Want to cash in on the MMO craze? Think that copying World of Warcraft is the way to do it? NAUGHTY BOY STOP IT! Blizzard has addressed the multitudes of wannabes that have tried to follow in WoW's footsteps, urging hopeful MMOs to be their own thing, rather than create poor imposters.
There are a lot of people that try to emulate World of Warcraft - and as flattering as that is our end it's definitely not the right move," advises lead producer Shane Dabiri in PC Zone. "I know that World of Warcraft is very successful, and so people think if they were to make another game just like it they could somehow capture that audience. However, I don't think that's what players are looking for.
"Players that have invested time in WoW don't just want to do the same thing in other game -- they want to try something completely new and different. I think the industry needs to move in that direction to come up with some innovative new MMOs that are trying really different things. Take City of Heroes -- at least that's something that's not a fantasy game."
This is very true in all areas. Once a market's cornered, you're an idiot to try and simply copy the leader and expect to copy the profits. This is why the whole "me-too" approach to motion control is such a silly move. Still, nobody's ever going to learn, so we can expect unoriginal fantasy MMOs for many years to come, whether we like it or not.
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Contest:
4:20 PM on 11.30.2009 | 
Personally I think The Old Republic has a real chance at at least competing with WoW.
That aside, I totally agree with them. If you're going to be playing something for a really long time, you need to have nailed everything about the game. WoW has had so long to develop now that trying to beat it at its own game is just stupid, because there's just no way you can offer everything better.
Plus, more diversity is always a good thing. JFPSRPGRTSMMO PLZKTHXBAI.
There just to many historical examples that says this guy is full of bullshit. People are not always looking for something different sometimes they are looking for an alternative.
Now you copy something that's doing great and somehow make it BETTER, and you got yourself a winner.
(On a personally note though, I'm looking forward to seeing what Final Fantasy Online 2 has)
Also LOL @ "DAT NECK"
I really have to wonder what MMO Blizzard is going to come up with next that wont' compete with WoW. But not to worry, I'll have about 10 years to think about it until it actually comes out.
Happened a lot back in the EverQuest days, a lot of MMOs copied what EQ did and managed to build up a decent sized user-base, but couldn't get as large as what EQ had. (In the western market anyway, the eastern market was dominated by Lineage. Which is STILL being copied by a lot of the current MMOs over there, the most recent and notable being Aion.)
And then finally World of Warcraft came out, which copied a lot of what EQ and Dark Age of Camelot did, but improved on it and added to it enough to completely surpass what the older games could offer.
Until another MMO does that, WoW will continue to sit on the top of the MMO throne with little to no competition.
You can't expect to make a copy of WoW, sell it for the exact same price/subscription fee and be able to steal players. It's just the way these games work that people would rather NOT opt to lose the progress they've spent days/months/years building up.
There needs to be incentive.
If anything, I'm surprised the competitors don't blatantly copy WoW even more. Features that are now more or less accepted as standard are even lacking. If you're going to copy, do it right for Christ's sake.
Aion, for example, has a guild bank. If you've ever been in a WoW guild that was anything more than a super casual guild (and even they are not exempt) for any real period of time, then you've probably seen guild bank drama. In WoW, there is tracking for who put what in, who took what out as well as features that the leadership can utilize to control the chaos that often leads to guild bank drama.
Aion has none of that. It's literally the leader sets who can use guild bank and that's that. There isn't intricate settings (such as having multiple tabs in WoW where certain ranks can access this tab, but not that one, or deposit things, but be unable to withdraw them, or giving a tab a complete free for all) and that leads to problems. If someone cleans out the guild bank, there is no way to figure out who it was. You just see that everything in the bank is gone.
Why is this so? You couldn't learn from the standard and do it as well?
If you're gonna copy, please just do it right~
I would like to play either WAR or Aion right now, but my PC can only handle WoW. I don't agree that, to be successful, developers have to create a non-fantasy MMORPG. As I said, I'd love to play either WAR or Aion right now.
Quite often you see these MMOs come out and people do play them, but because they weren't built properly either there's no game to begin with or there's game up to a certain level and then it just ends and the players are expected to entertain themselves and they leave.
In order for an MMO to be successful it needs to be several things:
- a complete game
- polished (very few defects, intuitive UI)
- accessible (subject matter needs to be mostly familiar, the product needs to run on any machine and still look decent, in other words don't alienate potential customers)
- fun (this is often overlooked as a result of wanting people to grind endlessly so that subscription money keeps flowing in. It's not hard to see the illogical side to that.)
The world is nice to explore and its got a nice story, but I feel like I'm just being coddled. Afrer years of EQ and FFXI, I'm tempered to want something with a bit more bite to it.
Soloing Beastmaster in FFXI just has an edge I haven't found in any other MMO, but crowd controlling as an Enchanter in EQ komes rather close to the same thrill.
So yeah, less copying WoW and more work on making something that's actually challenging. Also would be nice if MMOs moved away from that whole "raise level cap/obsolete your endgame gear" scheme.
FFXI has never even done that, they've balanced all endgame sets against each other to boot. FFXI has had its problems but the fact its entire endgame and endgame gear is still relevant is something I can really appreciate.
Unfortunately, you're incorrect. WoW absolutely ripped off Asheron Call's User Interface. Which to me is even funnier when people try and claim that LOTRO stole their user interface from WoW. Quite funny indeed.
I'm asking.
because I don't play mmos, like, at all.
Hrrrrmmm.....
and the girl on the right really looks like an elf wtf?
WoW is like the Halo of MMORPG's... it did what other games of it's genre had already being doing, but did it a little better and with a bit more polish... and then fans promptly give it credit for doing it first
Look at all of the freakin' generic Korean F2P MMOs out there. Every time I'm on YouTube I see an ad for a new one.
if you haven't heard about it, its a MMOFPS that... wait for it... ... ...DOESN'T SUCK!
yeah, got in on the closed beta a few months back. this game is going to destroy everything.
2.. I wish people would stop copying WoW aswell.. There has only been 1 success at doing that and thats Runes of Magic but they also have some different things in there like multi classing ( th first online RPGs did this but its jsut now getting put into MMOs? Seriously.. ).
3.. Asherons Call was the lamest MMO of all time. It was behind EQ , UO and then DAOC.. LAST. Mobs aggroing through walls .. The only positive was the GM events and monthly patches. The game stunk.
4.. EQ2 is a good game but to say it has alot more depth than WoW is pretty fanboyish. It probably has more content but not more depth.
5.. Jealousy isnt a good thing and it shows in threads like this... EQ2 1-9 chat is only full of it. WoW this , WoW that.. We get it you want to fit and and feel that bashing WoW will make you accepted.. It doesnt.. It makes you look like a fool.
The end.