Originally posted by nerovipus32 The vast majority of the people playing wow only play wow. They might try your game out for a month but they always go back to wow. Developing a game with those players in mind is a recipe for failure.
The truth! WoW is such a freak of nature. I know so many people IRL that randomly used to play WoW hardcore or still do but never have or never will play another MMO. They don't even know other MMOs exist! People need to realize that WoW players are not a potential player base for other MMOs. Not all of them at least.
Wrong, a clone is something, that is genetically identic to something else. You only have the half genome of both of your parents, this doesnt make you a clone.
I think his post was actually sarcastic to mmogamer71, but I could be wrong.
It all depends on what SOE is shooting for. If their goal is:
- something easy that makes as much money in as short a time as possible in existing markets regardless of how customers are treated, sucking the last nickel out of the remnants of credibility the EQ name still possesses
OR
- something new and innovative that will create and expand a brand new market, earning them long term customer loyalty by re-launching an improved version of one of their most beloved brands
Right now, SOE is one of the most hated companies in the computer MMO entertainment field. Time and again they have taken old horse meat, doused it in sauce to cover the flavor, and sold it as prime rib. Or taken someone else's beautiful young princess and turned her into a painted courtesan.
I think where EQN lands depends on whether SOE take the short or long term view on MMO as one of their products. If EQN is another derivative dump on the heads of their customers, I don't think anyone will be lining up for their next MMO - ever. They will basically become a company that does FPS and e-sports games. We will have to wait for someone else in the future to take the genre to the next, more deep and thought-provoking, level of innovation.
When a very large company designs an MMO they will obviously go after their largest possible player base, if you played EQ 1, 2, or SWG you probably arent their target market, heck if you post on this forum you probably arent their target market. If you play WOW, COD, Guild Wars 1 or 2, wear a hat backwards while playing texas holdem watching UFC in your friends basement your probably their target market.
.........
I believe that you Bayanmerkid are absolutely CORRECT with this statement.
MMO Investors, Publishers, and especially Developers STOPPED making MMORPGs for original MMORPG Players years ago. It's quite obvious.
This is why I have no faith in what people say around here.... that future MMOs will have more sandbox and old style content and maybe a return of the "good old days" of MMOs... the Devs today can't make the old school MMOs because for the most part from what I have been able to find out the vast majority of Devs are Console Gamers and Console Devs! How in the hell can they EVER understand what we old school MMORPG Players want in a MMO? They can't. Period.
I would have better luck getting my 70 year old Mother who knows nothing of Gaming to make a good MMO than to trust the current crop of Developers and Publishers to be honest.
All MMOs are now made for the Masses, that gigantic group of People that would not have been the least bit interested in DAoC, UO, AO, SWG, EQ, etc. MMO Devs have no interest whatsoever in making MMOs for the original fans of MMOs. Just like Baseball, once the money People took over the Past-time was altered forever. I remember my Grandfather lamenting about how Baseball got changed and now we are seeing it happen to MMOs.
This is why SOE doesn't care about us.
Even Rolf of Wurm Online is bending and twisting Wurm to appeal more to the Masses, and the game many of us loved is getting buried in more new Themepark Features with every new patch. I left Wurm after years of enjoying it because Rolf is shifting his target group of Players he wants for the game and it's blatantly obvious.
So... I play everything a little if I think I might like it some, I get what enjoyment I can from the current MMOs, and I refrain from deluding Myself or lying to Myself that the "good old days" of MMORPGs will ever happen again.
Originally posted by Ehliya .....
We shall see. Do we trust Smedley or not?
As for Smedley... I don't believe anything He says. Not one word. We shall see what kind of beast EQNext is when it gets released.
Everquest had 450,000 subscribers in 2003, Everquest 2 when it was subscription based had over 500,000, since going ftp it has tripled in players. World of Warcraft had 12 million subscribers in late 2010.
If you are reading this and saying that I'm trolling this message board, think again. I played EQ 1 and loved it, I played it day one for three years. Everquest 2 I played for a year, SWG i played for 2. I also played WOW for 2 years. Personally I think WoW was really easy but Im sure any EQ player would agree with that, I digress from my point.
When a very large company designs an MMO they will obviously go after their largest possible player base, if you played EQ 1, 2, or SWG you probably arent their target market, heck if you post on this forum you probably arent their target market. If you play WOW, COD, Guild Wars 1 or 2, wear a hat backwards while playing texas holdem watching UFC in your friends basement your probably their target market. Im sure at this point your saying Im generalizing but the fact is to even get 1 million subscribers their not going to make an updated EQ 1 (although Im in the category wishing they would), they will build a more mature WoW with EQ lore and new enough game mechanics that although they will be familiar they wont be stale.
Im sure everyone at SOE knew that after the release of that concept art the hardcore community would have a fit, but lets be honest they care way more about the people who think that WoW was the first MMO ever created. Look on the internet at how much other websites post on rumors of EQN, they dont at all, but they do post tons of rumors on Titan and pointless news on WoW, this just shows how the majority of PC gamers are now a days.
I will play this game regardless of how grim many people think it looks, including myself. The reason why? If MMORPG and Ten Ton are getting pretty hyped about so am I. Yes there has been lots of hype about other games, SWTOR being the main one(which I thought was pretty fun as a single player game lol), but EQ is ftp so what the heck why not hold off try it. Maybe when its all said and done the nostalgia of seeing festering hags in unrest and icebones in lower guk will at least give us a smile and want us to keep exploring to see what other tidbits we find which all those WoW players looking for a new home wont understand.
If I could +1 your post I totally would. Good post and intelligent information...it's true (hoping for a updated EQ1 but..doubtful cause companies want money over a community like the gamers playing their game want. Few companies pay attention to this the right wow, sadly wow does do this for their patches but does it too well I suppose , listening to whiners on their forums about how a class is OP and then patching everything a month later. ArenaNet has done a good job of this I think with GW2 and keeping their community strong, though being a hardcore GW1 player for a long time..I was a bit dissapointed in GW2 myself, but the community is pretty great.
Everquest had 450,000 subscribers in 2003, Everquest 2 when it was subscription based had over 500,000, since going ftp it has tripled in players. World of Warcraft had 12 million subscribers in late 2010.
If you are reading this and saying that I'm trolling this message board, think again. I played EQ 1 and loved it, I played it day one for three years. Everquest 2 I played for a year, SWG i played for 2. I also played WOW for 2 years. Personally I think WoW was really easy but Im sure any EQ player would agree with that, I digress from my point.
When a very large company designs an MMO they will obviously go after their largest possible player base, if you played EQ 1, 2, or SWG you probably arent their target market, heck if you post on this forum you probably arent their target market. If you play WOW, COD, Guild Wars 1 or 2, wear a hat backwards while playing texas holdem watching UFC in your friends basement your probably their target market. Im sure at this point your saying Im generalizing but the fact is to even get 1 million subscribers their not going to make an updated EQ 1 (although Im in the category wishing they would), they will build a more mature WoW with EQ lore and new enough game mechanics that although they will be familiar they wont be stale.
Im sure everyone at SOE knew that after the release of that concept art the hardcore community would have a fit, but lets be honest they care way more about the people who think that WoW was the first MMO ever created. Look on the internet at how much other websites post on rumors of EQN, they dont at all, but they do post tons of rumors on Titan and pointless news on WoW, this just shows how the majority of PC gamers are now a days.
I will play this game regardless of how grim many people think it looks, including myself. The reason why? If MMORPG and Ten Ton are getting pretty hyped about so am I. Yes there has been lots of hype about other games, SWTOR being the main one(which I thought was pretty fun as a single player game lol), but EQ is ftp so what the heck why not hold off try it. Maybe when its all said and done the nostalgia of seeing festering hags in unrest and icebones in lower guk will at least give us a smile and want us to keep exploring to see what other tidbits we find which all those WoW players looking for a new home wont understand.
Hmmmm, I kind of agree with some of this but disagree too. I don't think wow gets a ton more coverage on most mmo sites except for the kiddie mmo sites that tend to only focus on f2p crap games. Massively, this site, Tentonhammer - I don't see more wow stuff than any other game, and how much has there really been to talk about so far with zero information?
With the release of the concept art I will admit that made me question their target audience. I'm skeptical after that art released but we will just have to wait and see. As another poster said they scrapped the game a few times now for being too similar to other mmo's. But does that mean the new way will actually be tailored for the old school crows or wow type mmo player? Don't know. I would like to see the reintroduction of a lot of the old school things like no quest markers, interactive conversation with npc's, corpse runs, etc. But, is that going to bring them the money? Probably not. And they are a company like any other that is about dollars ultimately.
All I can really say is let's just see what happens at the reveal. Speculation is running rampant and it is ALL based on assumptions, except for the obvious stuff they have stated like it's going to be f2p, is a sandbox, etc.
This is why we need to retire the clone term-say it's similar or has too many of the same features. Every time someone says wow clone we get 3 pages of it being EQ clone or whats the definition of clone. There's only been about 3 or 4 posts about the original OP topic in 4 pages. We need some sanity!!
Trying to follow the same gaming formula that WoW has is a proven method of failure.
“What we’re really changing is what the game is all about,” he explained. “All the design elements. We made one fundamental shift to emergent gameplay. Once we made that shift, everything else had to follow. And what we saw was Rift. We saw The Secret World. We saw the writing on the wall with Star Wars: The Old Republic. We saw all these games that we knew were in development and very high-quality, but we saw what was going to happen—this big spike and then it goes down.”
“That’s the truth of what’s been happening with MMOs,” Smedley continued. “The fans need to realize that if you don’t change the nature of what these games are, you’re not going to change that core behavior. We want to make games that last more than 15 years. That’s why we made the decision to change it."
You can't beat WoW at it's own game and they know it.
They altered EQ2 to match the WoW model, and then realised it just isn't going to work the same again as it did for Blzzard. So now they are trying something new for EQN.
Do they care about niche gamers? Nope. Not unless they think that niche can become mainstream in the future.
Wow didn't have any pvp systems at release, it was just flag yourself and kill the enemy. Wow is a more streamlined casual version of EQ but it's still heavily influenced by it. So if you can call games like warhammer or age of conan wow clones then the same can be said about wow when it comes to everquest.
The only flagging in WoW was if you were in the safe zones that are still safe zones....Neutral zones had no flagging because you were flagged when you entered. Everquest had completely different game mechanics, your ignorance is obvious.
Wrong, a clone is something, that is genetically identic to something else. You only have the half genome of both of your parents, this doesnt make you a clone.
Thank you for stating the obvious & not catching the sarcasm, Hands McButterfingers.
You will never match wow because wow has people who would never of played an MMO still playing. Trying to target that audience 15 years after EQ helped start this genre isn't going to happen.
Everquest had 450,000 subscribers in 2003, Everquest 2 when it was subscription based had over 500,000, since going ftp it has tripled in players. World of Warcraft had 12 million subscribers in late 2010.
Alot of those 450k dont even play mmo's anymore Im sure. Theyve moved on with their lives.
I mean I havent...but most people I know from back then have. If I was in charge of making the game I wouldnt even care a little about getting the "original" demographic to play the game. Way better ways to make alot more money.
And you better believe making money is what they care about.
Oh the overly broad definition of "clone" argument again..... "all mmo's are clones you push buttons!!"
Try defining "troll" some time...every other poster is a troll, for some readers.
That's why gamer shorthand exists; so we can use it in overbroad definitions or argue that it should be applied more narrowly (whichever suits our argument-of-the-moment). SEE: Sandbox.
I know you don't accept that and, if you only compare the level-based class-restricted gear-dependent raid endgame fantasy MMOs with each other, WOW and EQ look very different. I leave it up to you to figure out the flaw in that process.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
So maybe WoW took some MMO concepts that were already in the industry and packaged them with their brand. Okay.
But the term "WoW Clone" isn't implying that WoW did something first, or was entirely originally all on its own. It's a reference to the success Blizzard had with the product and how many game companies since have tried to capture that same success.
I will say that for a feature to be part of a wow clone is MUST BE original to wow.
If you try to play it the other way here is the stupid kind of logic it end up with.
EQ feature ->CLONED TO WOW->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#1->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#2.
If your logic followed, WOWCLONE#2 should not be called a clone of WOW but a clone of WOWCLONE#1. But it's not. It's blindly devoting it all to WOW. In effect you are saying, it doesn't matter who created a feature as long as wow has BUT as soon as someone uses post WOW, then it matters and is a wow clone. How dumb is that logic.
WOW is a EQ1 clone. Like it or not. The roots of these games is DND. DND has chainmail as it's root.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
So maybe WoW took some MMO concepts that were already in the industry and packaged them with their brand. Okay.
But the term "WoW Clone" isn't implying that WoW did something first, or was entirely originally all on its own. It's a reference to the success Blizzard had with the product and how many game companies since have tried to capture that same success.
I will say that for a feature to be part of a wow clone is MUST BE original to wow.
If you try to play it the other way here is the stupid kind of logic it end up with.
EQ feature ->CLONED TO WOW->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#1->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#2.
If your logic followed, WOWCLONE#2 should not be called a clone of WOW but a clone of WOWCLONE#1. But it's not. It's blindly devoting it all to WOW. In effect you are saying, it doesn't matter who created a feature as long as wow has BUT as soon as someone uses post WOW, then it matters and is a wow clone. How dumb is that logic.
WOW is a EQ1 clone. Like it or not. The roots of these games is DND. DND has chainmail as it's root.
/shrug I'm not the one who throws around the term "WoW clone" in my posts. It's a rather meaningless discussion all things considered since no "side" will ever come to an agreement, nor would any "side" ever achieve anything if they happened to be proven right somehow.
It's just my observation that MMO games may have trended they way they have - as far as what features are prevalent - because of the success of WoW, not necessarily who originally conceived of a given feature.
Calling something a "WoW Clone" is an easily understandable albeit arguably inaccurate descriptor. No reason for anyone to take umbrage with it, in my opinion.
Uhm....then why do they send me birthday and Christmas cards, ask me how I am doing, offer me limited things that surely they do not offer to everyone, and even invite me to their parties?
Yes, SOE hates our guts so much that they have EQMac open still and saved Vanguard and are even releasing new content for Vanguard...those jerks, stop hatin on your players!
I do not care that they have said over and over that EQN is not for EQ or EQ2 players, I am an EQ player, I was first, this is BS it reminds me of when Metallica sold out with the Black Album, SOE are SELLOUTS!
Imo the direction of game play mechanics, like instances and such, game play mechanics that I thought were ruining EQ (You would guess correctly that I tried the WoW beta and never bought it). I say direction, because they took the mechanics and access and put them on steroids. Blizzard is good at copying concepts, and even striking first, like they did when WAR was coming out (if memory is accurate, been a while).
They have the money to incorporate things others are doing, then picking and choosing what works, or tweaking it to add to WoW. It has made them a lot of money. I mean you can argue everything is a copy, but really, you don't have to dig that deep. WoW felt like a more accessible/easy/convienient EQ/DAoC mashup in concept to me, without DAoCs system depth.
That was my feelings of WoW when I played the beta, which is of course my opinion.
Just to clarify this wasnt a post about how this game is going to be WoW or easymode or anything of the sort. What I was trying to get at is that people have this idea that SOE will be going after a niche of players who want EQ1 remade. When I say its going to be familiar to WoW, what is mean is that people who have played WoW in the past or for that matter any popular MMO be it GW1 2 or SWTOR, will easily be able to pick the game up and find some familiarity.
Comments
The truth! WoW is such a freak of nature. I know so many people IRL that randomly used to play WoW hardcore or still do but never have or never will play another MMO. They don't even know other MMOs exist! People need to realize that WoW players are not a potential player base for other MMOs. Not all of them at least.
I think his post was actually sarcastic to mmogamer71, but I could be wrong.
It all depends on what SOE is shooting for. If their goal is:
- something easy that makes as much money in as short a time as possible in existing markets regardless of how customers are treated, sucking the last nickel out of the remnants of credibility the EQ name still possesses
OR
- something new and innovative that will create and expand a brand new market, earning them long term customer loyalty by re-launching an improved version of one of their most beloved brands
Right now, SOE is one of the most hated companies in the computer MMO entertainment field. Time and again they have taken old horse meat, doused it in sauce to cover the flavor, and sold it as prime rib. Or taken someone else's beautiful young princess and turned her into a painted courtesan.
I think where EQN lands depends on whether SOE take the short or long term view on MMO as one of their products. If EQN is another derivative dump on the heads of their customers, I don't think anyone will be lining up for their next MMO - ever. They will basically become a company that does FPS and e-sports games. We will have to wait for someone else in the future to take the genre to the next, more deep and thought-provoking, level of innovation.
We shall see. Do we trust Smedley or not?
I believe that you Bayanmerkid are absolutely CORRECT with this statement.
MMO Investors, Publishers, and especially Developers STOPPED making MMORPGs for original MMORPG Players years ago. It's quite obvious.
This is why I have no faith in what people say around here.... that future MMOs will have more sandbox and old style content and maybe a return of the "good old days" of MMOs... the Devs today can't make the old school MMOs because for the most part from what I have been able to find out the vast majority of Devs are Console Gamers and Console Devs! How in the hell can they EVER understand what we old school MMORPG Players want in a MMO? They can't. Period.
I would have better luck getting my 70 year old Mother who knows nothing of Gaming to make a good MMO than to trust the current crop of Developers and Publishers to be honest.
All MMOs are now made for the Masses, that gigantic group of People that would not have been the least bit interested in DAoC, UO, AO, SWG, EQ, etc. MMO Devs have no interest whatsoever in making MMOs for the original fans of MMOs. Just like Baseball, once the money People took over the Past-time was altered forever. I remember my Grandfather lamenting about how Baseball got changed and now we are seeing it happen to MMOs.
This is why SOE doesn't care about us.
Even Rolf of Wurm Online is bending and twisting Wurm to appeal more to the Masses, and the game many of us loved is getting buried in more new Themepark Features with every new patch. I left Wurm after years of enjoying it because Rolf is shifting his target group of Players he wants for the game and it's blatantly obvious.
So... I play everything a little if I think I might like it some, I get what enjoyment I can from the current MMOs, and I refrain from deluding Myself or lying to Myself that the "good old days" of MMORPGs will ever happen again.
As for Smedley... I don't believe anything He says. Not one word. We shall see what kind of beast EQNext is when it gets released.
If I could +1 your post I totally would. Good post and intelligent information...it's true (hoping for a updated EQ1 but..doubtful cause companies want money over a community like the gamers playing their game want. Few companies pay attention to this the right wow, sadly wow does do this for their patches but does it too well I suppose , listening to whiners on their forums about how a class is OP and then patching everything a month later. ArenaNet has done a good job of this I think with GW2 and keeping their community strong, though being a hardcore GW1 player for a long time..I was a bit dissapointed in GW2 myself, but the community is pretty great.
Hmmmm, I kind of agree with some of this but disagree too. I don't think wow gets a ton more coverage on most mmo sites except for the kiddie mmo sites that tend to only focus on f2p crap games. Massively, this site, Tentonhammer - I don't see more wow stuff than any other game, and how much has there really been to talk about so far with zero information?
With the release of the concept art I will admit that made me question their target audience. I'm skeptical after that art released but we will just have to wait and see. As another poster said they scrapped the game a few times now for being too similar to other mmo's. But does that mean the new way will actually be tailored for the old school crows or wow type mmo player? Don't know. I would like to see the reintroduction of a lot of the old school things like no quest markers, interactive conversation with npc's, corpse runs, etc. But, is that going to bring them the money? Probably not. And they are a company like any other that is about dollars ultimately.
All I can really say is let's just see what happens at the reveal. Speculation is running rampant and it is ALL based on assumptions, except for the obvious stuff they have stated like it's going to be f2p, is a sandbox, etc.
Trying to follow the same gaming formula that WoW has is a proven method of failure.
“What we’re really changing is what the game is all about,” he explained. “All the design elements. We made one fundamental shift to emergent gameplay. Once we made that shift, everything else had to follow. And what we saw was Rift. We saw The Secret World. We saw the writing on the wall with Star Wars: The Old Republic. We saw all these games that we knew were in development and very high-quality, but we saw what was going to happen—this big spike and then it goes down.”
“That’s the truth of what’s been happening with MMOs,” Smedley continued. “The fans need to realize that if you don’t change the nature of what these games are, you’re not going to change that core behavior. We want to make games that last more than 15 years. That’s why we made the decision to change it."
You can't beat WoW at it's own game and they know it.
They altered EQ2 to match the WoW model, and then realised it just isn't going to work the same again as it did for Blzzard. So now they are trying something new for EQN.
Do they care about niche gamers? Nope. Not unless they think that niche can become mainstream in the future.
The only flagging in WoW was if you were in the safe zones that are still safe zones....Neutral zones had no flagging because you were flagged when you entered. Everquest had completely different game mechanics, your ignorance is obvious.
Thank you for stating the obvious & not catching the sarcasm, Hands McButterfingers.
You will never match wow because wow has people who would never of played an MMO still playing. Trying to target that audience 15 years after EQ helped start this genre isn't going to happen.
Alot of those 450k dont even play mmo's anymore Im sure. Theyve moved on with their lives.
I mean I havent...but most people I know from back then have. If I was in charge of making the game I wouldnt even care a little about getting the "original" demographic to play the game. Way better ways to make alot more money.
And you better believe making money is what they care about.
Try defining "troll" some time...every other poster is a troll, for some readers.
That's why gamer shorthand exists; so we can use it in overbroad definitions or argue that it should be applied more narrowly (whichever suits our argument-of-the-moment). SEE: Sandbox.
Everquest.
I know you don't accept that and, if you only compare the level-based class-restricted gear-dependent raid endgame fantasy MMOs with each other, WOW and EQ look very different. I leave it up to you to figure out the flaw in that process.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I will say that for a feature to be part of a wow clone is MUST BE original to wow.
If you try to play it the other way here is the stupid kind of logic it end up with.
EQ feature ->CLONED TO WOW->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#1->CLONED TO WOWCLONE#2.
If your logic followed, WOWCLONE#2 should not be called a clone of WOW but a clone of WOWCLONE#1. But it's not. It's blindly devoting it all to WOW. In effect you are saying, it doesn't matter who created a feature as long as wow has BUT as soon as someone uses post WOW, then it matters and is a wow clone. How dumb is that logic.
WOW is a EQ1 clone. Like it or not. The roots of these games is DND. DND has chainmail as it's root.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
/shrug I'm not the one who throws around the term "WoW clone" in my posts. It's a rather meaningless discussion all things considered since no "side" will ever come to an agreement, nor would any "side" ever achieve anything if they happened to be proven right somehow.
It's just my observation that MMO games may have trended they way they have - as far as what features are prevalent - because of the success of WoW, not necessarily who originally conceived of a given feature.
Calling something a "WoW Clone" is an easily understandable albeit arguably inaccurate descriptor. No reason for anyone to take umbrage with it, in my opinion.
Uhm....then why do they send me birthday and Christmas cards, ask me how I am doing, offer me limited things that surely they do not offer to everyone, and even invite me to their parties?
I feel the love.
Yes, SOE hates our guts so much that they have EQMac open still and saved Vanguard and are even releasing new content for Vanguard...those jerks, stop hatin on your players!
I do not care that they have said over and over that EQN is not for EQ or EQ2 players, I am an EQ player, I was first, this is BS it reminds me of when Metallica sold out with the Black Album, SOE are SELLOUTS!
SELLOUTS!
Yeah, what was WoW copying?
Imo the direction of game play mechanics, like instances and such, game play mechanics that I thought were ruining EQ (You would guess correctly that I tried the WoW beta and never bought it). I say direction, because they took the mechanics and access and put them on steroids. Blizzard is good at copying concepts, and even striking first, like they did when WAR was coming out (if memory is accurate, been a while).
They have the money to incorporate things others are doing, then picking and choosing what works, or tweaking it to add to WoW. It has made them a lot of money. I mean you can argue everything is a copy, but really, you don't have to dig that deep. WoW felt like a more accessible/easy/convienient EQ/DAoC mashup in concept to me, without DAoCs system depth.
That was my feelings of WoW when I played the beta, which is of course my opinion.