i dont see how its not a myth considering wow is an eq clone
But EQ didn't make the huge moneys like WoW did, so nobody cares about those obscure mmos that existed before WoW.
doesnt change the fact 'world of warcraft' is a clone which took a huge player base due to miss leading trailers and an already large player base from their good games
i dont see how its not a myth considering wow is an eq clone
Because companies are not trying to copy EQ. They see the success of WoW and want to copy it. It has nothing to do with what game had what features first, it only has to do with what game has the most success.
If you still don't get it then try this example:
Imagine baker Johnson made a good cookie. Johnson's bakery wasn't known by many but those who knew it loved the cookies. One day another baker, Anderson, comes to town. He has seen the success of Johnson's cookies and manages to create a very similar recipe, only Anderson manages to sell it to more people somehow. Suddenly a lot of small bakers see that this cookie business seems to go very well for Anderson. They want to know what he did so they achieve the same success. Even though Johnson made the original recipe, it is not where the focus is at cause he didn't achieve the same level of success as Johnson, and as such it is irrelevant if Johnson's and Anderson's recipes are much alike. Anderson got the success, not Johnson, thus people will try to copy Anderson and not Johnson.
This is why it is more correct to use the term 'WoW clone' than 'EQ clone' for most MMOs today. Companies are trying to copy to success of WoW, not EQ, and thus 'WoW clone' is the proper term. It is that simple, and yet I managed to write a wall of text about it :P
I agree that 'Wow-clone' is a very appropriate and fitting term for the vast majority of PC MMOs being released in recent years.
Even Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuk stated just in Feb. Wow "... 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."
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
i dont see how its not a myth considering wow is an eq clone
But EQ didn't make the huge moneys like WoW did, so nobody cares about those obscure mmos that existed before WoW.
Saying a game is a WoW clone doesn't mean that it is implied that WoW was the first mmo. It simply means that a certain game plays extremely similar to WoW.
I can easily think of ten games that play and look extremely similar to WoW.
I wish I could name half that many games that felt and played so similar to Everquest, but I can't.
I doubt anyone in this thread would say that playing WoW is just like playing EQ.
The term WoW clone is not a myth, it's the term that people use to say 'this is a WoW-styled themepark MMO and I don't like it'.
So, a simple, convenient term: WoW clone.
With those 2 words you expressed that you feel that another MMO is too much like WoW and at the same time you expressed your disdain and disgust with it.
Really, was it really necessary to feel justified to use the term to refer to some other person from the business that happens to use the term? Tsk
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It is a common thing for developers to create a similar experience of something if it's extremely popular. The problem with MMO's is that you usually sign on for a long time and generally need to pay a subscription. Therefore it does not follow the concept of shooters. One bland gritty shooter sells well, the next one will probably sell great as well.
I do not believe Blizzard has the sole right on this kind of combat and we noticed that there can be quite succesful MMO's around beside WoW. The thing is that if you try to create a game which is extremely similar to another game, but is less polished, less massive and of lesser quality in general you will not be able to defeat the original. If the original purchase was all you tried to achieve, you would probably succeed, but to keep players tied to your company you need to have a polished game, high quality content, good customer support, frequent updates. Especially these days you need to have the ability to churn out content at a rapid pace. The customer has gotten extremely good at rapidly devouring it.
Rift is as much of a WoW clone as WoW is a clone of it's predecessors. I loved WoW and have played it for a very long time, but I disliked Rift. The game was solid and the content was of high quality, but the aesthetics and limited change to the original formula of the WoW-ish MMO was disappointing. I came across some invasions, but they didn't really impress me. Sure they are fun for a little while, but I see them getting stale very quickly. WoW had something similar to these invasions during certain times as well. On a smaller scale than Rift, but still. Naxxramas patch send out undead all over the world, randomly spawning at locations and taking over sizeable areas. The event before wrath of the lich king came out and a few more like these. It wasn't truly a new gimmick in my eyes.
TOR is offering story. I doubt this MMO will keep my subscription going for years, but I will most definitely play through all classes at least once to experience their stories. The one thing I dislike in the good Bioware games is the insane level of corridor gameplay so this will be great. I will ignore the fact that Dragon Age 2 had rubbish enemies (another wave of 30 enemies, why not eh? Those six from the cave must have had planned a party with friends coming from another dimension). The gameplay is very similar to WoW, but they have certainly added their own flavor to it with cover, advanced classes to name a few.
Guildwars 2 is a different story, since it competes for a very different market. I personally believe it would do great even if it was a subscription based MMO.
i dont see how its not a myth considering wow is an eq clone
If you've ever played the two games you'd know how different they really are from each other.
This is why I dislike the "clone" term in the first place. You're right they're essentially far different games. Yet so are WOW and WAR, in their philosophy. Yes Mythic borrowed from WOW, they also designed the game around a completely different playstyle.
What about AOC? it's a far cry from what WOW is, yet it is still called a WOW clone quite a bit.
It just seems that today if you use any typical MMO mechanics, you can't escape the WOW clone label.
Is it any coincidence that it's typcially those who do not like "themepark" design that use the term most often?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think its just human nature with alot of these things, for example alot of people will call a soda by a brand name, like "I'll take a coke please" but they really just mean whatever cola is out there, then there is jello, there are other brands of geletin out there but i've seen so many still call it jello even when it is not that brand, and my last example Kleenex again if someone sneezes i've seen alot of people say they need a kleenex instead of a tissue.
I think near the same thing has happened with world of warcraft, the brand name has become so big that to a large majority, any mmo is just, oh one of those games like wow. even though the packaging, the colors and the content are much different.
This is also the only genre that i've seen where companies get so much crap for being anything close to something that came out before it, you can go look at almost any genre and see that most of the successful games are very similar if they are the same genre.
Also it really just depends on how far you want to simplify something and you can make any 2 games sound alike really, "man this tetris game is just a copy of mario brothers cause you have to press buttons and make something on the screen move" although all of us know those 2 games are not really very similar at all.
It's like the age old question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg. Since WOW brought millions and millions of gamers over to the mmo genre, it's easy to see that after so many years of it's life cycle, people would compare anything new as a "WOW clone". It's what the majority has played.
As the years pass and we get further away from the early games like UO and EQ, it's only natural for the majority of mmo gamers to not know that WOW just used many of the same systems that those games made traditional in the genre.
With games like TOR, TSW and GW2 coming soon and adding new innovative systems to the genre, the less the term WOW clone will be used in my opinion, even though some can't see that yet.
I think its just human nature with alot of these things, for example alot of people will call a soda by a brand name, like "I'll take a coke please" but they really just mean whatever cola is out there, then there is jello, there are other brands of geletin out there but i've seen so many still call it jello even when it is not that brand, and my last example Kleenex again if someone sneezes i've seen alot of people say they need a kleenex instead of a tissue.
I think near the same thing has happened with world of warcraft, the brand name has become so big that to a large majority, any mmo is just, oh one of those games like wow. even though the packaging, the colors and the content are much different.
This is also the only genre that i've seen where companies get so much crap for being anything close to something that came out before it, you can go look at almost any genre and see that most of the successful games are very similar if they are the same genre.
Also it really just depends on how far you want to simplify something and you can make any 2 games sound alike really, "man this tetris game is just a copy of mario brothers cause you have to press buttons and make something on the screen move" although all of us know those 2 games are not really very similar at all.
I agree with much of this but there is one important distinction thrust into the equation because of this genre.
When a new game is released it is hoping to leach subscibers from the competition, most notably WoW. While a Call of Duty game can thrive by rehashing past games it is not so easy for an MMO.
If you make your game too similar to the Behemoth that is WoW you severely risk your player retention rate. People want an alternative at this point, but the social connections they've made and the in-game accomplishments that have taken years to attain make it difficult to jump ship.
You can see this effect whenever the next big game launches, people starving for change and that new game feeling purchase a huge number of initial boxes, but as the first month comes to an end they don't see enough in the new product to justify leaving their established social networks and in game accomplishments, and thus return to their previous game(mostly WoW)
Your game needs to differentiate itself from the pack if it wants to retain a large number of people. It will be interesting to see if a formula like Rift or SWTOR where there is clearly still the framework in place from the traditional model but with new enhancements added in will strike the right balance.
Or perhaps one of Archeage GW2 or TERA will pique enough interest to keep people engaged and move the genre forward.
The term wow clone refers not so much the core mechanics, but general dumbing down of the game.
Anything to making the game easier and more accessable to the public.
Which means, little to no death penalties, fast leveling, instanced everything, solo play the entire way through, thousands of "kill 20 boars" quests. theme park style leveling (spend 1-5 in this zone, 6-15 here, etc),
Essentially, anything that makes the game user friendly so that the user feels empowered after just 10 minutes of play.
The only people who use the term "WOW clone" are the ones who are too lazy and do not want to think logically about the similarities between games. No, they rather throw out this over-used term to voice their frustration/anger/displeasure.etc.... without knowing what it really means.
Besides, the only association with the term WOW clone is a neagtive one and it is only used in a negative way. That is why when I see the term used, it immediately discredits the post/article/etc.... to me.
I am not a WoW hater. I do not play because its not for me, but I recognize its impact on the industry.
However, to imply that current and future developers are not now copying mechanics and principles of the most popular MMO of all time, is ignorant. Of course they are copying wow.
Fact is, anything that makes that much money will be copied.
Where I have a problem with WoW is that its popularity and size has created a point of reference for financial backers of future games. Developers, because they need financial backing, are almost forced to "be like WoW" or at least appeal to the same HUGE audience. Since I am not a member of this audience, I am left out.
Its harder to convince the money behind future games that not only does WoW have a huge audience, but there is an enormous audience out there that wants something else.
Before answering if a game is a wow clone the definition of wow clone would need to be determined as the definition of "Wow Clone" is different for most people. See 1) & 2)
1) For me personally, the term "Wow Clone" is a derogatory term that means a game that is crap and is simillar to Wow; essentially a console MMORPG for the PC, made for any Xbox live shouting monkey who wants to pick the game up and play in between shouting at his parents - as they don't understand how SPecial Wow is" - or hitting a stick against the wall or searching his navel for the Lost Ark or the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2) Some people use the term to define a game that is trying to become as successful as Wow.
I agree that some of the new MMORPGs are more like Wow than EQ or even Meridian 59 or Asheron's Call, so the term "Wow Clone" is appropriate if the definition is a game trying to be like Wow just to make money. (Runes of Magic, Allods etc)
The definition clearly separates and defines people's view on the MMORPG genre; those who love Wow and do not want another game; those who despise Wow and wish it would burn up the Justin Bieber (Bum-Hole) of the MMORPG Genre and those who can see Wow made an impact but may feel indifferent -there are probably more definitions of people's stance but it's late and I can't think of anymore.
So until the next game comes along that blows the MMORPG genre's rules out of the water and becomes bigger than Jessica Parker's nose, then the term "Wow Clone" will be used to define the genre. (dependant on the meaning, see above)
So it is not just in our heads, most publishers only want World of Warcraft clones and hence why most MMORPGs are as such and called out as such. It is a fact of the industry.
Correction, most of the publishers that approached Undead Labs asked for a WoW clone, not just "most publishers". For all we know it could have been publishers like Frogster Entertainment who deal with cheap wow knock off games like runes of magic who were approaching them.
Without details you cannot claim such a sweeping statement.
Considering how many new MMOs have come out in the past 5 years or so, from various publishers - Western and Eastern alike - that closely followed the WoW template.. I have absolutely no problem believing that most publishers are, indeed, looking for a WoW clone.
Companies, especially large ones, consistently look for whatever's "big" at the moment, and then seek to copy it as much as they can to milk off its success. They do it with movies... Record companies try to find bands that sound like whatever the biggest bands are of the moment (how many bands came out after Pearl Jam hit the big time whose singers sounded a lot like Eddie Vedder, for example?). It happens in every other genre of games. There's absolutely no stretch in believing it happens in MMOs as well.
WoW is still the 800 lb. gorilla, it's still the one with one of the biggest populations worldwide... It's still the one bigger companies are going to want to copy because, to them, it's the "safest bet".
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
The only people who use the term "WOW clone" are the ones who are too lazy and do not want to think logically about the similarities between games. No, they rather throw out this over-used term to voice their frustration/anger/displeasure.etc.... without knowing what it really means.
Besides, the only association with the term WOW clone is a neagtive one and it is only used in a negative way. That is why when I see the term used, it immediately discredits the post/article/etc.... to me.
Yup.
In these threads we see a lot of people stating why they believe "WoW clone" is an appropriate term, and we see those who believe it isn't. The problem is that when I have broken down and have seen others break down the meaning of the word point by point,I have yet to see a legitimate counter argument from those who hate the use of the term. Instead, most of them thumb their noses and post this sort of diatribe.
Of course, this is all fine. Have fun living in your fantasy world. I'll be here to debate you once you decide to come back to reality.
It's funny, everytime someone points out that WoW is in fact a "clone" of the games before it, others try to say that those games don't matter, no one cares about them. Well guess what, without those games, there would be no WoW and this whole issue of what is a clone of what wouldn't even exist. The only time a game can rightfully be called a clone is if it looks exactly the same. Technically the term clone shouldn't even be used, clone would entail an exact copy, in reality its more like parents and children. Tho it looks like the original, and even shares some of the characteristics, it doesn't make it a clone, by that logic you are a clone of your parents
Anyone here remember the days when any FPS released was a "Doom clone", even though Doom didn't really do anything above and beyond Wolfenstien 3D? Or when RTSs were considered "C&C clones" even though Command and Conquer was not the first (or imo best) RTS?
Gamers tend to take the most successful of a genre and call everything after it a clone. Now, I agree, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. However, the whole clone thing has gotten a bit long in the tooth. There are certain MMO tropes that will always be present in the genre. Just like any other genre.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
In these threads we see a lot of people stating why they believe "WoW clone" is an appropriate term, and we see those who believe it isn't. The problem is that when I have broken down and have seen others break down the meaning of the word point by point,I have yet to see a legitimate counter argument from those who hate the use of the term. Instead, most of them thumb their noses and post this sort of diatribe.
Of course, this is all fine. Have fun living in your fantasy world. I'll be here to debate you once you decide to come back to reality.
This is like breaking down the use of the word gay, when describing something that sucks. There are people who do not like the use, yet most know how the term is being used and know what such a usage means. There's no reason to break the word down, and very little that's going to be said in reply aside from maybe no **** Sherlock...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
News flash:
Gravity is not a myth!
Hype train -> Reality
i dont see how its not a myth considering wow is an eq clone
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
But EQ didn't make the huge moneys like WoW did, so nobody cares about those obscure mmos that existed before WoW.
Hype train -> Reality
doesnt change the fact 'world of warcraft' is a clone which took a huge player base due to miss leading trailers and an already large player base from their good games
Because companies are not trying to copy EQ. They see the success of WoW and want to copy it. It has nothing to do with what game had what features first, it only has to do with what game has the most success.
If you still don't get it then try this example:
Imagine baker Johnson made a good cookie. Johnson's bakery wasn't known by many but those who knew it loved the cookies. One day another baker, Anderson, comes to town. He has seen the success of Johnson's cookies and manages to create a very similar recipe, only Anderson manages to sell it to more people somehow. Suddenly a lot of small bakers see that this cookie business seems to go very well for Anderson. They want to know what he did so they achieve the same success. Even though Johnson made the original recipe, it is not where the focus is at cause he didn't achieve the same level of success as Johnson, and as such it is irrelevant if Johnson's and Anderson's recipes are much alike. Anderson got the success, not Johnson, thus people will try to copy Anderson and not Johnson.
This is why it is more correct to use the term 'WoW clone' than 'EQ clone' for most MMOs today. Companies are trying to copy to success of WoW, not EQ, and thus 'WoW clone' is the proper term. It is that simple, and yet I managed to write a wall of text about it :P
I agree that 'Wow-clone' is a very appropriate and fitting term for the vast majority of PC MMOs being released in recent years.
Even Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuk stated just in Feb. Wow "... 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."
If you've ever played the two games you'd know how different they really are from each other.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Saying a game is a WoW clone doesn't mean that it is implied that WoW was the first mmo. It simply means that a certain game plays extremely similar to WoW.
I can easily think of ten games that play and look extremely similar to WoW.
I wish I could name half that many games that felt and played so similar to Everquest, but I can't.
I doubt anyone in this thread would say that playing WoW is just like playing EQ.
Lol, this again?
The term WoW clone is not a myth, it's the term that people use to say 'this is a WoW-styled themepark MMO and I don't like it'.
So, a simple, convenient term: WoW clone.
With those 2 words you expressed that you feel that another MMO is too much like WoW and at the same time you expressed your disdain and disgust with it.
Really, was it really necessary to feel justified to use the term to refer to some other person from the business that happens to use the term? Tsk
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It is a common thing for developers to create a similar experience of something if it's extremely popular. The problem with MMO's is that you usually sign on for a long time and generally need to pay a subscription. Therefore it does not follow the concept of shooters. One bland gritty shooter sells well, the next one will probably sell great as well.
I do not believe Blizzard has the sole right on this kind of combat and we noticed that there can be quite succesful MMO's around beside WoW. The thing is that if you try to create a game which is extremely similar to another game, but is less polished, less massive and of lesser quality in general you will not be able to defeat the original. If the original purchase was all you tried to achieve, you would probably succeed, but to keep players tied to your company you need to have a polished game, high quality content, good customer support, frequent updates. Especially these days you need to have the ability to churn out content at a rapid pace. The customer has gotten extremely good at rapidly devouring it.
Rift is as much of a WoW clone as WoW is a clone of it's predecessors. I loved WoW and have played it for a very long time, but I disliked Rift. The game was solid and the content was of high quality, but the aesthetics and limited change to the original formula of the WoW-ish MMO was disappointing. I came across some invasions, but they didn't really impress me. Sure they are fun for a little while, but I see them getting stale very quickly. WoW had something similar to these invasions during certain times as well. On a smaller scale than Rift, but still. Naxxramas patch send out undead all over the world, randomly spawning at locations and taking over sizeable areas. The event before wrath of the lich king came out and a few more like these. It wasn't truly a new gimmick in my eyes.
TOR is offering story. I doubt this MMO will keep my subscription going for years, but I will most definitely play through all classes at least once to experience their stories. The one thing I dislike in the good Bioware games is the insane level of corridor gameplay so this will be great. I will ignore the fact that Dragon Age 2 had rubbish enemies (another wave of 30 enemies, why not eh? Those six from the cave must have had planned a party with friends coming from another dimension). The gameplay is very similar to WoW, but they have certainly added their own flavor to it with cover, advanced classes to name a few.
Guildwars 2 is a different story, since it competes for a very different market. I personally believe it would do great even if it was a subscription based MMO.
This is why I dislike the "clone" term in the first place. You're right they're essentially far different games. Yet so are WOW and WAR, in their philosophy. Yes Mythic borrowed from WOW, they also designed the game around a completely different playstyle.
What about AOC? it's a far cry from what WOW is, yet it is still called a WOW clone quite a bit.
It just seems that today if you use any typical MMO mechanics, you can't escape the WOW clone label.
Is it any coincidence that it's typcially those who do not like "themepark" design that use the term most often?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think its just human nature with alot of these things, for example alot of people will call a soda by a brand name, like "I'll take a coke please" but they really just mean whatever cola is out there, then there is jello, there are other brands of geletin out there but i've seen so many still call it jello even when it is not that brand, and my last example Kleenex again if someone sneezes i've seen alot of people say they need a kleenex instead of a tissue.
I think near the same thing has happened with world of warcraft, the brand name has become so big that to a large majority, any mmo is just, oh one of those games like wow. even though the packaging, the colors and the content are much different.
This is also the only genre that i've seen where companies get so much crap for being anything close to something that came out before it, you can go look at almost any genre and see that most of the successful games are very similar if they are the same genre.
Also it really just depends on how far you want to simplify something and you can make any 2 games sound alike really, "man this tetris game is just a copy of mario brothers cause you have to press buttons and make something on the screen move" although all of us know those 2 games are not really very similar at all.
They do not want WOW clones, as in the same game, same type of game etc, they want the success, the subscriptions..
Honestly what business wouldnt want millions of customers paying x amount a month?
shhh... you might wake the trolls
It's like the age old question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg. Since WOW brought millions and millions of gamers over to the mmo genre, it's easy to see that after so many years of it's life cycle, people would compare anything new as a "WOW clone". It's what the majority has played.
As the years pass and we get further away from the early games like UO and EQ, it's only natural for the majority of mmo gamers to not know that WOW just used many of the same systems that those games made traditional in the genre.
With games like TOR, TSW and GW2 coming soon and adding new innovative systems to the genre, the less the term WOW clone will be used in my opinion, even though some can't see that yet.
I agree with much of this but there is one important distinction thrust into the equation because of this genre.
When a new game is released it is hoping to leach subscibers from the competition, most notably WoW. While a Call of Duty game can thrive by rehashing past games it is not so easy for an MMO.
If you make your game too similar to the Behemoth that is WoW you severely risk your player retention rate. People want an alternative at this point, but the social connections they've made and the in-game accomplishments that have taken years to attain make it difficult to jump ship.
You can see this effect whenever the next big game launches, people starving for change and that new game feeling purchase a huge number of initial boxes, but as the first month comes to an end they don't see enough in the new product to justify leaving their established social networks and in game accomplishments, and thus return to their previous game(mostly WoW)
Your game needs to differentiate itself from the pack if it wants to retain a large number of people. It will be interesting to see if a formula like Rift or SWTOR where there is clearly still the framework in place from the traditional model but with new enhancements added in will strike the right balance.
Or perhaps one of Archeage GW2 or TERA will pique enough interest to keep people engaged and move the genre forward.
The term wow clone refers not so much the core mechanics, but general dumbing down of the game.
Anything to making the game easier and more accessable to the public.
Which means, little to no death penalties, fast leveling, instanced everything, solo play the entire way through, thousands of "kill 20 boars" quests. theme park style leveling (spend 1-5 in this zone, 6-15 here, etc),
Essentially, anything that makes the game user friendly so that the user feels empowered after just 10 minutes of play.
Yup.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I am not a WoW hater. I do not play because its not for me, but I recognize its impact on the industry.
However, to imply that current and future developers are not now copying mechanics and principles of the most popular MMO of all time, is ignorant. Of course they are copying wow.
Fact is, anything that makes that much money will be copied.
Where I have a problem with WoW is that its popularity and size has created a point of reference for financial backers of future games. Developers, because they need financial backing, are almost forced to "be like WoW" or at least appeal to the same HUGE audience. Since I am not a member of this audience, I am left out.
Its harder to convince the money behind future games that not only does WoW have a huge audience, but there is an enormous audience out there that wants something else.
Before answering if a game is a wow clone the definition of wow clone would need to be determined as the definition of "Wow Clone" is different for most people. See 1) & 2)
1) For me personally, the term "Wow Clone" is a derogatory term that means a game that is crap and is simillar to Wow; essentially a console MMORPG for the PC, made for any Xbox live shouting monkey who wants to pick the game up and play in between shouting at his parents - as they don't understand how SPecial Wow is" - or hitting a stick against the wall or searching his navel for the Lost Ark or the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2) Some people use the term to define a game that is trying to become as successful as Wow.
I agree that some of the new MMORPGs are more like Wow than EQ or even Meridian 59 or Asheron's Call, so the term "Wow Clone" is appropriate if the definition is a game trying to be like Wow just to make money. (Runes of Magic, Allods etc)
The definition clearly separates and defines people's view on the MMORPG genre; those who love Wow and do not want another game; those who despise Wow and wish it would burn up the Justin Bieber (Bum-Hole) of the MMORPG Genre and those who can see Wow made an impact but may feel indifferent -there are probably more definitions of people's stance but it's late and I can't think of anymore.
So until the next game comes along that blows the MMORPG genre's rules out of the water and becomes bigger than Jessica Parker's nose, then the term "Wow Clone" will be used to define the genre. (dependant on the meaning, see above)
Considering how many new MMOs have come out in the past 5 years or so, from various publishers - Western and Eastern alike - that closely followed the WoW template.. I have absolutely no problem believing that most publishers are, indeed, looking for a WoW clone.
Companies, especially large ones, consistently look for whatever's "big" at the moment, and then seek to copy it as much as they can to milk off its success. They do it with movies... Record companies try to find bands that sound like whatever the biggest bands are of the moment (how many bands came out after Pearl Jam hit the big time whose singers sounded a lot like Eddie Vedder, for example?). It happens in every other genre of games. There's absolutely no stretch in believing it happens in MMOs as well.
WoW is still the 800 lb. gorilla, it's still the one with one of the biggest populations worldwide... It's still the one bigger companies are going to want to copy because, to them, it's the "safest bet".
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
THAT TERM IS ONLY ACCEPTABLE TO BE USED BY MY PEOPLE. WHEN OTHERS SAY IT, IT'S JUST RACIST!!! Wait, what are we talking about?
In these threads we see a lot of people stating why they believe "WoW clone" is an appropriate term, and we see those who believe it isn't. The problem is that when I have broken down and have seen others break down the meaning of the word point by point,I have yet to see a legitimate counter argument from those who hate the use of the term. Instead, most of them thumb their noses and post this sort of diatribe.
Of course, this is all fine. Have fun living in your fantasy world. I'll be here to debate you once you decide to come back to reality.
It's funny, everytime someone points out that WoW is in fact a "clone" of the games before it, others try to say that those games don't matter, no one cares about them. Well guess what, without those games, there would be no WoW and this whole issue of what is a clone of what wouldn't even exist. The only time a game can rightfully be called a clone is if it looks exactly the same. Technically the term clone shouldn't even be used, clone would entail an exact copy, in reality its more like parents and children. Tho it looks like the original, and even shares some of the characteristics, it doesn't make it a clone, by that logic you are a clone of your parents
Anyone here remember the days when any FPS released was a "Doom clone", even though Doom didn't really do anything above and beyond Wolfenstien 3D? Or when RTSs were considered "C&C clones" even though Command and Conquer was not the first (or imo best) RTS?
Gamers tend to take the most successful of a genre and call everything after it a clone. Now, I agree, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. However, the whole clone thing has gotten a bit long in the tooth. There are certain MMO tropes that will always be present in the genre. Just like any other genre.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
This is like breaking down the use of the word gay, when describing something that sucks. There are people who do not like the use, yet most know how the term is being used and know what such a usage means. There's no reason to break the word down, and very little that's going to be said in reply aside from maybe no **** Sherlock...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson