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Greg Z of BioWare kinda confirms TOR is essentially a 'WoW clone'
DeaconX
Member UncommonPosts: 3,062
I was reading this article and when I got to the quote by Greg Z of BioWare, I was kinda sad. It's basically admitting they went at SWTOR as a WoW clone, as what he seems to understand is WoW is how all MMO's should be...
Article: http://kotaku.com/5884948/stop-copying-world-of-warcraft-start-making-a-better-mmo
Quote:
"It [World of Warcraft] is a touchstone. It has established standards, it's established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb."
I've met the man briefly. He's a genuinely sweet man. But I must respectfully disagree.... then again, I'm just a lowly writer and he's ballin' in the game's industry like there's no tomorrow so...
Still, I look forward to GW2/TSW where the developers looked at WoW and decided "nah, that's not our bible or blueprint."
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Comments
this was pretty old news no? I remember reading that quote month's ago.
I think thats a pretty terrible way to go at game design. Just because its the most popular way doesnt mean its the best way.
I wonder if he even once considered that 95% of his target playerbase would be WoW or ex-WoW players, and that they might just be a little tired of the formula and want something new or different than what they had been playing for the last 6-7 years.
I wonder if he even took note of every other MMO that did the exact same thing and failed...
What gets me, is that they copied the worst features of WoW and none of the really good ones... I mean, if youre gonna copy it, might as well copy the kick ass stuff too...
I've read something very smart on Gamasutra once in a similar discussion:
"There are things in game-design that just work and do not need to be re-invented.
Just remember, if and when you copy one of these cornerstones, try not to copy the cracks in the masonry aswell."
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
old news, been posted before....
next attempt at swtor bashing thread plz...
Did anyone really need bioware to tell us its a wow clone? 5min with it told anyone with half a brain that. Even though SWTOR isnt my cup of tea I will admit its one of the better wow clones to date. But to me thats mainly do to the one part thats not cloned and thats the personal story lol. If we are just going off straight game mechanics then RIFT is probably one of the best wow clones out there.
I think anyone who's played it can recognize it as a WoW clone. The revelation here is that a founder of Bioware, typically regarded as at least a marginally innovative developer, actually felt hey HAD to make a WoW clone and anything less would have been "dumb". This is amazing, it's basically giving up, thinking you can't possibly do better then your competitors so you're going to do what they did and hope take some of their subscribers. I worry about the future of the game, what happens when Blizzard switches gears and stops developing WoW? Where will Bioware get their ideas?
Hopefully with this WoW clone stuff they have hooked in how many ever they needed to and made enough money to pay off EA and of course Uncle George.
With what remains, I would like them to branch out and give us some more original ideas. Expanding the companion stories would be nice since there are some who would like to follow those stories along.
My main wish would be to see some alignment switching. I mean as people have said before you can be a huge dick and it has no reprecussions. You should have a moment if you fall too far as a Jedi where you are confronted or challenged for your actions. You can repent and return to the light side or complete your fall and go over. It's expensive and ambitious but again, it's already expensive and we got promses of ambition with this game from Bioware.
They have promised to expand space but hopefully it can become more meaningful. Space/ Ground missions would be a start. The goal should be to get off the rails.
could go on with mini games, crafting and all the other things but it has been said 1000s of times. Main point is I hope now that they laid this generic foundation, they can start intergrating more originality to set themselves apart.
It is somewhat a WOW clone to me as well, but it addressed what I was having an issue with all previous MMOs the last few years..that I felt disconnected to the story and was just hitting accept without reading anything. Now I pay more attention to the story with the cut scenes, choices and everything so for me it addressed what was boring me to death and why I didn't buy the latest WOW update. Am I ready for the something that revolutionizes the genre, absolutely, but for now Im having fun with TOR.
There Is Always Hope!
This is exactly why it made me feel disappointed.
I've never been keen on WoW to be honest, or even a fan of Blizzard aside from recognizing that they do quality work. However, I can't help but be really interested in what they'll do for their next MMORPG.
Also, I seem to recall someone from Blizz saying something to the effect of "Don't copy WoW, build something new." That's not the actual quote of course...
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
most of us already know that Bioware doesn't give a rats ass that they are a wow clone. they've been flaunting the fact for a good minute now. Every time they they say "MMO formula" i want to cringe.
Kotaku should stop recycling news...
:-(
Extremely old news is extremely old.
One of the reasons why SWTOR won't establish any standards by itself. Maybe except that pathetic excuse for a story line. 2 hours long Mass Effect 3 demo woke up more emotions in me then over 30 levels of SWTOR game play. Bioware should stick to making proper games instead of MacDonalds productions even if the theme is well known.
Absolutely agree... I felt the writing in TOR was very weak and often outright illogical. I watched all the story endings on youtube simply out of curiosity and I have to say none of them felt very epic - in fact they felt extremely anti-climactic.
I loved the multi-dialogue system and multiplayer coversations and all. That was a great thing and I hope more MMORPG's put that to use. I just feel it's too bad it was used on such medicore storytelling for the most part.
IF THIS NEWS IS OLD FOR YOU, move along. Not everyone absorbs information at the same time as you.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Your company hasn't made a MMO and you have one of the biggest draws in Star Wars, you truely think they weren't going use what they felt made WoW the biggest MMO out there? Add the fact Lucas didn't like SWG when it had 200k paying customers and I see no way they would go for less.
Want something different than you will have tosupport one of the lesser companies trying to make things different and suffer through their growing pains as they will likely come out buggy due to the lack of funding. It seems everyone here wants something different than WoW, but has no patience when it is released with problems. I sure don't see a big company spending funds like blizzard did on this MMO and accepting the risk of making the MMO completely different from the industry giant WoW. Their stock holders would run them out of town!
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
They played safe.. and sometimes that is the biggest gamble of all..
As said before, that quote is pretty darn old. Seems like it was said over 2 years ago.
So if you respectfully disagree with someone’s opinion on what makes great game design you are bashing? In who's world? Reread what you wrote and then what Deacon wrote and seriously think it over again. I don't think I have seen him bash anything here. I was disappointed with SWTOR, and so were many other folks I know. A troll this does not make you. PLease stop being so defensive, you didn't make the game and the devs have a thicker skin than you think.
I don't think it's possible for anyone to keep a straight face while claiming that SWTOR isn't a WOW clone. So, basically Greg Z was just stating the obvious.
Personally I think that SWTOR is a fun game, but I think it would have been a better game if Bioware had taken a few risks, and tried something less formulaic.
My only question is.. why is this news?
Bioware has always admitted they made this game like WoW, even before public beta releases. Sure, they kinda glossed over that fact by emphasizing their story elements, but I can't recall ever seeing them flat out denying it.
This shouldn't be a shocker or a surprise to anyone.
I think I saw this last year
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
One poster mentions seeing this post month's ago while I'm fairly certain the post is atleast a year old maybe as old as official press releases about the game. At any rate let's try and avoid the urge to "ESPN" the story if you choose to paraphrase sure you could SEE it that way but the fact that the game is a WOW clone is never said by him or anyone else at BW.