All i see on this site or at least 80% of what i see in game reviews are clames of wow clones, but frankly i havnt seen a game even close to compare to the gameplay wow has.

Here's my challange, name a WoW clone.. an honest WoW clone, one with BG's A constant Raid flow, Guild Skill emphasis, a dominant Gear role, a very calm leveling curve and minimal grind, and if you think 2 hours per level from 1 to 70 is bad, try playing lineaage 1 nuff' said

I just want to see this wow clone, im intruiged because i really need something to tide me over till my 2 fun months of wotlk then my constant bitching about what i think it needs.. please releive me of this stress of trying to find a game even CLOSE to WoW, and for gods sake dont say guild wars, lotro, war or AoC, because they're nothing like WoW

Lotro is nothing like WoW?  That like saying Whitesnake is nothing like Led Zepplin.   PvE wise its pretty close. 

They're not really clones now are they?  If they were, they'd have high production values, consistent and talented art design, slick and responsive controls and an epic and immersive world.  The modern MMO for the most part is a pale imitation of the only one that really got right what it was trying to do.

What we have instead are games that are mediocre in quality and can only distinguish themselves from each other with the tragic gimmicks they peddle, I'm talking about blood and gore in AoC, RvR in WAR, a big franchise like LOTRO, or even non-gimmicks like 'It's the predecessor to EQ!' like Vanguard, or 'it was made by ex-Blizzard employees!' like Hellgate London.

All the non-issues that annoying uptight self-proclaimed MMO verteran wankers debate over endlessly such as death penalty or 'true PvP' (lol), actually don't make a blind bit of difference at all.   As simple as WoW appears to be, it manages to do everything so it fits together in one well polished package, instead of some Frankenstien-esque amalgamation of crap gameplay elements from a guy who isn't very good at games.

You can tell that Azeroth has been lovingly crafted because the NPCs don't talk like they've run out of anti-depressants and the world is diverse, yet internally consistent and interesting. Unfortunately other MMORPGs feel like they've been grown in some giant industrial vat, with all the game assets outsourced to several different countries while the game designers sit in their cubicles smoking crack.

Go Play Dungeon Runners!

Closest thing to a WoW clone is Warhammer online, but main difference is instead of Trump in PvE content, Warhammer has trump card in PvP which is very attractive to alot of people... WoW is copying Warhammer in WotLK with alot of the PvP systems.

When people say something is a WoW clone, they mean it has very similar game mechanics (EQ style DikuMUD made for casual players).  None of the WoW clones have WoW's polish or amount of directed content, which is why no game that has copied WoW's mechanics has came anywhere near WoW's subscripton numbers.

Most MMOs are class based and quest based because WoW is so successful.  Aside from a couple indy MMOs, no MMOs have followed the UO style, which was skill based and sandbox based (open world that has very little directed content)

Personally, I'd love to see a skill based MMO that had the directed content and polish of WoW, with all the sandbox elements of UO.  For some reason, the folks who make MMOs think the two styles can't be melded together.  How hard would it be to make a game with UO tyrpe character mechanics and slap a bunch of quests on to it?

Like I said Keep your eye on Warhammer, it is by far the best candidate to take down WoW if any.

Originally posted by Recant

They're not really clones now are they?  If they were, they'd have high production values, consistent and talented art design, slick and responsive controls and an epic and immersive world.  The modern MMO for the most part is a pale imitation of the only one that really got right what it was trying to do.

Hahaha oh man. I thought you were serious for a second there.

Originally posted by Signore

WoW is copying Warhammer in WotLK with alot of the PvP systems.

you mean the systems that were already promised 5 years ago?

Originally posted by Signore

Like I said Keep your eye on Warhammer, it is by far the best candidate to take down WoW if any.

I am very glad your opinion is not shared by most.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/videogames/229575/ref=pd_nr_vg_mte

The War game is on the brink of collapse sale wise (unless you think that place 66 on the amazon bestsellers list of PC(!) products is something to brag about after 6 weeks). Just in front of "Reader rabit I can read". Great game that last one ....

And on www.xfire.com we see the population shrinking on a daily basis.

So tell me where is that candidate ?

Originally posted by strategy

Originally posted by Signore

Like I said Keep your eye on Warhammer, it is by far the best candidate to take down WoW if any.

 

I am very glad your opinion is not shared by most.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/videogames/229575/ref=pd_nr_vg_mte

The War game is on the brink of collapse sale wise (unless you think that place 66 on the amazon bestsellers list of PC(!) products is something to brag about after 6 weeks). Just in front of "Reader rabit I can read". Great game that last one ....

And on www.xfire.com we see the population shrinking on a daily basis.

So tell me where is that candidate ?

 

LOL - no, Warhammer is not any real threat to WoW. But using Xfire and Amazon as any kind of real information is ludicrous. Warhammer will settle out to around 300-500k subscribers, making it yet another niche game like Lotro and Eve. And WoW will continue to be the big dog for the forseeable future. You can relax now, and play your game in the safe knowledge that all the kewl kids are still playing it too. That's why I still play!

WoW = Everquest clone... not so much anymore tho...

300k to 500k is not niche, its actually a popular game but compared to wow it can be considered niche.  not a lot of mmo's get over the one million mark and no other mmo will ever come close to wow's numbers so its not fair to judge them againt wow's numbers. (plus 5.5 million of wow's subs are asian gold farmers anyways)

Originally posted by xbellx777

300k to 500k is not niche, its actually a popular game but compared to wow it can be considered niche.  not a lot of mmo's get over the one million mark and no other mmo will ever come close to wow's numbers so its not fair to judge them againt wow's numbers. (plus 5.5 million of wow's subs are asian gold farmers anyways)

always get this ~5 millions are asian gold farmers, but to be honest half the people i find in wow are not asian gold farmers. I would say 1 in 10 might be asian gold farmer. having said that, there is one very important point you made (and i have made it also many times but apparently it is something most people don't grasp)

"not a lot of mmo's get over the one million mark and no other mmo will ever come close to wow's numbers "

i see people talking about 1 million, 2 millions, 3 millions subs like it is an easy number to reach. It is not. on your left there is a huge list of mmo's games. From all of those only 2 ever sustained or retained  more than 1 million subs. and from those 2 only 1, wow, is pay per play. the other is guild wars.

Originally posted by Porfat

Lotro is nothing like WoW?  That like saying Whitesnake is nothing like Led Zepplin.   PvE wise its pretty close. 

Not really.  They're both level-based, class-based fantasy games, and they're very close in terms of how leveling is done.  Beyond that, I don't think PvE is similar between the two.  There are massive differences.

LotRO actually tries to tell a story, and while it's not on the same par as a single player RPG, it does a decent job of it.  WoW, on the other hand, generally sucks with its storytelling.  BC was the worst.  It's only with Wrath that WoW is really feeling like a RPG at all.  Wrath actually puts you in the center of story events outside of raids.  LotRO did that all the time, from the very beginning.

WoW's endgame PvP emphasis is on raiding.  LotRO has no real raiding.  It's just going through the story missions until you hit the end, at which time /unsub until next xpac.

Originally posted by Dkevlar

Originally posted by xbellx777

300k to 500k is not niche, its actually a popular game but compared to wow it can be considered niche.  not a lot of mmo's get over the one million mark and no other mmo will ever come close to wow's numbers so its not fair to judge them againt wow's numbers. (plus 5.5 million of wow's subs are asian gold farmers anyways)

 

always get this ~5 millions are asian gold farmers, but to be honest half the people i find in wow are not asian gold farmers. I would say 1 in 10 might be asian gold farmer. having said that, there is one very important point you made (and i have made it also many times but apparently it is something most people don't grasp)

"not a lot of mmo's get over the one million mark and no other mmo will ever come close to wow's numbers "

i see people talking about 1 million, 2 millions, 3 millions subs like it is an easy number to reach. It is not. on your left there is a huge list of mmo's games. From all of those only 2 ever sustained or retained  more than 1 million subs. and from those 2 only 1, wow, is pay per play. the other is guild wars.

 

 

 

 

Lineage 2 hit over a million.

But that's besides the point.

The "WoW clone" As it's called is a Theme park game that's gear driven.  That's a WoW clone.  WAR is not a WoW clone in that respect.  The art direction and PvE quests, however, very much follow the WoW formula.  As well as the  ! over the NPC's heads.

 Vanguard /might/ be considers a WoW clone in how it's done, but the amount of classes makes it not such.

WoW = Obama

WAR = Mccain

"nuff said.

Umm.. No.

Your forgetting the reason why Wow is such a big seller. Its easy and it can play on pretty much any machine. A lot of my friends wish they could play WAR and even VG, but they cant because of there computer so they play Wow because theres really nothing else.

Okay-

I've been around since Meridian 59, I was one of the original Baja players on Ultima Online. I beta tested Everquest... I beta tested Dark Ages of Camelot and Anarchy Online as well. These were the originals. Everything that came after is based on these games in one way or another.

The only thing new that World of Warcraft brought to the market was the fact they had griffons to take you from point a to b, but even then DAoC had horses that did the same thing, they just took longer.

WoW is such a great game because it took everything good from the games I just mentioned and combined them. Then they made it simple enough that a twelve year old could play it, viola... we have WoW!

WoWs not the best game out there, not even by far, but it's the most popular game because it doesn't require a great deal of work and has a simple reward system that sucks people in.

Also, anyone who knows about Warhammer Online can tell you that WoW ripped them off perhaps more than anyone else. The graphics are so similar, the idea of Order and Chaos, alliance and horde... orcs vs humans... well LoTR had it first, but Warhammer had it before WoW... Look at the art from some of the old Warhammer books and you'll see how similar they are to WoW.

Warhammer didn't really steal anything from WoW that WoW hadn't already stolen from them. As far as WoW clones go, nearly every game out there is a clone of the four original games I mentioned. Everytime you log into an MMOs, thank those original four for what they gave you. Maybe pray that they'll last a few more years, they definently deserve it.

<Note Edited a few typos>