I do have to defend WoW here a little, despite the fact that I can't stand it or other games like it.

In a way, I do agree with the "Wow Clone" thing.  WoW doesn't actually contain ANYTHING that didn't happen before it.

Several MMO's had levels, classes, instances, raids, pvp zones, etc. 

It IS true, however, that most MMO's since WOW have tried deliberately to clone it's particular spin on all those things.  Even an existing MMO's (SWG) was altered from a leveless, skill based, mostly sandbox form into one more resembling WoW, after it's success, and Smed even stated that "killing WoW" was a goal of it (said this in a Slashdot interview shortly after the NGE).

The problem though is that these would-be cloners and killers of WoW missed that which actually set WoW apart from all that has come before it and since it: Yep, the word "polish".  So far ONLY WoW has come out in a complete and polished form, with no missing core features or glaring bugs at launch.  While WoW isn't a particularly deep or innovative MMO, it has the virtue of working more or less flawlessly, not coming out 2/3rds done, expecting the subscriber base to pay subscription fees while they continued finishing the game.

In other words, it was the FIRST and so far ONLY MMO to release as an acual gold product, not as a "pay to test" "final beta" form.

This element, of course, is ignored by all the would be WoW clones and killers out there.  They continue to release partly unfinished games, which was the norm from the dawn of the industry until WoW and expect their customers to pay for the final stage of development.  Most MMO's released since WoW have failed as a result, MMO's released in the last 5 years seemingly have been cancelled much more often than older games.  The two MMO's released in the "Wow Clone" era that have had decent success, LOTRO and WAR also represent the most polished of their generation at release.

Remember when SWG launched, and was missing player cities, mounts, vehicles, and space combat, which were all things promised at launch?  Yet it still managed to pull 300K subs at it's peak.  That sort of launch today would get you 100K in your first month then maybe 30K and falling after that, and cancellation within a year or two.  Back then, though, we bought into the fantastic potential of it's sandbox and "make your own" profession skill system.  Sadly they added the missing stuff then ripped out it's soul later on.

WoW killer, WoW clone, damn this guy must be a WoW fanboy so let me do the WoW hating (this was a joke).

Nice article, the picture associations were pretty funny, plus this article has a lot of truth. I'd really enjoy another round of misused words in MMOs written by you.

Originally posted by mrw0lf

'tis a good list, think I would have had 'NextGen' in there. Every game I've played for the last 5 years has advertised itself as nextgen, but I'm fked if I can see how they're any different from the last.

LOL!!!

If we counted everything that was called nextgen, as such, what gen would be one 10,000,000,000?

Originally posted by Gylfi

Doesn't make sense, Quentin Tarantino doesn't direct movies for everyone, counting on dumbness to make the most money, He already knows many will hate them.

I never heard the term wow clone used for every MMO, just for the more evident ones. And it's weird anyway cause im pretty sure when i said it the first time i  had made it up... could i be the unaware inventor? 

Sure it may have been used in the wrong way, but the article doesn't say that, the article says it's ALWAYS used in the wrong way because there are NO wow clones.... which is ridiculous.

He certainly doesn't direct intellectual thinking movies that require a phd either.  The simple stuff, violence, nudity,action, gets the money.  Some high quality arty stuff that requires 2 brain cells doesn't make any money. Want to know how to fix GM?  Invent a car thats so dumbed down, so mindless and worry free that anyone with opposable thumbs could use it safely, from children to the oldest of senior citizens.  No license required.  Possible?  Probably not.  But it would be the best selling car around.

Granted the idea of a 'clone of wow' is not a bad idea.  We may actually see a direct knockoff of wow soon.  I remember thinking many PnP games were clones of AD&D.  However, the term itself IS widely misused.  I've often seen it used and then when asked to describe the so called clone, they instead describe those facets that make up  most any RPG.  Its like people don't realize that the features of WoW that make it what it is are common to 95% of RPGs.  I never have the heart to break it to them that perhaps they just don't like RPGs and should try a different genre of game.

That being said, merely listing classes/levels and even quests that ask for 5 pelts and using that to justify the cloneliness of a mmorpg is just assinine.

Your list sucks... and yes I am a "fanboi" of your list sucking... and yes I am a "hater" of your list. Your list is not "Innovative" enough and is a complete "failure". Your list reads like the editor put you in a "sandbox" or "theme park" and let you run wild with it. I was expecting a list of "real" MMO only words people miss use and got "vaporware". I guess your just not "hardcore" enough for MMORPG.com. So "polish" up your content and resubmit something good.

Originally posted by Yamota

I strongly dissagree that WoW Clone is a misused word. It is the devs that have "copied" so many WoW concepts in an attempt to get anywhere near the success that WoW is.

So the therm WoW clone is not misused but rather an accurate description of many MMORPGs these days. Unfourtantely I may add. However that does not make the therm misused, it is rather quite accurate.

For example, no one is using the word WoW clone for describing Mortal Online or Darkfail as those are very different from WoW. However games like WAR and Lotr are very similar to WoW as they are all linear, themepark MMORPGs that cater to the casual player. They have differences from each other and from WoW but their are fundamentally they all use the same base ingredients as WoW, this making them WoW clones. (and yes I know what a clone is but don't take the word literally, if so there is no such thing as a WoW clone because no MMORPG is a carbon copy of WoW as that would be illegal).

WOW clone is a highly mis used word ,because there is NEVER any truth to it.WOW "IS "a EQ clone,so everything thereafter should be referred to as an EQ clone NOT a WOW clone.Even to this day WOW continues to add EQ content,but giving it a different name for obvious reasons,too easy a lawsuit otherwise.I cannot think of one thing WOW innovated to call its own,and therefore using the word CLONE,on games that have been developed afterwards.

ROM could be considered a slight FFXI clone,but barely.VG is also a EQ clone but did add a touch of innovation,to give itself an identity.

DID you know WOW still

uses the ghost shard retrieval upon death,lmao,that is so old EQ, it is ridiculous.I have played TONS of games that did not copy that idea,as a matter of fact MOST do not use it.Most games do NOT use tiered spells,so really WOW is pretty much the ONLY EQ clone all other games try to do things a tad different.This "IS"the sad reality,that so many hold WOW in high reguards,yet shun the father, an identical game[better looking] in EQ2.

The "Ten Most Misused Words in MMO's." was a great article and there were many good point's.  I enjoyed it, my fav part was the pic's on the side's with the little quote's next to it.  Made the article have some great humor!

Originally posted by rscott6666

Originally posted by Gylfi

Doesn't make sense, Quentin Tarantino doesn't direct movies for everyone, counting on dumbness to make the most money, He already knows many will hate them.

I never heard the term wow clone used for every MMO, just for the more evident ones. And it's weird anyway cause im pretty sure when i said it the first time i  had made it up... could i be the unaware inventor? 

Sure it may have been used in the wrong way, but the article doesn't say that, the article says it's ALWAYS used in the wrong way because there are NO wow clones.... which is ridiculous.

He certainly doesn't direct intellectual thinking movies that require a phd either.  The simple stuff, violence, nudity,action, gets the money.  Some high quality arty stuff that requires 2 brain cells doesn't make any money. Want to know how to fix GM?  Invent a car thats so dumbed down, so mindless and worry free that anyone with opposable thumbs could use it safely, from children to the oldest of senior citizens.  No license required.  Possible?  Probably not.  But it would be the best selling car around.

Granted the idea of a 'clone of wow' is not a bad idea.  We may actually see a direct knockoff of wow soon.  I remember thinking many PnP games were clones of AD&D.  However, the term itself IS widely misused.  I've often seen it used and then when asked to describe the so called clone, they instead describe those facets that make up  most any RPG.  Its like people don't realize that the features of WoW that make it what it is are common to 95% of RPGs.  I never have the heart to break it to them that perhaps they just don't like RPGs and should try a different genre of game.

That being said, merely listing classes/levels and even quests that ask for 5 pelts and using that to justify the cloneliness of a mmorpg is just assinine.

Please read the post after. You too mistake generic elements from unique elements.

The features that make WoW are generically all the elements of RPG's, but the SPECIFIC way each is hacked is of ITS OWN making, and that's what every other game after WoW cloned, not the generic element of "a quest''

 If you can't see the difference between the typical WoW quest and a quest in Vampire Bloodlines, it's your bad.

I did read your specifics. Not too many, icons over head, rectangular window, text, yes/no, changed icon. Other than the icon over the head, all of the facets were done and done well by earlier games. If anything, wow  was the clone. The big complaint about WoW when it came out was that it didn't bring anything new to the table, everything else was copied from earlier games. Their only innovation as far as i can see was that icon. It gets credit for polishing the genre, thats about it.

As to the argument that its whoever perfected the feature gets the credit, no, its usually whoever popularizes it gets the credit, its never really perfected. So EQ/DAOC should get credit, not WOW.

It did invent and popularize that icon. If you want WOW clone to mean 'floating  icon over the head', okay. Rather meaningless if you ask me. I guess i'll call everything that uses a rectangular window a DAOC clone.
 

Originally posted by Wizardry

WOW clone is a highly mis used word ,because there is NEVER any truth to it.WOW "IS "a EQ clone,so everything thereafter should be referred to as an EQ clone NOT a WOW clone.Even to this day WOW continues to add EQ content,but giving it a different name for obvious reasons,too easy a lawsuit otherwise.I cannot think of one thing WOW innovated to call its own,and therefore using the word CLONE,on games that have been developed afterwards.

ROM could be considered a slight FFXI clone,but barely.VG is also a EQ clone but did add a touch of innovation,to give itself an identity.

DID you know WOW still

uses the ghost shard retrieval upon death,lmao,that is so old EQ, it is ridiculous.I have played TONS of games that did not copy that idea,as a matter of fact MOST do not use it.Most games do NOT use tiered spells,so really WOW is pretty much the ONLY EQ clone all other games try to do things a tad different.This "IS"the sad reality,that so many hold WOW in high reguards,yet shun the father, an identical game[better looking] in EQ2.

 

Having played both EQ and WoW for 6 months each I can't disagree more that WoW is NOT a EQ-clone. WoW is casual friendly and EQ is anti-casual friendly as it had long downtimes in combat (something that is unheard of now post WoW). Also EQ had huge zones and cities where you could easily get lost where as in WoW everything was pointed out to you, either on the map or on the screen. Furthermore WoW had instancing which changed ALOT on how things worked and was also very solo friendly, where as EQ more or less required you to be in a group and the death penalty was high, by todays standards.

So where as WoW did copy some of the basica elements of EQ, like linear, class based leveling system, they were VERY different. What made WoW so special, and probably so popular, is that it was extremely casual friendly. An 8 year old could do most of the content in the game and all it required was some time, and not much at that since WoW had an extremely fast leveling curve for that time.

Finally WoW topped it of by having, arguably, one of the most proffessional PC gaming development companies behind it. Blizzard is infamous for creating solid and stable games that cater to the masses. And that was probably the main reason why EQ 2 didn't take of, the system reqs was steep high and the game was not very stable when released, on most peoples systems, where as WoW was.

So I don't think you are giving Blizzard credit enough. They certainly did not make a EQ clone, they took EQ and transformed it, simplified it and made it cater to the masses. And ever since WoWs huge success now every company is looking at WoW and trying to copy the casual friendly elements that they perfected, not realising that a copy of a game will not be a success unless it has something truly innovative that the copy does not have and none of the many WoW clones released, Lotr, WAR, AoC, have any of that.

However if you want a EQ clone then DAoC is that, it is basically a EQ light version with RvR introduced (the innovative thing that made the game a success, even though the game was essentially a EQ clone). WoW was certainly not.

"The truth of hardcore is that it is about the amount of hours put in, not what people enjoy doing in those hours."

I disagree with this statement. It's not about the hours but rather the passion. Someone could only spend 2 hours a week playing a particular game but the passion that they bring for those 2 hours is what determines if they are hardcore or not.

More time does not equal hardcore, rather the seriousness that one holds for a game is what defines them as a player.

Originally posted by rscott6666

I did read your specifics. Not too many, icons over head, rectangular window, text, yes/no, changed icon. Other than the icon over the head, all of the facets were done and done well by earlier games. If anything, wow  was the clone. The big complaint about WoW when it came out was that it didn't bring anything new to the table, everything else was copied from earlier games. Their only innovation as far as i can see was that icon. It gets credit for polishing the genre, thats about it.

As to the argument that its whoever perfected the feature gets the credit, no, its usually whoever popularizes it gets the credit, its never really perfected. So EQ/DAOC should get credit, not WOW.

It did invent and popularize that icon. If you want WOW clone to mean 'floating  icon over the head', okay. Rather meaningless if you ask me. I guess i'll call everything that uses a rectangular window a DAOC clone.
 

Sure, WoW way of questing was already at its core in DAOC. But DAOC's quests were way less, way harder, slower, boring. WoW made 'em more accessible, easy to accomplish, easy to take, guiding you from lvl 1 to lvl cap... they became ''fun''(not for me, i hate that kind of accessible fun), in a way they are unique.

If WoW didn't DO anything new, then why did every MMO after it reuse the same core mechanics? Why were all MMo's before WoW unique in every aspect, and then they were all EXACTLY the same in the quest gameplay? I tell you why, because WoW invented a winning formula for quests nobody had come up with that became an accepted standard. And again im not talking about generic similarities of the concept of quests, but the same in every way.

But even if WoW didn't invent anything new, it still has the merit(not a merit for me, it bastardized the genre, made it for kids) of having made the genre a protitable business, a genre for the big masses... that alone is a great reason to call every mmo like it(and like EQ/DAOC) a wow clone.

Because as i said, everyone knows vikings went to america first, but Columbus made it known to the masses, so he gets the merit.

Originally posted by AmbushMartyr

LMFAO! This post went south of heaven fast didnt it? Geesh, for those who dont know...ITS JUST A GAME!! A GAME!! ITS NOT REAL!! ITS A GAME!!! Lol, morons, I swear...

It may be true that "it's just a game."  But these games, especially MMOs, are connected to people .... like you!  Much, much more sophisticated than playing Monopoly or Life, eh?  :)

Why do we like the term WOW Clone...because there really hasn't been much innovation in the MMORPG industry other than a few games....like AC1 and Eve Online...the rest of have been D&D knockoffs using the same leveling paradigm...Just because your not innovative doesn't mean that you can't be fun...which some of these games have been...Being innovative will be done by independent shops...because it's easier to copy than to be truly innovative...

Heh...even though my arguments have to use some of the terms that are over used...doesn't  mean they are any less true.

Originally posted by Gylfi 

Sure, WoW way of questing was already at its core in DAOC. But DAOC's quests were way less, way harder, slower, boring. WoW made 'em more accessible, easy to accomplish, easy to take, guiding you from lvl 1 to lvl cap... they became ''fun''(not for me, i hate that kind of accessible fun), in a way they are unique.

If WoW didn't DO anything new, then why did every MMO after it reuse the same core mechanics? Why were all MMo's before WoW unique in every aspect, and then they were all EXACTLY the same in the quest gameplay? I tell you why, because WoW invented a winning formula for quests nobody had come up with that became an accepted standard. And again im not talking about generic similarities of the concept of quests, but the same in every way.

But even if WoW didn't invent anything new, it still has the merit(not a merit for me, it bastardized the genre, made it for kids) of having made the genre a protitable business, a genre for the big masses... that alone is a great reason to call every mmo like it(and like EQ/DAOC) a wow clone.

Because as i said, everyone knows vikings went to america first, but Columbus made it known to the masses, so he gets the merit.

Actually the quest system was used by AC2 before WOW(a game designed by Turbine and MS....it even used the symbol above the head...if anything WOW cloned AC2 but did a better job of polishing it  and putting it in a traditional Fantasy setting ;)

Hehe, a good read.

There are a lot of fishy, over-used and hollow phrases in this terrain. Like "epic" or "massive" or "brutal". Every second new MMO is either brutal or visceral these days. Or iconic!

Usually it is the typical result of too much hot PR air.

Originally posted by HouseODexter

Originally posted by Gylfi 

Sure, WoW way of questing was already at its core in DAOC. But DAOC's quests were way less, way harder, slower, boring. WoW made 'em more accessible, easy to accomplish, easy to take, guiding you from lvl 1 to lvl cap... they became ''fun''(not for me, i hate that kind of accessible fun), in a way they are unique.

If WoW didn't DO anything new, then why did every MMO after it reuse the same core mechanics? Why were all MMo's before WoW unique in every aspect, and then they were all EXACTLY the same in the quest gameplay? I tell you why, because WoW invented a winning formula for quests nobody had come up with that became an accepted standard. And again im not talking about generic similarities of the concept of quests, but the same in every way.

But even if WoW didn't invent anything new, it still has the merit(not a merit for me, it bastardized the genre, made it for kids) of having made the genre a protitable business, a genre for the big masses... that alone is a great reason to call every mmo like it(and like EQ/DAOC) a wow clone.

Because as i said, everyone knows vikings went to america first, but Columbus made it known to the masses, so he gets the merit.

Actually the quest system was used by AC2 before WOW(a game designed by Turbine and MS....it even used the symbol above the head...if anything WOW cloned AC2 but did a better job of polishing it  and putting it in a traditional Fantasy setting ;)

 

Very well.

It's as if you came up with the lightbulb but didn't ''tell'' anyone. Then I manage to spread it worldwide because i made it so ''pretty'' looking, and now everyone uses the exact same thing... not YOUR version which was ugly-looking, but mine. So the one who gets the merit(in this case the blame) is THAT who made it an accepted worldwide standard... WoW... even tho the ideas aren't original.

Thus explaining why we call the new mmo's  ''WoW clones''

Originally posted by Gylfi

Originally posted by HouseODexter

Originally posted by Gylfi 

Sure, WoW way of questing was already at its core in DAOC. But DAOC's quests were way less, way harder, slower, boring. WoW made 'em more accessible, easy to accomplish, easy to take, guiding you from lvl 1 to lvl cap... they became ''fun''(not for me, i hate that kind of accessible fun), in a way they are unique.

If WoW didn't DO anything new, then why did every MMO after it reuse the same core mechanics? Why were all MMo's before WoW unique in every aspect, and then they were all EXACTLY the same in the quest gameplay? I tell you why, because WoW invented a winning formula for quests nobody had come up with that became an accepted standard. And again im not talking about generic similarities of the concept of quests, but the same in every way.

But even if WoW didn't invent anything new, it still has the merit(not a merit for me, it bastardized the genre, made it for kids) of having made the genre a protitable business, a genre for the big masses... that alone is a great reason to call every mmo like it(and like EQ/DAOC) a wow clone.

Because as i said, everyone knows vikings went to america first, but Columbus made it known to the masses, so he gets the merit.

Actually the quest system was used by AC2 before WOW(a game designed by Turbine and MS....it even used the symbol above the head...if anything WOW cloned AC2 but did a better job of polishing it  and putting it in a traditional Fantasy setting ;)

 

Very well.

It's as if you came up with the lightbulb but didn't ''tell'' anyone. Then I manage to spread it worldwide because i made it so ''pretty'' looking, and now everyone uses the exact same thing. So the one who gets the merit(in this case the blame) is THAT who made it an accepted worldwide standard... WoW... even tho the ideas aren't original.

Thus explaining why we call the new mmo's  ''WoW clones''

 

No we call it a WOW Clone...because they are the 800 lb gorilla...not because they came up with anything original...

thought for sure "NOOB" woulda been number 1 on that list..lol

Great list.

You may have included a similarly coined phrase "Wow sucks" as a Misused.

The game is great, many of us just don't like it anymore or perhaps never did. But saying the game is bad is just as arrogant as thinking the only good music on the planet is the stuff you're in to, while hating on all the rest. Especially all that pop/rap/country music thats just terrible