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The core difference between Blizzard's MMO and the rest of the bunch.
Arnstrong
Member Posts: 281
One word: the engine.
Cataclysm, TBC, Vanilla Wow, expansion X in 4 years: it all doesn't matter.
What sets Wow apart is the very specific engine for an MMORPG.
All the rest of fantasy MMO's have a weird handling of their worlds (no background loading) and especially the avatar controls.
The moment a game comes along which will handle the "weight" of its avatars against the back drop of a world, you can expect a competition, until then you'll frustrate your players once they handled Wow's avatars and background loading worlds.
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Future designers here is an advice: make a proper developped engine first (no longer working with standard engines), then we can talk again.
Even non MMO's these days use pathetic bad engines (read the newest Fall out). It's as if the characters in these games are crippled and handicapped.
The numbers of pixels don't matter, it is the handling of those pixels in game.
You can't fight decently when you're pulling unresponsive strings.
Most succesful other games with extreme good engines: Mario 3D, Donkey Kong 64. You can add other....
Comments
I agree that, Wow gives me the best sense of Having control over my character over any other MMORPG out there
(yes there are some FPS games, where your movement depends on how quick you are yourself)
This is why I keep comming back to wow, I've tried everything. But None of the ones I tried give you the sense of freedom, with wow It just always feels right. I never had doubts about wows engine, its certainly superb for what its being used for as it is.
"You resist. You cling to your life as if it actually matters. You will learn."
Uh, nothing special about the engines of either of those games, i think your confusing gameplay with graphics engines.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
To me WoW's character motion reminds me of Q3A. It's very quick and crisp. I don't like the sluggish feeling of some MMOs.
The only time it looses the good feel is when too many players are present. Then it feels like the client starts to get bogged down.
I often hear people criticize WoW for having an "old" engine. The rest of the games would be lucky to have an engine so good.
The seamless world of WoW is definitely a big plus for that game even though it is not the only one who does it. While it is probably the most stable at it only because their seamless world is not really seamless in some part of it where the exists and entrances of some zones are limited (you can enter the named zone from 2-3 narrow ways only). Try to make a real seamless world where most of the time the whole world is connected and remove these narrow-entries you'd need a better engine.
The character animation for WoW is also good but I dont feel the weight in WoW as good as in some other MMOPRGs. For instance the Hunter when dual weilding swords or daggers, the weapons don't feel they slice or leand on the target rather just sweep through without any real physics to it. But walking/running was very well done and most of weapon landings were well done I just remember some of the weapon animations (specially swords) needed more physics umph to it.
Aion animation for weapons are excellent and out class WoW. The weapons really land with resistance-feeling when slicing an opponent. Landing a heavy weapon on the head of the opponent and/or slashing the oppoentn give different feelings. The knock downs are very well down and are timed very well with the landed hit.
No Character Collision for WoW in the other hand makes the character feel they weigh 2 pounds. Add character collision and improve the gravity physics and then you can feel that WoW's character weights are more accurate but for now they feel like they are made of paper specially the Taurent Mount. I feel it's made of hallow tin.
Engine not graphic engine is what he said. I think WoW does other things better than anyone else as well but that it all works and has nearly no gated content helps.
I have tried a LOT of MMOS lately, and wow is still so far the only one where I dont notice that its "The world turning and my character running on the spot" when I move.
Vanguard is one of the worst for this, the animations in that game are terrible (Sorry vanguard fanboys but it is true)
I loved Aion animations, and the physics when gliding, even with my crappy latency from Oceania, on a proxy, I would outglide most people, and make much further distance. Ill have to go find me a gliding flight sim one of these days. The combat animations were very nice too, I wasnt particularly fond of my Clerics constant remarks about "Sombreros and Cameros" as if it was some almighty divine incantation to smite evildoers with, but the flight and gliding were very tidy. However, in the Abyss, at a fortress raid with 400+ people, it could get quite a bit choppy, and required me in my mediocre PC to go to near Minimal settings. Not even as close to how awful my time with WAR was, where having 2 warbands meet would cause all sorts of hideous issues with framerates AND latency in some bizzare clusterfunk, but collision detection made that game a bit more fun, for once you get through throwing your people at the PvDoor and then another PvDoor, you have to PvTankwall whilst sitting in some nice Ground target AoE pools/rain of hell. Still, good fun.
Im not sure how Character collision would work in WoW, if at all, there are just too many chances to grief the everloving out of people when in a capitol city, and seeing as Cata is the great new world redesign, if they dont recreate areas with collision in mind, it will not happen. For the age of WoW's engine, it is holding up well, but seeing as the game can run on just about any hobbled together hardware, its not surprising that it performs better (subjectively) than more recent offerings.
Uh, and exactly what engine is he refering to exactly if its not teh graphics engine? the games steam engine?
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
ROFLMFAO!!!
I'm sure it doesn't hurt WoW's smooth play that it's engine isn't taxed with a lot of high detail, high definition rendering. How would it fare if it were loading models and backgrounds found in some of the newer games today? After all, Yar's Revenge ran really smoothly on my old Atari 2600. But it wasn't exactly being hardpressed, was it?
You really should play the game to understand that your statement is basically false. You shouldn't confuse artist design choices and the efficient engine scalability of WoW's engine with the actual graphical effects produced by the same game engine. Many effects produced by WoW's engine are fairly complex and on par to what you see in a game like EQ2 if not better. Texture wise the game is not as intense but even the texture in WoW are still as good in some areas as other games.
Also even though I have a fairly beefy computer in some popular crowded areas like Dalaran (now in the revamped SW) I notice the performance hit in fps vs more open and less populated areas in the game.
All the light sources, textures, polygons on armor and surrounding areas and other effects actually does add up when there are a few people on screen casting, mounting up, etc and your video settings are at maxed out for the client. Of course the art design will lead people to believe otherwise.
Games I've played/tried out:WAR, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, AoC, EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Vangaurd, FFXI, D&DO, Lineage 2, Saga Of Ryzom, EvE Online, DAoC, Guild Wars,Star Wars Galaxies, Hell Gate London, Auto Assault, Grando Espada ( AKA SoTNW ), Archlord, CoV/H, Star Trek Online, APB, Champions Online, FFXIV, Rift Online, GW2.
Game(s) I Am Currently Playing:
GW2 (+LoL and BF3)
I think the one thing that distinguishes WOW from other MMORPGS is its group based strategic combat. You get a sense of accomplishment from downing a boss becuase it took teamwork, skill, and usually a little practice.
The second thing would be the gear. They do a terrfic job of providing random drops and boss drops that are just random enough to be desirable and get you coming back for that 5% change youll get your item.
I find that Aion does most things better than WoW especially when it comes to engine. It's just Aion never hit the masses and suffers from being a brand new IP and there were a few game design flaws in the beginning. Now it's coming together but WoW has had years on Aion and has a very polished gameplay concept that any MMO has to catch out of the starting gate or they are doomed to fail.
I don't currently play Aion, just a nonbiased take on the subject. Other games such as Lineage 2 had better seamlessness in their worlds than WoW. What WoW does best is cater to the casual player, the reason for their success is nothing short of casual friendly, great IP and great gaming company and perfect timing.
Most games nowadays are either going the F2P route or are too graphically intensive that 80% of PC's can't run them smoothly.
Lets face it, wow is a gear grind. but blizz has succeeded in offering tons of ways of obtaining your end game gear. what used to be raid or die, now you have a half dozen different ways to get your epics. This may or may not be your preferred style of mmo (its not mine) , but regardless the game is a fun little time killer and i enjoy playing casually with friends from time to time.