It seems to be fashionable these days to basically rewrite WoW, with some changes, and then claim they are not competing with WoW. Except, you know, they want a few million of their subscribers to switch over, and they have added lots of things to their game to explicitly make it similar to WoW, like a solo-focused leveling path followed by a level-cap instance and raiding game. Even EQ2 gave that a go with their latest expansion. AoC is essentially the same. WAR will be essentially the same. All these games claiming to be about not competing with the behemoth, trying their best to be able to fill in the blanks in this sentence: “We’re just like WoW, except for ____________ (insert feature here)”.
So color me shocked when I loaded up the Wizard101 beta and said to myself, OMFG… this is NOTHING like WoW. These people are NOT competing with WoW. They could give a flying fish whether any WoW players like their game. They have packed more innovation into this one game — this one game FOR CHILDREN — than I have seen in the “grown up” MMO world in years.
KingsIsle, creators of Wizard101 and likely recipients of J.K. Rowling’s curses as she wishes she’d licensed Harry Potter for an MMO sooner, have to be laughing at all the WoWs and AoCs and WARs and EQ2s that just keep remaking the same game, year after year. Sometimes something new comes out and it’s just a slap on the head moment — oh, so this is the kind of game you make when you REALLY don’t care about competing with WoW, you just make the best and most innovative and most fun game you can.
I am hoping Wizard101 does well. I am hoping Chronicles of Spellborn, also with a semi-innovative (though not as much as W101) combat mechanism, does well. But mostly, I am hoping the folks at 38 Studios DON’T. REMAKE. WOW. NOW WITH NEW FEATURE X.
Cuz I won’t play it. I already played WoW. It was called WoW.
28 thoughts on “Totally not competing with WoW, except we totally are.”
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Summed up in your links:
[09:52] Gallenite: All that says is: “You can’t go after a WoW audience without at least meeting the WoW level of endgame expectation,” which is nearly impossible for any new retail sub based MMO at this point.
[09:52] Gallenite: To which I say, “Well, duh.”
[09:52] Gallenite: Trying to do that is foolish in the extreme, unless you’re the rare company who can compete on ability to execute in online at quality, and have the financial muscle to match. Right now, that company has not yet proven itself to exist. It might, but it hasn’t happened yet.
—-
I believe EA Mythic is the company “that doesn’t exist” and WAR will prove it.
Well, see my reply about that on your blog 🙂
I agree with you completely Tipa. This blog here makes me think back to Richard Garriott, said something to the effect of “he played WAR when it was called WoW” and a ton of people seemed to have freaked out. In the same article, he stated MMO’s have went through evolution not revolution.
Which to me, makes perfect sense to me and I think it’s kind of what you are saying here.
Tell me, which MMO am I?
I create my semi-customizable character, start out at level 1, go around killing things, completing quests and leveling up my toon while at the same time getting better gear. And then I finally reach level cap and either do the whole thing over again or start hitting raids.
And don’t get me wrong, I love my game. I’m still die hard EQ2, and probably will be for quite a while. But, I’m ready for a completely new MMO. Something that can break the mold and I know it’ll happen eventually, it’s just a matter of when.
/rantoff (Zank you, I’z be here all zey week!)
That was Richard Bartle, who said he had already played WAR, it was called WoW. With that, he put into very eloquent words what a lot of us feel. We’re already playing next year’s games, and the ones two years away. The WoW model is a good one, all the most popular MMOs have followed it, but you don’t need to play TWO WoWs. I love EQ2, too. Therefore, I don’t need to play AoC or WAR.
Raph Koster wrote in http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/07/09/a-game-designers-core-skills/:
Be able to see the game with no hint of artwork, music, sound, anything — the bare rules, bare mechanics, bare actions, stats, feedback loops. The skeleton, the core, the bone and sinew of it, without any dressing, as a shifting, moving mechanical construct of guy wires and rigid struts. It’s not an attack, it’s force projection, it’s territory control in a graph. And you can see it in your head, and when a feature gets proposed, you can see where it slots in — or not, and know whether the whole construct will tip over.
If these game designers would look at their games as GAMES, without their IPs, without their graphics, how well would they do — PURELY as games? I am as interested in playing AoC, or WAR, or any other WoW relative as I am of playing someone’s bright shiny new version of Tetris. Yeah.
What is funny is WAR is really taking the heat for being a WoW clone.
The issue is nothing available to the normal reader of the web see’s anything different. Except for “Fan” blogs and sites…
I saw posts stating “PQ’s will change the way you play”
Ok, well, why does part of that PQ have me chopping wood, then killing 5x foozles…thats new…NOT!
The Tome of Knowledge is new. Yet, why does it sound like “Achievements”?
So far EA/Mythic has said they are not competing with WoW…cool
The issue is all the Fanboi’s ARE making it a competition. The bloggers and fans all over are the one’s who keep saying it is something new.
Well, thanks to those fanbois, I expect a LOT of difference. We will see eh?
DAoC had a PvE heading toward PvP/RvR, but was otherwise an EQ clone with crappier dungeons. Actually, their whole PvE thing was pretty poorly done. They shone at RvR. But stealthers made the whole thing kinda pointless. You would fall over dead. That was it. You would be somewhere and you would fall over dead.
But important to remember — EQ clone. I called it “EQ Light” at the time, and I was a subscriber.
Even with fantastic RvR, people will say WoW clone the same way they called DAoC an EQ clone.
But maybe with enough advertising, people will become as excited as Mythic’s marketing department is.
All my friends who drift to every new game, are in AoC. I know where they will be when WAR comes out. Because once you have played WoW, it’s easy to move to another WoW, because you know the drill and the anticipation is better than the reality ever could be.
I dunno, clones aren’t so bad. I enjoyed Super Mario Bros, and subsequently enjoyed SMB3 (but not 2, that game sucked–it was totally different because it was a reskinned version of doki doki panic.) Come to think of it, I really liked Zelda 1 but Zelda 2 (which was side scrolling and totally different) not so much. Zelda 3 on SNES went back to the original gameplay and it rocked. In fact Zelda 2 was the least successful installment of an insanely popular franchise.
I still think its moronic to not at least try to appeal to WoW fans on some level. Its the whole coke / cherry coke thing. Get people to try cherry coke first, don’t attempt to get them hooked on mountain dew as your competitor to coke. Some people will like it, but not enough to make it worth the time.
I absolutely disagree about trying to please WoW fans, unless you’re Blizzard. Make the best game you can with all your great ideas, make a game with a fun, unique concept, and MMO fans, including WoW fans, will find YOU. Come up with a game essentially similar to WoW and you’ll always be playing catch-up to it. And that’s a game you will lose.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been filled with hate posts by the warhammer fanboys yet.
By the way, those guys scare me. I don’t understand how anyone can be so attached to a game that isn’t even out yet.
TheRemedy: Heh, my first thought was exactly that — “Hmm, I wonder when the WAR fanboys are going to come in here screaming ‘BLASPHEMY’!”
And yeah, they are pretty scary in their fanatical belief in everything that EA-Mythic says about the game. I’ve stopped reading a few blogs (at least for now) due to an onslaught of “WoW (or some other MMORPG) sucks, and WAR will come and save the day. WAR will solve all your problems and have you believe in the genre again. WAR is revolutionary! See all the features that other games are now ripping off WAR?!”
Gets a little tiring.
PS Not that I’m saying that WAR is bad or whatever. I’m also anticipating the title and will try it some time after release, but I’m not drooling over it that way.
I always thought that the WoW 1-cap game was exceptionally fun. If they patched in a new 1-60 zone path and a new class or two I’d play it again in a heartbeat. Hell, I don’t even need a new class, just give me a new 1-60 path. And if there was something more fun to do than FPS style PvP matches or raiding, I might even keep playing when I hit the cap again. I never really got tired of the gameplay in WoW, I basically got bored with the content that was accessible to me.
Reinventing the wheel is a great idea if you want to appeal to folks that have gotten completely bored with the core mechanics of Diku MUD style MMOs. However, I would submit that this is a much smaller audience than the folks that would say “More of the same please..oh and this time I want sprinkles.” Honestly, I’ve been playing MMOs since SoV era EQ, and I still find the core mechanics of that style of MMO to be pretty fun. New classes, new world top screw around in, put in a few new twists into the mechanics . . .but nothing so odd it takes me more than 30 mins to get proficient in (EQ II crafting is a great example), and I’m set.
I also think WAR doesn’t get enough credit for having almost a completely different endgame from WoW. When you think about what experience players will have in your game, for some players that will eventually form the bulk of their experience. Saying WAR is WoW with RvR instead of raiding is a lot like saying it doesn’t matter whether you decide to vacation in New York or a rustic Mongolian village. Yes there will be flying, driving, and hotels involved in both I suppose . . .
Uh oh Tipa. You realise Tobold said some very unpleasant things about nice Mr. Richard Bartle for saying pretty much what you have just said. I’m keeping my head down just in case theres a Tipa vs. Tobie flamewar.
I dunno. While I can see where you folks are coming from, the whole WoW=WAR comparison thing just seems a bit shallow to me.
I’ve played Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for over 20 (gods has it been almost 25?) years now, and for me, its always been the Warhammer World that was the draw.
As far as MMORPG’s go, EQ was my first ‘addiction’ (3 years or so on Tallon Zek(TeamPvP) from launch). DAOC was the game that finally broke that addiction.
I found DAOC’s systems to be much better constructed and balanced than EQ. Relic RvR was more fun than any raid I’d ever been on, and graphically it was incredible. What it lacked was depth to the lore — to the world itself. (And yes, the stealthers sucked if you were running solo… which if you weren’t a stealther was a dumb thing to do.)
When I looked at WoW in late beta, I found some interesting mechanics, but a lot of basic things felt like they were a big step backwards from DAOC… like they’d not learned the lessons from EQ that Mythic had. “Why should I play another grindy PvE game with badly tacked on PvP? If I want that, I can just go back to Tallon Zek!”, is EXACTLY what I said at the time.
I guess my point is that this goes a bit deeper for a lot of folks than the usual “Fanboi vs. Troll” battle. I’ve been waiting for this game since before Al Gore invented the internet… and over the years I’ve played DAOC, Mythic has EARNED a measure of my respect.
When I object to the WoW/War comparison, its not because I’m a WAR fanboy… its because I’m a WarHAMMER fanboy who still has not forgiven Blizzard for blatantly ripping off the Games Workshop’s look WAAAAY back in Warcraft: Humans vs. Orcs. I really wanted a Warhammer RTS. 😉
Oy… I shouldn’t post this late. That was disjointed as hell.
What I was trying to say is that there is a whole ‘nuther layer of geekitude under the surface MMO nerdity here… and that might account for some of the reaction. 😉
lol… well all of us are geeky nerds to even be discussing stuff like this 🙂
You have the advantage of really loving the Warhammer lore, but though I have seen Warhammer played on tabletop, I never did that myself. So really, you’re not the same as a WoW player just looking for the next big game, the one that will be better than WoW, if not necessarily more popular. And you loved DAoC and will love WAR for RvR, so you’re looking for the very features Mythic offers. WAR is your perfect game already, which is great. I have no doubts at all the game will do well. I loved a lot of DAoC, and dressing RvR in a modern suit of clothes is a good plan.
But at the core it’s just a grind to solo to max level/and then raid game, even if that raiding is RvR.
@mbp — You can write the feature lists of WoW and WAR so they seem identicial, and you can write the feature lists so they seem entirely different. Tobold was (iirc) objecting on the basis that the feature lists were so different. Perhaps, but what Bartle was saying was that the games are ESSENTIALLY the same — class based, level grind to max level, largely solo, until max level which brings on raiding and a never-ending gear grind. Sure, that covers most popular MMOs. Bartle suggests that people try a different model out for once rather than copying WoW’s. Problem of course is that those who do, like Pirates of the Burning Sea, don’t do too well. But if you KEEP innovating, you will find your audience, like EVE Online. Because your game won’t be WoW sized doesn’t mean you have to compromise your game.
@Malika — Mythic is selling anticipation. The anticipation of a new game almost always is better than the reality. Look at Hellgate: London, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan. The longer you can keep people anticipating, by throwing out tidbits now and then, the more people are willing to believe. Hell, I do it every year when SOE announces their new expansion to EQ2. I was so totally into RoK until I got a chance to try it myself.
@Yeebo — The original WoW WAS fun. I glady leveled a night elf druid, a human mage, took a break and when I came back, switched to Horde and did a troll priest and a Tauren druid, and then back to Alliance with a gnome rogue. I had fun, I raided some, and then I was done with it. I don’t need to play it again, no matter what it’s called.
Ahh, re-readinng my post I must clarify something:
I love the crafting in EQ II. It was different enough from the norm that it felt new, yet was not so different that I found it intimidating or frustrating.
@Grimjakk: I too think of WAR largely as a sequal to DAoC, set in the “real” Warhammer universe.
I’m totally with you on this. I think that most irksome thing is the insane level of expectation that’s somehow been built around WAR. My guess is that once WAR comes out people will be howling about how this promised feature didn’t make it in, or this element was obvious totally not tested, this launch is clearly a total fiasco, suck this and crap that. Further, I would guess that, amazingly enough, many of the people doing that will be the same people who are screaming silly things like ‘disaster’, ‘Vanguard-like launch’ and ‘will obviously be cancelled next month’ about AoC right now. That kind of talk is just stupid – WAR will have its moment in the sun, rest assured, and it won’t be AoC that eclipses it, so those folks need to take a step back and start looking at the property with some rationality.
There is a certain very vocal segment of the population that is inclined to be unhappy regardless of the realities of the situation. The absurd level of buzz around WAR is going to enhance that, because the game is very unlikely to be as absolutely mirror-perfect as these folks think it’ll be. The people who have actually tried WAR, while also upbeat, are being much, much more modest. That’s not just me, that’s guys like Michael Zenke, who’s looking forward to it even to the point of saying flat-out that he thinks he’ll like it better than WoW, but he also sees that there are things to be concerned about.
I think most folks expect WAR to be a very good game – I certainly do. But some of us really need to get a grip.
@Openedge1:
“Ok, well, why does part of that PQ have me chopping wood, then killing 5x foozles…thats new…NOT!”
Actually, Foozles are pretty tough, you might want to get a raid together.
@Einhorn
LoL. I will do that. Will I gets me’s Epix gearz? What color…BLUE?
I has RAIDS!
Aaaand… the news is out that WAR will launch with two capital cities instead of six, and is chopping four classes as well.
I already played Warhammer. It was called two-sixths of World of Warcraft.
@Ardwulf
Haha
OMG, this is starting to feel like Deja Vu. The only difference is WAR is cutting content BEFORE launch, while AoC did it AFTER release..
We call that biting off more WoW than you can chew.
Another annoying trend I have noticed as games continue to develop into everything being about money is games designing themselves to be incomplete at launch and then “finishing it” with expansions.
Disciples 3 is a great example. They are purposefully not including 2 of the 4 major playable races which were all included in the first two installments (1 of which is very popular) and announcing they will be in the expansion before the “vanilla” is even released yet.
I could be wrong, but the first 3 or 4 expansions of EQ felt like they were “honest”. They had that “for the fans” kind of feel to them. As if they were designed after they realized people liked the game, and not before, and certainly not with the primary intent being to squeeze just a little more cash out of people.
Every expansion after this, as well as the whole of EQ2, does not feel this way to me. EQ2 feels like an unfinished game in almost every respect to me, and all the other expansions of EQ1 feel cheap, tacked on, and hollow.
A long time ago auto parts were one-time purchases that were well made out of quality materials and they worked practically forever. This put a lot of mechanics out of the job, though. Nowadays most mechanical things are “built to break”, all in the spirit of consumerism. It seems like the gaming industry is rapidly going this route (or has already arrived and is unpacking its things).
It feels like pretty soon all games will have a Steam-like interface where you purchase the “sandbox”, engine, models, skins, maps, titles, races, lighting effects, sound effects, NPCs, gear, and classes separately with varying prices based on quality and uniqueness.
Those little mini dungeon adventures in EQ2 are already dangerously close to this bleak future.
They could have easily made any of the zone-changing world events optional, and most importantly, only available via quick-purchase prior to login.
You don’t remember EQ2’s “Adventure Packs”? Splitpaw, D’Morte and Fallen Dynasty were all optional adventures people could buy, or not. The first couple levels would be given for free.
“Those little mini dungeon adventures in EQ2 are already dangerously close to this bleak future.”
Yes, the Adventure Packs are what i was referring to when I said this. I couldn’t remember the correct product name, and I am unfailingly lazy. =)
“But at the core it’s just a grind to solo to max level/and then raid game, even if that raiding is RvR.”
Ah, but that’s one of the selling points… IF they pull off what they say they’re trying to do, the RvR will start at level one. 😉
But… I’ve been through enough of these (haven’t we all?) that I’ll wait until I see it to truly believe it.
Given the announcements of the massive, deep cuts being made to the game, what are the chances, do you think, that the game that ships will resemble the game they promised? Still, as has been mentioned, if the stuff they do ship is decent, they can patch in the other 2/3 of the game later.