't invent those things, the new MMO's would have been as they are even if WoW never existed. They would have copied Everquest.
And that's precisely what's wrong. If WoW hadn't been such a big success, the genre would have continued having no "succesful" standards, every game would have been an original amazing and PERSONAL vision of virtuality and persistancy.
Without "standards" any IP, such as Warhammer, or Star Trek Online, wouldn't have had "genre standards" to "respect" because of market, the developers would have been forced to take inspiration from the brands themselves, extrapolating original gameplay EVERYTIME.
And the genre would have been amazingly creative, progressive, experimental. And we would be happier.
Who knows? You might be right. On the other hand maybe another company would have discovered the wow formula or a different one that would have been successful and that would have been the new standard. What's done is done, now we have to hope that if devs follow this formula they will put effort into improving it.
This "formula" is based on accessibility, on simplicity, on dumbing down.
It hans't improved so far because its essence is to make playing a relaxed activity. Maybe now people got sick of it, but some haven't. It will never "improve", you can only abandon it and take risks.
WoW had no map markers that indicated the locaitons of a quest, remember? Maybe now it does, but it didn't back then. the location was explained in the text itself, you had to figure it out.
The new MMOs made it easier and easier as they went, understanding completely the principles of WoW and the motives for its success.
Our only hope is that the new players that became TODAY's community start asking for new things... that they start wondering about players-run economies, politics, self-written missions, that they start asking for ground conquest, that they demand realistic simulations of housing, simulations of professions, and so on.
And especially that they question the mere existance of PvE, that they ask this essential question "I'm playing an ONLINE game, why am i fighting against NONLIVE creatures? Am i crazy?"
But these persons may remain a minority.
If only MMO's didn't cost so much to make, then there would be 20 different INDIE MMO projects.
So is every other game that's coming out including F2P Asian MMOs now.
Just like how every MMO before WoW was a copy of Everquest.
If you don't agree w/ this, you're either stupid or in denial. (Yes, WoW copied a bunch of small things and put it together, that's obvious)."
I came across this quote on the forum today, and I was thinking about it. Is really every mmo after wow a wow clone?
True we have seen some games that looked A LOT like wow. But.. isn't it to easy to say about a game "It's a WOWCLONE!!!"?
To me it mostly sounds like you haven't played this game and if you did you only played it for 15 minutes.
What do you guy's think, are all mmo's after wow trying to be like wow, and are all the people who complain 'thatzz a WOWCLONE!!" noobs? or are there still lot's of mmo's that have their own style?
It is a Lazy quote just like most of the posts on tehse forumns are Lazy.
WoW did something special it made lots of money and cornered a pretty base market (well done Blizzard).
As far as the statement you quoted the answer is NO.... From a MMO perspective WoW adds little but takes a lot from the genre. I do not associate Wow with the great features a MMO should have at all if anything WoW has killed the genre as it was. Based on this I don't believe WoW should get any credit for anyhing with respect to MMOs , making lots of money yes but money is not gameplay.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Deal with that WoW is not perfect game, it's boring and monotonous. LotrO is much better game and it's 100% original. As I said, WoW couldnt sue LotrO, because WoW was first to steal something from Turbine. Deal with it, your game sucks.
I'm sorry to inform you that LOTRO is a wow clone as well. There are certainly enhancements that add value to the game, but it's still the same old same old. Crappy quests, level grind, forced zones on rails, same interface, same pretty much anything that actually matters.
Then again, you state that lotro is 100% original, so I find myself wondering if I took the bait for a troll, cause lotro is maybe 10% original at best.
This is the hottest debate in the MMO community. Which is sad, because it's also the most stupid...
The argument that borrowed features from WoW = WoW Clone is simply tiring at this point. Every argument I've ever seen in favor of that side of the debate has gaping holes in it and ignores the simple and undeniable fact that WoW did very little first. The things it did first caught on and are everywhere. That's merely evolution of the genre, plenty of other games have developed new content that is now finding it's way into most MMOs, this is not descriptive of Clone-dom. Please stop with these arguments, they are a waste of time and breed ignorance.
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
The only game I can really call a WoW clone without even a hint of second guessing myself, was Warhammer when I played it. I have no clue what it's like now, but when I played shortly after release it felt completely like WoW with better graphics and worse physics.
Other than that, the rest of the games out there aren't really WoW clones (other than the obvious ones like Allods & Alganon), they just mimic WoW to try and capitalize on it's success.
Interesting. Sure there are definate similarities, and I'd agree it's a wow clone in principle, but war at least tried something different with public quests, pvp lakes, and battleground queues from level 1 (which wow quickly copied). Out of all the wow clones recently, war's actually one that tried to be something a bit more.
Basically meaning, a game needs a huge budget that is basically endless, allowing time for all of this to happen.
Another option would be to set goals and designs that are achievable within a set budget/time frame.
There is nothing wrong with making a game that targets a specific player segement or narrower design focus. Honestly a niche game these days should be able to equal what EQ did at its height of popularity and that was almost $100 million a year.
The alternative of releasing a rushed & unfinished mmos that beta testers plea with the developers not to release has already been proven enough times to result in failure. Harsh but true.
That's a likely scenario of success.
I think a huge problem is the MMO market is only so big, back in EQ's day you had limited choice on which games to play. As well as a unique line-up of games at that time. Today there are so many choices the MMO player-base as a whole is spread pretty thin. As well as the uniqueness has been replaced with standards. Even with that considered, again I must stress, there's only so many players to go around. Especially when a game like Warcraft is taking such a large percentage of the pie.
No I'm not forgetting you have those who dabble in multiple games, but the average person really doesn't have the time to practice such a life-style. They set-up shop in a game world and play it as long as they enjoy it. Which can be years.
In those years they've missed many games as you most likely know.
Another thing to consider is the leveling process in games. I found it very hard to move on from galaxies for this reason alone. I already had a max character playing a fun end-game IMO. Why should I move on when I'm still having fun, only to go through boring mechanics for so long? The NGE is what it took for that to happen.
Blizzard hasn't screwed up yet, at least to such a degree.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
To me someone who speaks about WoW-clones is a person with a limited playstyle, often the click mission/quest/accept without reading it and go to the marker on the map type of player. One that doesn't read or get's involved with the games lore/story will also consider many MMO's to be WoW Clones.
I played or tested many MMORPG, been playing MMORPG since meridian59 and have yet to see a WoW Clone due to HOW I play games in this genre.
A wow clone is not an exact copy, but it retains a very similar formula. For example, AOC was a wow clone. There were some minor variations in combat, a bit of instanced guild housing, and a bit easier to navigate quests on the minimap. Other than those few changes, it was essentially the same game with a different skin (and of course half the polish and half the content of wow, which is also a staple of a wow clone nowadays).
So technically you're right, AOC is not a wow "clone" in the strictest sense of the word. However it is so close to the same playstyle and formula that wow clone is a very apt term to describe it. There's nothing "limited" in that. If you wanna get all picky you go for it, but that's not gonna change the minds of reasonable people out there.
WoW people are hilarious. AoC is nothing like WoW. It just happens to have characteristics that every MMORPG have, even the ones that came out before your obsession. Stop calling them "wow Clones" and making yourself look extremely narrow minded and start calling them MMORPG's
Life is way too short to get into all the minute details of a game. Yes, there are differences AS I STATED IN MY OP (which you obviously did not read), but when 90% of the game is the exact same mechanics, it's a wow clone. I don't give a darn how picky you want to be, it's the same game with minor insignificant variations. You're just a closed-minded fool thinking otherwise. It's like getting mad that someone calls a common small brown house spider a spider rather than it's exact name. Nobody cares. Everybody who is reasonable understand it's just a darn spider.
To state that AOC is nothing like wow is psychotic imo, unless it has DRASTICALLY changed from release (and I played up to level 50 or so at release). You're just smokin' crack in my book.
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
Sounds like a fan boy, must be a fan boy. Your ignorance is quite amusing.
So a bunch of teenage boys and/or ignorant tards that plays a game that leads the industry is privileged to call any game to come after it a "WoW Clone"? You fail.
Why would people that despise WoW create a word like WoW Clone, thnk about it, You make absolutely no sense, you need to start thinking before you click submit, seriously. WoW clone used by WoW players because they think WoW is superior to all others which makes all games NOT as good so "supposely" they copied it from WoW. Go back to your game and let the grown ups debate.
It's not important whether WoW invented something or not.
It's important that after WoW, every MMO(not sandbox, obv) has quests, and levels.
And not just quests, but quests presented EXACTLY like WoW. And not just levels, but the levels handled exactly like WoW does, with an experience bar.
Sure, the experience bar and levels existed before WoW, but after WoW, every MMO did it like that.
Then why do people criticize the concept of calling a game a WoW-clone? Because they THINK that since WoW didn't invent those things, the new MMO's would have been as they are even if WoW never existed. They would have copied Everquest and been exactly the same.
And that's precisely where they're wrong. If WoW hadn't been such a big success, the genre would have continued having no "succesful" standards, every game would have been an original amazing and PERSONAL vision of virtuality and persistancy.
Without "standards" any IP, such as Warhammer, or Star Trek, wouldn't have had "genre standards" to "respect" and use because of market, if WoW never existed there wouldn't have been "market demands" to respect, the developers would have been forced to take inspiration from the brands themselves, extrapolating original gameplay EVERYTIME.
And the genre would have been amazingly creative, progressive, experimental. And we would be happier.
Well I don't know about that. Even before WOW most games carried over mechanics from the last. This is how Videogame development is done. Innovative game-play is a rareity everywhere.
They would have went with what ever design seemed popular for the most part. Had SWG been wildly successful and beat out WOW, most games would follow it's path, because to companies, the more people that like a certain approach, the better chance it has at a repeating success.
WOW is the model that seems to garner the most revenue. Now why that is, is still a mystery. It's really hard to say what makes it so successful, there are many factors that could lead to that.
It's a good point but you didn't consider mass market. SWG becoming as popular as WoW is almost like a wargame USAF simulator becoming MASS... it would have never happened. WoW was a success because it introduced mechanics that appealed to everyone, even if it didn't actually invent those mechanics, WoW made 'em accessible. Appealing to everyone couldn't have happened in any other way but making a game more pleasant for the mass. It's a natural process, it's not random, it's inevitable, WoW offered easy entertainment and that's naturally what became popular, and that's why EVERY single AAA MMO is like WoW.
Your point is that MMO's would have become all identical even if WoW didn't exist, and that may be true, but what's the difference? We would have called the mother of clones with another name. Why is it important?
The strange thing is that we're stuck with deciding who started mass market, while we should just blame the existance of it, and the fact that it was the cause for such a stagnant MMO scenario.
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
Sounds like a fan boy, must be a fan boy. Your ignorance is quite amusing.
So a bunch of teenage boys and/or ignorant tards that plays a game that leads the industry is privileged to call any game to come after it a "WoW Clone"? You fail.
Why would people that despise WoW create a word like WoW Clone, thnk about it, You make absolutely no sense, you need to start thinking before you click submit, seriously. WoW clone used by WoW players because they think WoW is superior to all others which makes all games NOT as good so "supposely" they copied it from WoW. Go back to your game and let the grown ups debate.
I think term wow clone always was meant as derogatory and that's why I think it was first used exactly by people that didn't like the wow style of mmo. It was used to describe a game they don't like in comparison to the game they hated the most. That's how I see it anyway, and why I think it could have been used by someone that didn't like wow as opposed to someone that did.
As soon as one of these other mmorpgs does well we can start cloning something else. And I am sorry but 300k accounts is not the "well" that people want to be cloning.
It's a good point but you didn't consider mass market. SWG becoming as popular as WoW is almost like a wargame USAF simulator becoming MASS... it would have never happened. WoW was a success because it introduced mechanics that appealed to everyone, even if it didn't actually invent those mechanics, WoW made 'em accessible. Appealing to everyone couldn't have happened in any other way but making a game more pleasant for the mass. It's a natural process, it's not random, it's inevitable, WoW offered easy entertainment and that's naturally what became popular, and that's why EVERY single AAA MMO is like WoW.
Your point is that MMO's would have become all identical even if WoW didn't exist, and that may be true, but what's the difference? We would have called the mother of clones with another name. Why is it important?
The strange thing is that we're stuck with deciding who started mass market, while we should just blame the existance of it, and the fact that it was the cause for such a stagnant MMO scenario.
Believe me, I agree there is little difference. I also agree it's mass market appeal that leads to the saturated market the MMO genre has become.
I was basically saying plainly on the subject at hand. Had WOW not happened, I doubt the market would be all that much different, as you basically said a clone is a clone.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As far as games cloning/ copying WoW ( yes i know other games has some of the same gameplay before hand. But thats just common in gameing when something becomes highly profitable. It happened with side scrolling coop action games ( double dragon , final fight type games) , It most definally happened with Street Fighter ( one of the most copied games i ever seen) , it happened with Doom. So no shock its happeneing with MMO
The worst part about overly copying games is it tends to in the long run bore the masses after a while , over exposer and then no matter how well a game can be made its usually not even played.
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
Sounds like a fan boy, must be a fan boy. Your ignorance is quite amusing.
So a bunch of teenage boys and/or ignorant tards that plays a game that leads the industry is privileged to call any game to come after it a "WoW Clone"? You fail.
Why would people that despise WoW create a word like WoW Clone, thnk about it, You make absolutely no sense, you need to start thinking before you click submit, seriously. WoW clone used by WoW players because they think WoW is superior to all others which makes all games NOT as good so "supposely" they copied it from WoW. Go back to your game and let the grown ups debate.
Like I said, go on with your bad self arguing insubstantial novelties as differentiating factors. The rest of us aren't fooled. We'll call a spade a spade.
IMO you're being obtuse for the simple sake of playing the troll and bait game. You'll only get a reply out of me when you make arguments worth debating. Until then, it's just blah blah blah from you which I'll happily ignore.
The problem with some of the repliers im reading exists because of this little phrase:
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW.
They get angry with us. They don't understand, we don't understand ourselves because we can't explain that phrase. So allow me to rephrase it.
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW, even though WoW didn't invent anything.
This phrase clearly short circuits the angry guys. It doesn't make sense, does it?
But it does to us! Because when we say it We don't care whether WoW invented those mechanics or not, with that phrase we're simply stating that
after WoW those mechanics that WoW didn't invent became the standard of every MMO.
And i don't think anyone can deny it.
The case of WoW is very special. I've always believe that DAOC is the real father of WoW. Imagine it like an olympic torch, DAOC gave it to WoW, and WoW was such a LOVABLE torch bearer, it actually made "bearing the torch" a THING, a MEME.
I know, but I wanted to bring it up because games before wow weren't really clones at all and now wow has become the standard of what a MMO should be. I just find it intriguing when someone says that quote since i've seen it used a lot and I just wonder what exactly are they thinking.
OMG I hope not! I hope you mean that because they have the subs, because as a game it is childish, had outdated cartoonish graphics at launch, lacks of lore and is just plain dull. If you did mean it should be the standard that all new games are designed to, then the MMO world is doomed! But hey, teenagers and every-kid-gets-a-trophy earrly twenties types will love it! I can see it now:
/petition I just logged in for the first time. I paid $50 for the game and $15 a month for a sub so why am I not at the level cap with raid gear and not in the top raid guild on this server already! I shouldn't have to play from level 1!
Perhaps he meant things like: smooth responsive gameplay, variety of gameplay options for casual and hardcore, pve and pvp, attention to details and polish, responsive to players concerns and ideas, third party ui support, etc.
Standard doesn't have to mean immitation.
Maybe that is what was meant, but WoW isn't all the first to do all the things you mention.
Smooth gameplay for instance. My computer played EQ great. It was smooth and responsive. Besides, when you design a game to look like a Mikey Mouse cartoon what do you expect.
Variety of gameplay. Well, EQ2 was released forst and was designed from the beginning as a "casual players" EQ with better graphics. IT also had hardcore elements in the beginning.
Attention tpo detail and polish, well the Mythbusters proved with enough rubbing you can polish a turd. I didn't play WoW at release, but I remember people complaining about the game.
Response to players concerns. Well you got me there. Most companies could care less, but with all the complaining about what Blizz is doing in Cata and all the people getting accounts hacked and Blizz seemingly doing nothing about it, are you sure you want to lsit that anymore? I wouldn't, seems they are getting too big for their own good.
Third party support. Well I guess you never heard of EQinterface have you? Oh, that isn't the only game they support either. WoW was NOT the first their. If this is what you meant.
Those are good arguements, but WoW was not the first to do any of them except maybe listening to the players, but that I think may have slipped with them having all the subs.
I think a lot of games, and I mean alot, focused on graphics and not on actual functionality, i.e. Sigils attempt for instance and noone wants to jump from an established game to pay to beta test something new, even it is an awesome concept, Vanguard again. What it boils down to is Blizzard did nothing special or groundbreaking. What they did was to make a simple game that gave the every kid gets a trophy generation easy accomplishments. Oh yeah and they advertised. WoW is nothing but a boring game that has a lot of subs because it's easy, takes no thought, skill, or tactics. How do I know... I played it. And I think its obvious I don't care for it.
The problem with some of the repliers im reading exists because of this little phrase:
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW.
They get angry with us. They don't understand, we don't understand ourselves because we can't explain that phrase. So allow me to rephrase it.
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW, even though WoW didn't invent anything.
This phrase clearly short circuits the angry guys. It doesn't make sense, does it?
But it does to us! Because when we say it We don't care whether WoW invented those mechanics or not, with that phrase we're simply stating that
after WoW those mechanics that WoW didn't invent became the standard of every MMO.
And i don't think anyone can deny it.
The case of WoW is very special. I've always believe that DAOC is the real father of WoW. Imagine it like an olympic torch, DAOC gave it to WoW, and WoW was such a LOVABLE torch bearer, it actually made "bearing the torch" a THING, a MEME.
I agree with what you're saying here, though I still think the term is over-used. You used clone in a proper context which is rare to say the least. WOW is a standard in the genre, there's no real definition to that standard. WOW as some put it was a perfect storm. The right thing at the right time.
WOW standardized the formula everyone seems to be following today. That doesn't mean every game is a WOW clone down to every feature.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
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A wow clone is not an exact copy, but it retains a very similar formula. For example, AOC was a wow clone. There were some minor variations in combat, a bit of instanced guild housing, and a bit easier to navigate quests on the minimap. Other than those few changes, it was essentially the same game with a different skin (and of course half the polish and half the content of wow, which is also a staple of a wow clone nowadays).
So technically you're right, AOC is not a wow "clone" in the strictest sense of the word. However it is so close to the same playstyle and formula that wow clone is a very apt term to describe it. There's nothing "limited" in that. If you wanna get all picky you go for it, but that's not gonna change the minds of reasonable people out there.
Well I don't know about that. Even before WOW most games carried over mechanics from the last. This is how Videogame development is done. Innovative game-play is a rareity everywhere.
They would have went with what ever design seemed popular for the most part. Had SWG been wildly successful and beat out WOW, most games would follow it's path, because to companies, the more people that like a certain approach, the better chance it has at a repeating success.
WOW is the model that seems to garner the most revenue. Now why that is, is still a mystery. It's really hard to say what makes it so successful, there are many factors that could lead to that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think there are a couple of real WoW clones: Alganon, RoM, Allods.
Those games copied everything from art direction to gameplay mechanics...
Other than those games, I don't think most of the others that people call WoW clones are deserving of the name. Sure, they may share some successful mechanics with WoW, but that does not make them clones. Obviously developers are going to use whatever has been proven to work. WoW just so happens to have set the standard for a lot of the mechanics that have been proven successful. It is no suprise that others emulate them...
But then again, that is exactly what good game developers do.. INCLUDING Blizzard!
WoW people are hilarious. AoC is nothing like WoW. It just happens to have characteristics that every MMORPG have, even the ones that came out before your obsession. Stop calling them "wow Clones" and making yourself look extremely narrow minded and start calling them MMORPG's
This "formula" is based on accessibility, on simplicity, on dumbing down.
It hans't improved so far because its essence is to make playing a relaxed activity. Maybe now people got sick of it, but some haven't. It will never "improve", you can only abandon it and take risks.
WoW had no map markers that indicated the locaitons of a quest, remember? Maybe now it does, but it didn't back then. the location was explained in the text itself, you had to figure it out.
The new MMOs made it easier and easier as they went, understanding completely the principles of WoW and the motives for its success.
Our only hope is that the new players that became TODAY's community start asking for new things... that they start wondering about players-run economies, politics, self-written missions, that they start asking for ground conquest, that they demand realistic simulations of housing, simulations of professions, and so on.
And especially that they question the mere existance of PvE, that they ask this essential question "I'm playing an ONLINE game, why am i fighting against NONLIVE creatures? Am i crazy?"
But these persons may remain a minority.
If only MMO's didn't cost so much to make, then there would be 20 different INDIE MMO projects.
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It is a Lazy quote just like most of the posts on tehse forumns are Lazy.
WoW did something special it made lots of money and cornered a pretty base market (well done Blizzard).
As far as the statement you quoted the answer is NO.... From a MMO perspective WoW adds little but takes a lot from the genre. I do not associate Wow with the great features a MMO should have at all if anything WoW has killed the genre as it was. Based on this I don't believe WoW should get any credit for anyhing with respect to MMOs , making lots of money yes but money is not gameplay.
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I'm sorry to inform you that LOTRO is a wow clone as well. There are certainly enhancements that add value to the game, but it's still the same old same old. Crappy quests, level grind, forced zones on rails, same interface, same pretty much anything that actually matters.
Then again, you state that lotro is 100% original, so I find myself wondering if I took the bait for a troll, cause lotro is maybe 10% original at best.
This is the hottest debate in the MMO community. Which is sad, because it's also the most stupid...
The argument that borrowed features from WoW = WoW Clone is simply tiring at this point. Every argument I've ever seen in favor of that side of the debate has gaping holes in it and ignores the simple and undeniable fact that WoW did very little first. The things it did first caught on and are everywhere. That's merely evolution of the genre, plenty of other games have developed new content that is now finding it's way into most MMOs, this is not descriptive of Clone-dom. Please stop with these arguments, they are a waste of time and breed ignorance.
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
Interesting. Sure there are definate similarities, and I'd agree it's a wow clone in principle, but war at least tried something different with public quests, pvp lakes, and battleground queues from level 1 (which wow quickly copied). Out of all the wow clones recently, war's actually one that tried to be something a bit more.
That's a likely scenario of success.
I think a huge problem is the MMO market is only so big, back in EQ's day you had limited choice on which games to play. As well as a unique line-up of games at that time. Today there are so many choices the MMO player-base as a whole is spread pretty thin. As well as the uniqueness has been replaced with standards. Even with that considered, again I must stress, there's only so many players to go around. Especially when a game like Warcraft is taking such a large percentage of the pie.
No I'm not forgetting you have those who dabble in multiple games, but the average person really doesn't have the time to practice such a life-style. They set-up shop in a game world and play it as long as they enjoy it. Which can be years.
In those years they've missed many games as you most likely know.
Another thing to consider is the leveling process in games. I found it very hard to move on from galaxies for this reason alone. I already had a max character playing a fun end-game IMO. Why should I move on when I'm still having fun, only to go through boring mechanics for so long? The NGE is what it took for that to happen.
Blizzard hasn't screwed up yet, at least to such a degree.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Quit using that word, it's a disgrace for any veteran of MMO's to repeat such an ignorant word. It was obviously a WoW fan boy that started it and now it's become a damn word with definition known to almost everyone.
Seems that all new games that come out are now considered a clone, I don't hear anyone saying WoW was a L2/EQ2/etc. clone or any other games of that nature. No ones ever made up any of these type of words before WoW but since that game has been out, it seems everyones hating on every new release and comparing it to WoW, childish mentality.
WoW was the worst game that ever hit the market, it opened the gates that flooded in the retards to the mmo scene.
Life is way too short to get into all the minute details of a game. Yes, there are differences AS I STATED IN MY OP (which you obviously did not read), but when 90% of the game is the exact same mechanics, it's a wow clone. I don't give a darn how picky you want to be, it's the same game with minor insignificant variations. You're just a closed-minded fool thinking otherwise. It's like getting mad that someone calls a common small brown house spider a spider rather than it's exact name. Nobody cares. Everybody who is reasonable understand it's just a darn spider.
To state that AOC is nothing like wow is psychotic imo, unless it has DRASTICALLY changed from release (and I played up to level 50 or so at release). You're just smokin' crack in my book.
Great. You just go on with your bad self and debate the 3-4 minor variations in a game, while the rest of us reasonable people call it exactly what it is. Essentially a clone, and since wow has been the clear leader in the industry for the past five years, we'll happily call it a wow clone.
btw, I tend to find that people who despise wow are the ones who made up the term. It was meant to be derogatory, that being a game that took the easy way out and thought they could mooch from Blizzard's pie when they could have made their own pie.
zaxxon I have a question or two for you. Honestly don't know the answer.
Were C&C and Warcraft called Dune 2 clones? You basically did the same thing. Build a base, get some units and attack the opponent.
Were Wolfenstein, Quake or Unreal called Doom clones? You just had some weapons and proceeded to kill everything.
I think similarities are just the signs of a game genre and not a clone.
Sounds like a fan boy, must be a fan boy. Your ignorance is quite amusing.
So a bunch of teenage boys and/or ignorant tards that plays a game that leads the industry is privileged to call any game to come after it a "WoW Clone"? You fail.
Why would people that despise WoW create a word like WoW Clone, thnk about it, You make absolutely no sense, you need to start thinking before you click submit, seriously. WoW clone used by WoW players because they think WoW is superior to all others which makes all games NOT as good so "supposely" they copied it from WoW. Go back to your game and let the grown ups debate.
It's a good point but you didn't consider mass market. SWG becoming as popular as WoW is almost like a wargame USAF simulator becoming MASS... it would have never happened. WoW was a success because it introduced mechanics that appealed to everyone, even if it didn't actually invent those mechanics, WoW made 'em accessible. Appealing to everyone couldn't have happened in any other way but making a game more pleasant for the mass. It's a natural process, it's not random, it's inevitable, WoW offered easy entertainment and that's naturally what became popular, and that's why EVERY single AAA MMO is like WoW.
Your point is that MMO's would have become all identical even if WoW didn't exist, and that may be true, but what's the difference? We would have called the mother of clones with another name. Why is it important?
The strange thing is that we're stuck with deciding who started mass market, while we should just blame the existance of it, and the fact that it was the cause for such a stagnant MMO scenario.
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I think term wow clone always was meant as derogatory and that's why I think it was first used exactly by people that didn't like the wow style of mmo. It was used to describe a game they don't like in comparison to the game they hated the most. That's how I see it anyway, and why I think it could have been used by someone that didn't like wow as opposed to someone that did.
As soon as one of these other mmorpgs does well we can start cloning something else. And I am sorry but 300k accounts is not the "well" that people want to be cloning.
Believe me, I agree there is little difference. I also agree it's mass market appeal that leads to the saturated market the MMO genre has become.
I was basically saying plainly on the subject at hand. Had WOW not happened, I doubt the market would be all that much different, as you basically said a clone is a clone.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As far as games cloning/ copying WoW ( yes i know other games has some of the same gameplay before hand. But thats just common in gameing when something becomes highly profitable. It happened with side scrolling coop action games ( double dragon , final fight type games) , It most definally happened with Street Fighter ( one of the most copied games i ever seen) , it happened with Doom. So no shock its happeneing with MMO
The worst part about overly copying games is it tends to in the long run bore the masses after a while , over exposer and then no matter how well a game can be made its usually not even played.
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Like I said, go on with your bad self arguing insubstantial novelties as differentiating factors. The rest of us aren't fooled. We'll call a spade a spade.
IMO you're being obtuse for the simple sake of playing the troll and bait game. You'll only get a reply out of me when you make arguments worth debating. Until then, it's just blah blah blah from you which I'll happily ignore.
The problem with some of the repliers im reading exists because of this little phrase:
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW.
They get angry with us. They don't understand, we don't understand ourselves because we can't explain that phrase. So allow me to rephrase it.
Most MMO's today are clones of WoW, even though WoW didn't invent anything.
This phrase clearly short circuits the angry guys. It doesn't make sense, does it?
But it does to us! Because when we say it We don't care whether WoW invented those mechanics or not, with that phrase we're simply stating that
after WoW those mechanics that WoW didn't invent became the standard of every MMO.
And i don't think anyone can deny it.
The case of WoW is very special. I've always believe that DAOC is the real father of WoW. Imagine it like an olympic torch, DAOC gave it to WoW, and WoW was such a LOVABLE torch bearer, it actually made "bearing the torch" a THING, a MEME.
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Maybe that is what was meant, but WoW isn't all the first to do all the things you mention.
Smooth gameplay for instance. My computer played EQ great. It was smooth and responsive. Besides, when you design a game to look like a Mikey Mouse cartoon what do you expect.
Variety of gameplay. Well, EQ2 was released forst and was designed from the beginning as a "casual players" EQ with better graphics. IT also had hardcore elements in the beginning.
Attention tpo detail and polish, well the Mythbusters proved with enough rubbing you can polish a turd. I didn't play WoW at release, but I remember people complaining about the game.
Response to players concerns. Well you got me there. Most companies could care less, but with all the complaining about what Blizz is doing in Cata and all the people getting accounts hacked and Blizz seemingly doing nothing about it, are you sure you want to lsit that anymore? I wouldn't, seems they are getting too big for their own good.
Third party support. Well I guess you never heard of EQinterface have you? Oh, that isn't the only game they support either. WoW was NOT the first their. If this is what you meant.
Those are good arguements, but WoW was not the first to do any of them except maybe listening to the players, but that I think may have slipped with them having all the subs.
I think a lot of games, and I mean alot, focused on graphics and not on actual functionality, i.e. Sigils attempt for instance and noone wants to jump from an established game to pay to beta test something new, even it is an awesome concept, Vanguard again. What it boils down to is Blizzard did nothing special or groundbreaking. What they did was to make a simple game that gave the every kid gets a trophy generation easy accomplishments. Oh yeah and they advertised. WoW is nothing but a boring game that has a lot of subs because it's easy, takes no thought, skill, or tactics. How do I know... I played it. And I think its obvious I don't care for it.
This thread is amusing.
I think that people are using the words "WOW clone" when they really just mean "MMORPG".
In order to get something to NOT be a WOW clone, it would have to be something other than an MMORPG as we know it.
I agree with what you're saying here, though I still think the term is over-used. You used clone in a proper context which is rare to say the least. WOW is a standard in the genre, there's no real definition to that standard. WOW as some put it was a perfect storm. The right thing at the right time.
WOW standardized the formula everyone seems to be following today. That doesn't mean every game is a WOW clone down to every feature.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson