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How does Blizzard Copy Cat so well, yet other Developers Copy Cat so badly?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,400
whats going on here?
Why is it that Blizzard can Copy Cat any MMORPG out there, and benefit greatly from it,
Yet when other MMORPG developers try to Copy Cat, it flops right in their face?
It seems to me as if Copying Ideas from other mmo has become an intolerable cruel behavior in this genre since 2004.
Whats going on?
What is Blizzard's copy cating agenda doing differently that gives them this major advantage?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Comments
Budget.
That is all.
Budget guarantees absolutely nothing without a minimum of talent to go along with it. Some of the latest flops in mmo had pretty big budgets too.
I think Blizzards track record says all you need to know. Simply they are good devs that care about the stuff they release.
Budget with an adequately talented team does make a difference, though. They don't even have to be the most inspired and talented people around, since they only have to copy an idea, adopt , polish and finetune it.
The failure with a number of the top MMORPG's released the last few years is that they were released too early, with a bare minimum (if at all) of polish and finetuning. A larger budget, more development time and a "only release when it's done" mentality up to the top brass of the company would have made quite the difference.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
So should we just accept unfinished products to be released to us, so we can fund Development projects, even if they are in Alpha status/ beta status?
with that extra money coming in, Developers can better their copy cating for the better of the genre.
the trade off, is we pay for crappy products, but they get better over time.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I wouldn't say that copy catting is for the better of the genre.
The progress of the genre is still in the innovative features and new ideas that are being introduced into the MMO genre.
However, fresh ideas and innovations doesn't exclude implementing features and gameplay mechanics alongside them that have worked alright for the last 5-10 years. Ideally, it should be a mix of the new with the old when it comes to upcoming MMORPG's.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Endgame content
ive experienced more bugs and glitches in patch 4.0 than in the entirety of this game's lifespan, so i guess yeah they are copy catting many other mmos a little too well these days heh.
There is nothing wrong with copying ideas. Every genre does that. Everything in life works like that. It's called cumulative knowledge. The thing about copying though is you get an idea from somewhere else and make it better and even expand it.
Although Blizzard did came with a few original ideas.
Blizzard took good elements of previous MMORPG's and melded those elements together to make their own game with their very own look and feel.
Other companies just try to make world of warcraft.
Originally posted by Scagweed22
is it the graphics? the repetativenesses? i mean what is the point? you could be so much more productive in real life
Real life brings repetition and pointlessness too. The only thing real life offers is Great graphics. Its kinda expensive too and way to dependent on the cash shop. Totally pay to win as well. No thank you. Ill stick to my games.
WoW copied from many MMORPGs and got the best features glued together.
The other new MMORPGs try to copy only from 1 MMO (WoW) and of course they fail.
I think the next gen MMO should copy features from WoW (Accessibility), Darkfall (Territorial PvP), EvE (Economy), Vanguard (PvE) and maybe add some other element from offline RPGs.
Cloning WoW doesn't work (See Allods and Alganon) of course people prefer the original to the copy.
It's not only the budget. Blizzard are just damn good. Despite all the hate against them, Blizzard indeed are one of the best companies out there and they don't have a single bad game thus far. All of their games sell very well and that's a huge understatement. They actually were about to go bankrupt before they released WoW. If WoW didn't go that well, Blizzard might not exist today.
Implementing already established ideas is not that much easier than coming up with new ideas. But people think that everybody can copy and make a good game. WRONG. Blizzard's game are very polished true. But you know what makes them that good? They are simply fun to play. People want to have fun. Do you really care if that has been done before as long as if you are having fun. There's also the fact that whatever you come up with, someone else has already done it.
Blizzard introduced some interesting things with their games but people just don't want to admit it:
Starcraft - I am not sure if there was a strategy games with really distinct races before that. If there was, it wasn't all that popular at the time. We had games like AoE which had 20 races with only slight differences. Hell, strategies today don't make their races that distinct. So starcraft is kinda unique in this thing. This together with its great balance make the game so fun and popular.
Diablo 2 - the tree skill system. You no longer need books to learn skills. Not that common at the time. The best action rpg at the time and if you ask me it is still one of the best. It's after diablo that we got action rpgs to get popular. Although they died out pretty quickly after everybody failed to do what Diablo did.
Warcraft - I really can't tell you if Warcraft 2 did something amazing. I didn't play the game when it came out was too young. But I did play it later on and the story was ok and nice. Warcraft still adopted the distinct races philosophy. Warcraft 3 was a great success. I don't really know what was revolutionary about it. I think the cartoonish graphics was a new idea. I don't remember that many game using cartoonish graphics. But look at games now. Lots of games with such graphics. WoW - introduced questing. Yes, before you had quests but WoW had quests which were interesting to read and there were thousands of them. This is a new idea. All MMOs before that did not have quests to level you up throughout the levels. Look at the genre.
So basically Blizzard have a lot of unqiue feature to their game. But people just don't want to admit it. They make thing popular. Diablo 2 spawned many clones which all failed miserably. WoW change the MMO market forever. Introduced a lot of things which became a widespread practice.
Because Blizzard makes everything a bit more fun and functional than it was previously.
They don't just randomly copy features: they lack housing, their crafting is really simple, there isn't an option to do party maneuvers, the game doesn't include collectible card game, etc. They stick to simple enough features, most of which support their core game (fighting), and basically everything they implement is either more fun or more functional than it's elsewhere.
Blizzard are one of the best developers out there with such amazing talent, get over it.
Copy pasting dusnt take talent, smart yes but talent no
Warhammer, Aion, Vanguard all had larger budgets to begin with and basically flopped. Blizzard makes games that are accessible to many different types of players where most do not. I have not played WOW for thee years but could jump in and still play the game.
Most games require alot of time to play.
Blizzard does not push out patches with as many bugs and they are quick to listen to players and adjust the game accordingly.
Yet 99% of the developers can't get it right? Can you ? Is your definition of talent = coming up wiht something new?
talent - natural aptitude or skill in something. So Blizzard have a natural aptitude and skill in compiling good ideas and polishing them and actually making them fun. So they have talent.
Its all about vision. Many of the copycats are copying what is good , where as, blizzard was was being good and copying as a secondary thought. IE focus on a final product instead of the part of that product. So the whole vs the parts that make it up.
Look at war most of it systems were effect and high quality? But as an entire game it was weak, the kind of weakness that a focus testing will not show, but just having a few people playing it or lookign at the game in its entirety shows.
You need to make mmorpgs with end game, pvp, character, pvp, ui and etc as the focus and starting points; not the end product.
A few people on these forums has stated Mythic should have not made war insted daoc2, the reason behind this is their concept for WAr is a weak and flawed one (Bad game design simply stated EA or no EA war would have been what it is, but its concept was flawed). Not mentioning a bad engine/coding for movement and clinet server communication seemed sluggish.
But look at the other failed games even ones that have good systems it often that the concept of the purpose of the game is flawed. Aion ? Grindign on slow dieing mobs, forever, flying is weak, pot spam. Df i feel does a good job at what it does (but obviously most people don't want that type of game, but it rings true). FF14 purpose? Make a New ff mmo with a lot of classes that take a lot of time to level, to get people who are gonna play the game no matter what to play , collect money.
Playable, interactive, fun.
Im sure ther eis more to this but i think my comments has a role in this.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
A Blizzard dev answered that once very elegantly. "With every feature, we ask ourselves, is thus fun to do? And if not, it gets out." Now you might not agree with it in every single case, and I am no WOW gamer either. But IMO this is a very, very important lesson. Too many developers have their "vision", some intellectually constructed ideal what they want to do. And by and large they lose the contact to the "inner child", which simply is driven by fun and seek to bend people's will by forcing them down some road THEY think would be better.
"Our game is fun, IF ONLY people would understand!" That is the creed of all the failed games. Pa-the-tic.
People first and foremost want to have fun. There is no "wong way" to have fun. It just is there. Or it isn't. There is no other magic secret of the formula.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You are a true Wowwer. Blizzards devs have no idea on what they are even doing. The only concept they can create are taken from others. I hardly think that's admirable or even worthy or any grand status. I'm sure you're well known to their very own paste this and paste that theory. Afterall, they have become the Kings of it.
Blizz knows how to boil down the crap, extract the awesome, and make it accessible. They aren't revolutionary most of the time, they're just doing it better. And really, 95% of the successful companies in the world are like that. It's rare that you get a company that truly innovates, doing something no one has done - it's not like there weren't stores going back millenium. But some companies has mastered how to make a store that people like and will use. They succeed.=
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
Why would it matter even if another company copycats well? The game still wouldn't have the amount of content and depth WoW has at this point due to how long the game has been out.
Developers need to try and come up with something different whether in gameplay, content, or genre if they hope to even come close to the numbers WoW has in its game. Really though, probably the biggest issue amongst companies is their exepectation of getting the same numbers as WoW. A lot played into why WoW was able to get those customer numbers. Part of which was being in the right place at the right time for the product they were selling. Amongst a multitude of other reasons.
I would imagine if they were to be honest about the whole affair even they would say they were a bit taken aback by how successful their game ended up being.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
This.
I could try to post and explain, but couldnt do it as well as lorechaser.
Its sad that Blizzard has become the Microsoft of the mmorpg world. Minus the Anti-Trust.
Hate because its cool. Secrectly play/use because it works. Most of the time.
And whats sad? Most of the time is better then average.
Just goes to show that even in copying, you need to put thought into the process.
Blizzard doesn't just blindly copy whatever happens to be out there. They have been pretty thoughtful about what they copy and how it impacts the world...e.g. they were happy to copy instant joining battlegrounds when they saw it in Warhammer Online beta, but there wasn't anything else notable that they copied from that game. Note that in this example, Blizzard has also turned around the copying process before the game they took it from even went live.
At this point, Blizzard also has the advantage of being able to copy additional elements...they are not having to create a whole new product to compete with other heavy weights (they are the heavy weight). It is very easy to pilfer a small piece and quickly add it to an existing platform than to create a platform that exceeds WoW in almost every way (many games have exceeded WoW in certain areas, but not from an all-around perspective).
The features the other games usually are using is as fine as Blizzard, it is not a matter of copying but of Coding.
Blizzard and Arenanet are the only ones with really good programmers, well, Bioware have some people that is pretty good too even if B & A have better.
Vanguard is in many ways a brilliant game but the reason no one plays it s bad coding. Same goes for many of the MMOs.
Some other games made the first half of the game fun but forgot the second half, like WAR. But they also suffer from bad coding.
There is no possible way to make a best seller game with bad coding. Look on all huge games in history (Eq was never huge) like Half life, Diablo, Doom, or whatever. They all have good coding. So many games have failed because of that.
There are also other reasons of course but this is the main reason that SOE, Turbine, Funcom and similar companies never will get a game like Wow.