BioWare: World of Warcraft Set MMO Standards

What about the standards that EQ set that WoW followed?

He is a moron. Stop with the WoW Clones. Why would someone play a game like WoW if they could just play WoW. If everyone just copied the top dog there wouldnt be much in the way of innovation. Give people something different and it will succeed. The more I read about SWOTOR the less I want to play. They had a great IP but then throw it down the toilet as another WoW clone.

This is hardly surprising or news. In short: WoW was the first wildly-successful MMO to make it out there, hence it's the one everyone wants to try to clone. One must remember that game development is a business, and all businesses want to be successful. In earlier times it was Everquest that was the "standard setter," and before then, Ultima Online. And later, once WoW's gone the way of its predecessors, whatever is top dog THEN will be the one all others will be held up to.

This applies to ALL genres in gaming, not just MMOs: the FPS we compare others to is whatever is most popular, so we've seen shifts from referring to FPSes as "Doom-clone" in the mid-90s, to then comparing games to Quake, then Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Halo, and most recently Call of Duty.

However, I'm not quite sure if The Old Republic will actually be truly competing with WoW: in some ways WoW's already hit its peak: that happened around two years ago, when it FIRST hit 12 million subscribers. (I notice that the Google ad right now mentions this number) Since then it's drifted downward, but has lifted back up to 12 million thanks to Cataclysm's release. A look over the history of popular MMOs show they start with a strong growth slope, followed by a peak, with some "leveling off," followed by a more gradual decline, at 1/3rd to 2/3rd of the rate they climbed. Hence, as WoW originally grew at around 3 million a year, (going from 0-12 million in about four years) it's going to start declining at around 1-2 million users a year.

TOR won't be instantly a "big player," at least if Bioware is to succeed: all MMOs that saw an initial hyper-growth period with a fraction of a million subscribers in the first month all peaked more or less instantly, which meant folding within a year. (remember, an MMO's peak comes almost always around 20-30% of its lifespan, so a peak at 1 month means a 3-5-month life) Assuming that TOR is to grow into the multi-millions range, it's going to do it gradually, taking years. If it follows WoW's pattern, even if it DOESN'T peak as high, it won't be until late 2015, by which WoW will have dropped to around 4.5 million users. (I predict WoW to shut their doors entirely between 2018-2020)

So perhaps, trying to model after WoW to make the "next big thing" might NOT be a good idea, since if it IS the next big thing, WoW won't be really around in the same commanding position. However, I'll admit the other side of the coin: a game has to START with success... And right now, we're in the year 2011, where WoW has been king for about 6 years now, ever since it bumped off Lineage. It'll be interesting to see what the future landscape of MMOs looks like in a few years from now.

EQ is weak compared to WoW

Yeah, but there are plenty of things that can be done better.
1. The auction house. Please, for the love of God, enable proxy bidding like ebay.
2. The subscription scheme. Don't charge for expansions (updates to the game.) It divides the community and makes people angry when they're already paying $15/mo. Please don't retort they're a business and they're in it to make money. There is plenty of money to be made w/o charging for expansions.

I think World of Starcraft will be the sci-fi thing (not Star Wars).

I wish wow would be free to play .

Stop "Dumbing Down" the MMO genre please. I understand the balancing act that occurs to increase the player base but, by now surely it must be obvious to developers that new DLC once a year will not keep subscribers. If the gameplay is not engaging, the content does not matter. I suspect the game won't even be close to my expectations upon release. I hope I am wrong.

I believe Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot were the ones that set the standards...WoW was just a reincarnation of these games that was wildy successful and remains so.

played swtor at PAX, exactly the same thing as WOW with laz0rs instead of fireballs....sad excuse for a game.

When will people learn that you won't make a great MMO simply by copying what is popular *now*? Differentiation is what is required. Otherwise, you'll just have a niche game that is basically WoW in a SW skin. Why would anyone leave WoW for a copy?

When will people learn that you won't make a great MMO simply by copying what is popular *now*? Differentiation is what is required. Otherwise, you'll just have a niche game that is basically WoW in a SW skin. Why would anyone leave WoW for a copy?

"I don't know that it serves the genre very well when MMOs come out and have all sorts of problems and players leave in frustration." Anyone heard of Star Wars:Galaxies?

I love how they are coming out with a new Star Wars MMO but are doing everything in their power to not mention Star Wars:Galaxies. There was a Star Wars MMO and it got screwed up. Lets hope BioWare doesn't make the same mistakes as Star Wars:Galaxies.

Sorry about the double post. Honestly, I hate his remarks regarding how detailed the crafting system of the game will be. It may not be about the "Shop Keeper" experience, but if that's what I like to do, and it's what that *other* SW game did best, than maybe you shouldn't be so pig headed about it.

It's mostly about the control and animation. If your game doesn't have good controls or animation right from the get go then people will stop playing it even before they dwelve into the story and what not. Now having seen The Old Republic's animation, it doesn't look good. Too stiff, the character seems floaty.

Rogain, did you ever play SWG? I did, and the game rocked until CURB, then they tried to fix that gunshot wound by basically setting everything on fire with NGE. The game was great for several years, it didn't have "All sorts of problems" until after it was messed with by a meddlesome publisher.

Or to put it better, they're far more appealing business models. Some things may LOOK profitable in the short-term, but I would agree that perhaps charging a full game's price for an expansion to a subscription MMO may actually cost them subscriptions in the long run.

There's also TONS of other things that could be done as improvement. For one, all of the arguments AGAINST a housing system in WoW all demonstrate the arguers' utter lack of understanding. I'd point to UO's housing system, first implemented in the original game, (and given a massive improvement in 2001) as an example of a system done well that should be kept in many other games.



I'd note that in the case of WoW's expansions, as I already said, The game has begun its death spiral. Granted, it probably won't be un-seated from its throne (frozen or not) for a couple years, and certainly won't be DEAD for perhaps almost a decade, but it's already stopped growing, and started dying. Expansions and updates are merely targeted attempts to slow down and delay the inevitable, to milk the last they can.

As far as the gameplay goes... Everquest had shown that Ultima Online had entirely overdone it: you DON'T need an exhaustive and open gameplay scheme with endless variety. You can just have a massive grindfest with tons of repetitive filler content and still rake in the dough, because the game almost becomes an unconscious "occupy the hands" thing while what they're REALLY focusing on is chatting over Ventrilo or TeamSpeak.

I have my doubts, sadly, that we'll see any shift from this trend here. It's the strategy du jour for gaming: milk the cash cow all you can, and forget making something solid that will be remembered fondly after its peak money-making days are over.



In all honesty, my opinion was that it was flawed from the start, possibly in the same way SWTOR might be. SWG was the largest MMO let-down I'd ever experienced... (since then I've always been cautiously pessimistic at best) I was hoping for, in short, one of three things. (in order of preference:

1. Star Wars: Jedi Knight done as an MMO.
2. Knights of the Old Republic done as an MMO.
3. PlanetSide with a Star Wars skin slapped on.

I'd thought that #3 would've been the most plausible, since Sony had been developing PlanetSide around the same time. Instead what do I get? Basically Everquest with a Star Wars skin slapped on it. Talk about botching it!

And that says it right there. SW:TOR will suck.

It's one thing to say that you didn't like SWG either pre or post CURB/NGE, because by the time NGE rolled around, it really was a different game at that point (many liked it post NGE that didn't before). It's entirely another to say that it was a let-down just because it wasn't what *you* expected it to be altogether. That doesn't mean it was filled with problems, and even though I despise the severe and drastic changes made to game, I don't think it was filled with problems even post-NGE. The game was still fun, but is not what was (or even close) when the player base bought the game. It still worked as a game, but SOE had to learn the hard way you can't just ignore your audience and expect them to keep sending money every month. FFS, they should have learned something from Revolutionary war. Any company/Gov't/Entity that thinks they will keep taking resources from somebody, then continually ignore them has a rude awakening due to them.

I want to play World of Duke Nukem complete with catholic school girl NPCs

Anyone who played UO in 1997 knows how much better WoW is in comparison. There are tons of MMO's out there that are different, but how many have even a million subs? If people vote with their dollars, it's clear that WoW is better for most people. Will WoW be top dog forever? Of course not, but it will be for a while yet it seems. I think some people confuse being bored with a game once played to death and the game actually sucking.

WoW is great, but Blizard is on rinse and repeat...I've been in the game since nearly at launch, but Cata jsut didn't do it for me anymore...I NEED more than jsut more dungeons and raids, but there are millions who still love it, and that's great for them...I will see what Bioware brings with SWTOR, but it's not looking like that game is launch soon (as in the next 3 months) since they haven't even announced the beta as yet. I'm in Rift's beta, and it's the first game to actually do a decent job of cloning WoW, imho. They are probably going to gain a little success...maybe 600-700K long term subs, which is what most game have to shoot for.

I Played SWG early on and it was very flawed. That isnt to say i didnt love the game, I really did. I dont play mmo games because they dont measure up to SWG.
It had the best implementation I ever seen and content lacking in almost all modern games. Player housing/cities/economy, non-combat classes, 32 classes, skill based leveling and a wide variety of templates.
It's 3 main flaws were huge flaws however. It was buggy(with many regressions), lagged and classes were unbalanced(and some were broken since launch and never fixed). Instead of fixing these issues, they instead focused on rebuilding the combat engine twice.
SWG is as i see it the best and worst mmo ever made.

Lol, I like that idea. But then we'd have a problem, who would flash the camera for a wad of 100's?

Personally, I had a little interest in SWTOR up until I started to realize what they just confirmed: SWTOR is a WoW clone that uses the force instead of Magicka.

I don't like WoW, or it's crop of cloned Western MMO's. I'll stick with Eastern MMO's, like Aion, FFXIV, and up coming Tera.

In fact if any MMO has my full attention atm, it's Tera, not SWTOR. Tera looks to be amazing, sadly it likely won't win many awards here in the west, as it's not even mentioned hardly compared to Rift, and SWTOR, and most are used to the easily give stuff away style of WoW.

But for me and fans of Eastern styles, it will likely be MMO of the year.

Well screw that, seems every single MMO game after WoW that tries to be a WoW clone failed, in exception of Lord of the Rings Online which happens to be free2play now. I too was a big fan of SWG before late 2005 but I no longer play it thanks to Smedley's crappy decisions.

I think I lost some interest in TOR now with this statement from Zeschuk.

[citation]Personally, I had a little interest in SWTOR up until I started to realize what they just confirmed: SWTOR is a WoW clone that uses the force instead of Magicka.[/citation]

How exactly did the above article even remotely state its SWTOR is a wow clone? All it did was state true fact that WoW set some sort of standard/brought the MMO genre to an even more popular level then EQ etc did before it.

MMOs, hell most genres follow some sort of rules that 95% of the games in that genre follows. like FPS for example you mouse over a target click and it falls over dead...repeat...a million times, they are still fun for the most part. that's no difference then WoW copying every MMO before it by adding quests etc. what they did different was bring the popularly to a new high and then build upon solid building blocks of the MMO genre. Then they got lucky that every other next gen MMO tried to just cash in on the genre by releasing a subpar or just badly made/thought up MMO.(at least if they were going for a massively popular MMO, they failed.)

I played wow hardcore for many years was in a high ranking progressing guild, i had fun while doing it, but during wrath i lost interest. I've been beta testing RIFT and really like it they combined the best things of WoW and WAR then built on some things.

Ive been following SWTOR for a long time now and can say it wont be anything like the WoW clones that have come out. Will they share some things in common? sure, but i truly don't think people will come out saying its a WoW clone after release.

First if the Bioware guy thinks trying to mimic a game thats been n the market as long as WoW has is the best idea is joking. First there are plenty WoW clones and why play tghe clone when you can play the real tyhing like someone else said. Most importantly the mmorpg ios developing fast now like a youth on growth hormone tablets.

The rules of the market when UO and EQ and even WoW became trendsetters do not apply and besically thats because of WoW. In its baby and toddler days mmorpgs were uber geek and much less impressive than they are now. I dont know how many were about but Im pretty sure they were far from being the most popular games especially during the early to quite recent console years.

Whne Ultima set the standard the competition andthe market was minimal in comparison to now. Now its cool toplay MMOs, casual players abound, the players of UO are now so much older and introducing their own kids to the games. The market is booming and technology is sprinting.

If anyone wants to beat WoW now they need a new groundbreaker not a clone. Not just a change of fantasy setting but new gameplay. Im sure Star Wars was supposed to bring new gameplay but if its a WoW clone count me out completely.

Guild Wars 2 is coming after avery long time in development taking an already succcessful original game and enhancing it into a mould breaking beast of a game. Lets just see what between that and KoToR make the biggest splash and evens the MMO market up considerably between itself and WoW. If KoToR is just a scifi WoW clone Im betting on Guild Wars 2.

I think bioware just means there are items that are proven to work and not work, so why not learn from the mistakes of WoW and make a great game

I've played Wow for 5 years or more and still log on here and there but i think Age of Conan was one of my favorite mmo's despite the global trash talk. I know during release AOC was bugged but now it's pretty damn good and plus you can chop peoples heads and arms off. The melee combat system for AOC was also the best out of any mmo out today. nothing compares to AOC combat system.

Because I define the key elements that made WoW so good to be mostly how easy it is to do anything, and how little it requires of you when doing it. WoW and it's clones also tend to lack real high resolution characters and worlds in order to try and appeal to the most people and their systems. They also all lack any real sort of sex appeal.

And for me those are things that Eastern MMO's do well, and those are things I love. I want a game that takes time to do things, even though I don't have a lot of time available. Fighting a tough Boss doesn't take 10-20mins, it may take upwards of an hour requiring changes in tactics as the bosses HP drops below certain levels. FFXI did that well, where I spent 6yrs from launch.

I want a game that punishes for lacking skill as much as it rewards for mastering a given fight or personal skill... Like avoiding aggro from sight and sound detecting monsters just by your compass, makes you work hard for what you learn and how you do things, makes the rewards even richer because their well earned, and to the latter, keeps your party alive, together, and less frustrated getting to a target or specific area behind deadly flocks of mobs.

World are also usually much more sharper. NPC/PC's are much higher detail and look much sexier. Worlds are usually larger per zone and a lot more detailed in texture resolutions. And characters often allow much more customization not only of the characters looks, but of armour, weapons, or even their colour, much like Aion does.

I see the term "wow clone" to be lacking the above, as it's designed to try and appeal to the most players, and that means they had to cut back a lot in given areas, usually the above imo. Or failing that, they just don't find it a important feature.


I'm not saying SWTOR sucks, or WoW sucks, I'm saying why I don't like WoW or it's clones (usually western designed MMO's), and what the term means to me.

Everyone has their opinion, and that's mine. I'll stick with my Eastern designed MMO's, and you can play whatever you enjoy.

How exactly did the above article even remotely state its SWTOR is a wow clone?[/citation]

I have no intention of playing this. Just to add my own personal belief though, I found small private servers in WoW much funner than the retail. My favorite MMO was a small indi called 'Second Hand Lands', were if you wanted you could talk to the lead dev (owned and coded) whenever he cam on for his daily server checkup.