Well a friend of mine talked me into trying a trial account for Wow, said something about wanting to get me drunk lol.  So why am I posting this in the SWG vet forum?  Well, because here are some of the first things I noticed as I entered the WoW universe:

9 professions,

beastmaster,

xp bar across the bottom of the screen,

expertise system,

same look on the power icons and timers as the CU,

the tree on Kashyyk where you got missions in the combat upgrade seems to have been ripped off from the elf starting area lol.

kill, loot, sell, repeat (although the stories that accompany the quests are interesting)

I've heard everyone say that SOE attempted to clone WoW in SWG and failed miserably.  Now I've seen it for myself.  They just hijacked stuff right from Blizzard's game, even gave the stuff the same name

The main difference that I've noticed so far is that everything seems to actually work in WoW.  The quests I've taken have gone with no hitch, the powers all fire everytime, I had virtually no lag (even though I'm streaming the game on a trial account).  I haven't seen anything spawned inside an object...yet. 

Another huge difference...people.  I had to wait in a queue to get on my friend's server.  It was over capacity.   And the game, although it's absolutely huge, was packed.  There were people running around and riding mounts etc. all over the place.  It reminded me of coronet "back in the day."

I don't think I'll be sticking with WoW.  I happen to like the character customization options a lot better in CoH.  No matter what I tried (and the options are quite limited) my elf looked like a knuckle dragging neanderthall lol.

Mainly I wrote this because I couldn't help noticing that SWG really did try to rip off WoW in so many ways it's nuts.  If you're going to take someone else's ideas, at least change the friggin name, jeez.  I also noticed that WoW works, and (not by coincidence I'm sure) is highly populated.

It really is astonishing how much the NGE is a ripoff of WoW, but a poor ripoff.

The thing about WoW is that it works.  Which SWG can't say.

The combat in WoW is "dumbed down" compared to preCU, but SWG's take is vastly inferior to WoW's combat system, which is remarkably well thought out and for the most part WORKS.  I mean, the spells cast, the attacks function, the buffs and debuffs do what they are supposed to do.  Unlike what SWG offers.  Furthermore, the classes if you learn to play them properly are remarkably balanced, particularly in group contexts.  They are quite deep on their own (Warlock, in particular, is difficult to play well, but works solo PvE even if you pretty much suck at it).

Then there's the kindergarten graphics of SWG's expertise system compared to WoW's talent system.  Not to mention the functional lack of depth of expertise compared to talents.

I too was utterly amazed by how SWG virtually copied quests and quest concepts directly from WoW without any embarassment or shame.  It's slavish in its obvious intent to duplicate WoW but with a Star Wars skin, yet utterly fails to capture the things that make WoW the huge success that it is, because apparently polish and bug free gameplay are just utterly alien concepts to the SWG crew, and Smedley in particular.

I really cant argue with the fact that SWG is a WoW ripoff. They really did try to make it more appealing to the masses and yet failed miserably. Once again it comes down to quality. SOE just can not understand that part.

I really dislike a lot of SOE games not because of the NGE thing but due to the fact that quality never seems to be a priority. If they dont care about their own product why would I want to give them money for it?

isnt SWG older then WoW?

Originally posted by Joshyray

isnt SWG older then WoW?

It is indeed (launched late June 2003), but when WoW came out, and smashed all records of subscriptions, Smedley went insane with envy as his ass was so totally pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard, and the WoWification of SWG began.  There's evidence that once WoW came out in 2004 and took the MMO market by storm, that's when the CURB was ditched and an attempt to slavishly copy WoW with the CU, which was furthered by the NGE, began.

The first obvious attempt to copy WoW was the new graphics of action icons in the UI that the CU introduced, which eliminated the elegant UI icons of pre CU with "cartoooney" icons very similar to WoW.

You guys are insane... SWG has more of a twitch FPS feel then it does a wow feel.... And every feature wow has is a ripoff so what are you trying to say?  I love wow but if your trying to argue that its original... its not. 

Originally posted by SioBabble

Originally posted by Joshyray

isnt SWG older then WoW?

It is indeed, but when WoW came out, and smashed all records of subscriptions, Smedley went insane with envy as his ass was so totally pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard, and the WoWification of SWG began.

It was a buisiness error. They tried to get some of that WoW pie and failed.

You want to blame someone blame WoW. WoW and all of its glory turned a small but diverse genre of gameing into everyone trying to make the same mindnumbling, drool causing, Chimp mastering, game for the masses that WoW is.

Perhaps it is harsh to blame WoW for their success, but i do.

Like i said before in other topics, once people are WOWEFIDE they see WOW in every game, SWG is NOTHING LIKE WOW, and if it is then all games are copy's/clone's from eachother all over.

What makes SWG feel/look like WOW is people playing or atleast trying to play the game like WOW they do not want to be involved with the game itself but try to find things that remind them of what they played before, it happens with everything in life, but many here (means not everyone but it means MANY) do not seem to have a realistic view on view on things, there for they make silly asumtions like pretending SWG is like WOW or Clone'd from WOW.

Originally posted by Sift

You guys are insane... SWG has more of a twitch FPS feel then it does a wow feel.... And every feature wow has is a ripoff so what are you trying to say?  I love wow but if your trying to argue that its original... its not. 

Who's saying that WoW is original?

My contention is that WoW is the ULTIMATE 2nd Generation MMO.  Blizzard took a look at everything that was out there, took from them what they thought was workable, playable, and cool, and then refined it, tested it, polished it, and presented it, with deliberate simplification to make it run smoothly. 

A good example of simplification is the graphics of the avatars.  Unlike in many MMOs, your avatar's customization is drasticly limited in WoW, and one of the effects of this is that rendering multiple avatars on your screen is a far less complex and lag-inducing process than it is in SWG.

WoW's success is a boon for Blizzard, but it's the bane of the MMO genre, in my opinion.  Because WoW has been so successful, the suits want to be like WoW.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and envy, and the MMO industry has become every bit as formulaic as it matures as the cinematic entertainment (movie and TV) industry is.  More and more games are put out that try to slavishly follow the WoW formula, just like you've got dozens of Law & Order/CSI type shows all over the tube, and there are formula films (slasher, teen sex comedy, baddass male action) that are pretty much the same and predictable on the big screen.

In SWG's case, they had an original, groundbreaking system that needed polishing, bug quashing, and more content, either directed, or tools for players to create content.  Instead of going forward with the foundation they had, they elected to trash a game that built player loyalty and community and replace it with Star Wars with as WoWized a skin as they could manage.

All because the "King of MMO's" (SOE) found themselves being pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard.  Who beat them at their own game by putting out a simpler game than they had, but one that was polished and worked practically from the instant they went live.  The aspect of WoW that has a great deal to do with its success, which SOE stubbornly refuses to imitate, because they just don't DO polish...they're allergic to it or something.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Like i said before in other topics, once people are WOWEFIDE they see WOW in every game, SWG is NOTHING LIKE WOW, and if it is then all games are copy's/clone's from eachother all over.

What makes SWG feel/look like WOW is people playing or atleast trying to play the game like WOW they do not want to be involved with the game itself but try to find things that remind them of what they played before, it happens with everything in life, but many here (means not everyone but it means MANY) do not seem to have a realistic view on view on things, there for they make silly asumtions like pretending SWG is like WOW or Clone'd from WOW.

Here is the thing about game design: using the same mechanics as other games is acceptable and encouraged.  If a mechanic worked in another game, it is a good thing and gets the job done.  For example, using WASD is a game mechanic that works.  WoW did NOT copy any other game.  It used some of the same mechanics, but WoW is extremely original.  The people at Blizzard had a vision and executed it.  Blizzard never tries to copy (maybe they would if they had to, who knows).  It is a mere fact that many companies try to copy Blizzard (no, I don't mean use the same mechanics, I mean COPY).

I'm an IMGD (game development) student and have seen and talked to many people in the industry.  Last year, the lead designer for the game Titan Quest came to give a presentation for one of my courses.  We had to play Titan Quest and do an analysis on it.  Basically, the business model for Titan Quest was that Blizzard owned the MUD market, so copy Blizzard.  Titan Quest is just Diablo 2 re-themed.  They didn't try to use the same mechanics and make original content, they flat out copied.

SWG did the SAME thing Iron Lore did.  Because of Blizzard's market domination, by copying Blizzard companies hope that people who like Blizzard will also like their product (because it is the same game just without Blizzard graphics and such, right?).  This strategy is a plague in the industry, in my opinion.  Too much crappy business and too little artistic value.

SWG didn't just use the mechanic of having dungeons with a harder mode, loot from everything, the destruction of player economies, talent trees, and dumbing the game down.  They flat out copied WoW.  At first they at least attempted to use the same mechanic but make it their own (Expertise Tree), but eventually they just stopped caring.  From this we get 'Heroic Instances'.

If you seriously can't see the difference between using the same mechanic and flat out copying, I suggest you open your mind and really look at the games without a bias.

Originally posted by SioBabble

 

Originally posted by Sift

You guys are insane... SWG has more of a twitch FPS feel then it does a wow feel.... And every feature wow has is a ripoff so what are you trying to say?  I love wow but if your trying to argue that its original... its not. 

 

Who's saying that WoW is original?

My contention is that WoW is the ULTIMATE 2nd Generation MMO.  Blizzard took a look at everything that was out there, took from them what they thought was workable, playable, and cool, and then refined it, tested it, polished it, and presented it, with deliberate simplification to make it run smoothly. 

A good example of simplification is the graphics of the avatars.  Unlike in many MMOs, your avatar's customization is drasticly limited in WoW, and one of the effects of this is that rendering multiple avatars on your screen is a far less complex and lag-inducing process than it is in SWG.

WoW's success is a boon for Blizzard, but it's the bane of the MMO genre, in my opinion.  Because WoW has been so successful, the suits want to be like WoW.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and envy, and the MMO industry has become every bit as formulaic as it matures as the cinematic entertainment (movie and TV) industry is.  More and more games are put out that try to slavishly follow the WoW formula, just like you've got dozens of Law & Order/CSI type shows all over the tube, and there are formula films (slasher, teen sex comedy, baddass male action) that are pretty much the same and predictable on the big screen.

In SWG's case, they had an original, groundbreaking system that needed polishing, bug quashing, and more content, either directed, or tools for players to create content.  Instead of going forward with the foundation they had, they elected to trash a game that built player loyalty and community and replace it with Star Wars with as WoWized a skin as they could manage.

All because the "King of MMO's" (SOE) found themselves being pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard.  Who beat them at their own game by putting out a simpler game than they had, but one that was polished and worked practically from the instant they went live.  The aspect of WoW that has a great deal to do with its success, which SOE stubbornly refuses to imitate, because they just don't DO polish...they're allergic to it or something.

Couldnt put it better. Well said.

---

Originally posted by SioBabble

---

Originally posted by Sift

You guys are insane... SWG has more of a twitch FPS feel then it does a wow feel.... And every feature wow has is a ripoff so what are you trying to say? I love wow but if your trying to argue that its original... its not.

---

Who's saying that WoW is original?
My contention is that WoW is the ULTIMATE 2nd Generation MMO. Blizzard took a look at everything that was out there, took from them what they thought was workable, playable, and cool, and then refined it, tested it, polished it, and presented it, with deliberate simplification to make it run smoothly.
A good example of simplification is the graphics of the avatars. Unlike in many MMOs, your avatar's customization is drasticly limited in WoW, and one of the effects of this is that rendering multiple avatars on your screen is a far less complex and lag-inducing process than it is in SWG.
WoW's success is a boon for Blizzard, but it's the bane of the MMO genre, in my opinion. Because WoW has been so successful, the suits want to be like WoW. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and envy, and the MMO industry has become every bit as formulaic as it matures as the cinematic entertainment (movie and TV) industry is. More and more games are put out that try to slavishly follow the WoW formula, just like you've got dozens of Law & Order/CSI type shows all over the tube, and there are formula films (slasher, teen sex comedy, baddass male action) that are pretty much the same and predictable on the big screen.
In SWG's case, they had an original, groundbreaking system that needed polishing, bug quashing, and more content, either directed, or tools for players to create content. Instead of going forward with the foundation they had, they elected to trash a game that built player loyalty and community and replace it with Star Wars with as WoWized a skin as they could manage.
All because the "King of MMO's" (SOE) found themselves being pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard. Who beat them at their own game by putting out a simpler game than they had, but one that was polished and worked practically from the instant they went live. The aspect of WoW that has a great deal to do with its success, which SOE stubbornly refuses to imitate, because they just don't DO polish...they're allergic to it or something.

---

Well said, or typed rather. Pretty much says it all or types it anyway.

Originally posted by SioBabble

It is indeed (launched late June 2003), but when WoW came out, and smashed all records of subscriptions, Smedley went insane with envy as his ass was so totally pwned by the upstarts of Blizzard, and the WoWification of SWG began.  There's evidence that once WoW came out in 2004 and took the MMO market by storm, that's when the CURB was ditched and an attempt to slavishly copy WoW with the CU, which was furthered by the NGE, began.

The first obvious attempt to copy WoW was the new graphics of action icons in the UI that the CU introduced, which eliminated the elegant UI icons of pre CU with "cartoooney" icons very similar to WoW.

Blizzard is older than SOE nubsauce.  WoW did come out a year after SWG, but Blizzard is certainly no upstart.

Least SWG doesnt look like a 5 year old did the art.

Originally posted by saay

Least SWG doesnt look like a 5 year old did the art.

Ensure you it looks that way compared to PRE CU.  What is art in SWG is designed PRE CU.

Originally posted by Patricius

Originally posted by saay

Least SWG doesnt look like a 5 year old did the art.

Ensure you it looks that way compared to PRE CU.  What is art in SWG is designed PRE CU.

I know, i never meant that wasnt the case. Im glad SWG does look fairly normal compaired to cartoony like WoW.

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

Well a friend of mine talked me into trying a trial account for Wow, said something about wanting to get me drunk lol.  So why am I posting this in the SWG vet forum?  Well, because here are some of the first things I noticed as I entered the WoW universe:

9 professions,

beastmaster,

xp bar across the bottom of the screen,

expertise system,

same look on the power icons and timers as the CU,

the tree on Kashyyk where you got missions in the combat upgrade seems to have been ripped off from the elf starting area lol.

kill, loot, sell, repeat (although the stories that accompany the quests are interesting)

I've heard everyone say that SOE attempted to clone WoW in SWG and failed miserably.  Now I've seen it for myself.  They just hijacked stuff right from Blizzard's game, even gave the stuff the same name

The main difference that I've noticed so far is that everything seems to actually work in WoW.  The quests I've taken have gone with no hitch, the powers all fire everytime, I had virtually no lag (even though I'm streaming the game on a trial account).  I haven't seen anything spawned inside an object...yet. 

Another huge difference...people.  I had to wait in a queue to get on my friend's server.  It was over capacity.   And the game, although it's absolutely huge, was packed.  There were people running around and riding mounts etc. all over the place.  It reminded me of coronet "back in the day."

I don't think I'll be sticking with WoW.  I happen to like the character customization options a lot better in CoH.  No matter what I tried (and the options are quite limited) my elf looked like a knuckle dragging neanderthall lol.

Mainly I wrote this because I couldn't help noticing that SWG really did try to rip off WoW in so many ways it's nuts.  If you're going to take someone else's ideas, at least change the friggin name, jeez.  I also noticed that WoW works, and (not by coincidence I'm sure) is highly populated.

I also recently started a WoW trial.  I've been trying to avoid this, but just got bored waiting for a decent MMO to come along.  I've heard for the past 2+ years how "great" the game was and how much the NGE ripped-off Wow.  I always accepted those statements at face value and never argued one way or another, not knowing first hand.

What I immediately noticed in WoW was the interface, how similiar it was to what they gave us with the NGE.  That alone doesn't mean much- there's only so much you can do with a UI.  But as I played, I found the style very NGE-like (irony-heh).  Powers and skills, cool-down, graphics, icons, secondary expertise, everything stated is so blatantly similiar- almost identical.  And just as much a grind-fest as the NGE bacame.

I have no judgement on WoW just yet, but can see now what SOE was trying to do.  Makes the whole evolution that much sadder.

Originally posted by tman5

 

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

Well a friend of mine talked me into trying a trial account for Wow, said something about wanting to get me drunk lol.  So why am I posting this in the SWG vet forum?  Well, because here are some of the first things I noticed as I entered the WoW universe:

9 professions,

beastmaster,

xp bar across the bottom of the screen,

expertise system,

same look on the power icons and timers as the CU,

the tree on Kashyyk where you got missions in the combat upgrade seems to have been ripped off from the elf starting area lol.

kill, loot, sell, repeat (although the stories that accompany the quests are interesting)

I've heard everyone say that SOE attempted to clone WoW in SWG and failed miserably.  Now I've seen it for myself.  They just hijacked stuff right from Blizzard's game, even gave the stuff the same name

The main difference that I've noticed so far is that everything seems to actually work in WoW.  The quests I've taken have gone with no hitch, the powers all fire everytime, I had virtually no lag (even though I'm streaming the game on a trial account).  I haven't seen anything spawned inside an object...yet. 

Another huge difference...people.  I had to wait in a queue to get on my friend's server.  It was over capacity.   And the game, although it's absolutely huge, was packed.  There were people running around and riding mounts etc. all over the place.  It reminded me of coronet "back in the day."

I don't think I'll be sticking with WoW.  I happen to like the character customization options a lot better in CoH.  No matter what I tried (and the options are quite limited) my elf looked like a knuckle dragging neanderthall lol.

Mainly I wrote this because I couldn't help noticing that SWG really did try to rip off WoW in so many ways it's nuts.  If you're going to take someone else's ideas, at least change the friggin name, jeez.  I also noticed that WoW works, and (not by coincidence I'm sure) is highly populated.

I must second this.

 

I also recently started a WoW trial.  I've been trying to avoid this, but just got bored waiting for a decent MMO to come along.  I've heard for the past 2+ years how "great" the game was and how much the NGE ripped-off Wow.  I always accepted those statements at face value and never argued one way or another, not knowing first hand.

What I immediately noticed in WoW was the interface, how similiar it was to what they gave us with the NGE.  That alone doesn't mean much- there's only so much you can do with a UI.  But as I played, I found the style very NGE-like (irony-heh).  Powers and skills, cool-down, graphics how are the graphics similar? WoW has cartoony, top heavy characters, SWG looks, well, normal, icons, secondary expertise, everything stated is so blatantly similiar- almost identical.  And just as much a grind-fest as the NGE bacame. Lol, NGE a grind-fest? look at the game before NGE, im not commenting on how good or bad it was, but Pre-CU and CU was more of a grind fest than NGE.

I have no judgement on WoW just yet, but can see now what SOE was trying to do.  Makes the whole evolution that much sadder.

 

Ummm..... in pre-cu times, with the exceptions of BH and Jedi (and I did both of these) any profession could be mastered in week to two weeks max, many could be done in a couple days. And that includes any of the crafting masteries, so long as you spent some time piling up resources ahead of time to grind. And on top of that, many more people didn't feel the need to "grind" in the Pre-cu, people played and the skills came as people figured out how skills went together.

Why was this good? Because there was, generally speaking, no "grind" unless you wanted there to be one, playing/getting jedi. The BH grind was long ONLY because so many of the BH missions were bugged at the beginning. Wanted to drop a mess of skills and rebuild your template? No problem, took a number of days and you were back in business.

There is no debate, that the NGE ruined this flexibility, when they took out the 20+ profs and inserted strictly level based advancement. Heck, even in the CU, the old profs were still in there, and your combat level was tied to the skills you had, not the "level" you were. Post-NGE, you need to grind the levels to get the skills, not get the skills to determine your combat level.

Pre-CU/CU there was no grind unless you wanted there to be one.

I don't think WoW is the greatest game ever made, but sometimes it just cracks me up some of the things people say when trying to compare it to every other game on the market. 

First off, you say that pretty much WoW plays a lot like SWG now, but it runs a lot better, has less lag, and is more interesting...but you'd rather stick with a crappier game because you don't like the character models.  You guys who are so shallow that you'd rather spend hundreds of hours or more, playing a game that sux just because you can decide what color your nose hair is in a game, just irritate me.  It's people like you that keep SOE in business because they know they can sell their eye-candy-but-don't-work-for-crap games to people like you.

On the same note, when will the day come that people realize the connection when they say "WoW's graphics look kind of cartoon like, but the game runs great with like no lag."  If you look at AoC, and WAR, the two premium titles for the next year or so, neither looks like a SoE game.  That's because these guys have figured out like blizzard did that trying to cram every possible texture you can in a game while rendering everything all the time in total 3d is not only overkill, but a serious hit to game performance.

WoW has it's faults, i prefer a game that centers on leveling one character slowly over time and doing a lot of different raid content, where WoW focuses on leveling characters faster for the use of more alts, and doing more pvp obviously, but as far as the way that the game engine works and the interface is set up, it's ideal.  It runs better than just about any game out there on low-high performing pc's, which is why millions of people can play it. It doesn't matter how cool your game looks or even how great your concepts are, if people can't play your game it's all pointless.....trust me i played Vanguard and despite really liking the game, it was unplayable (and yes i have a system that should be able to play it just fine on higher settings).