Originally posted by brostyn

You're exaggerating. Not every MMO released after WoW is, or was, labeled a WoW clone. Just the ones that are WoW clones. Most notably LOTRO and WAR.

I'll second that.

Its because before World of Warcraft...75% of the people that play mmorpgs now never knew what a mmorpg was.  Admit it. I have a few guys that I work with that quit playing World of Warcraft saying, i'm doing with mmorpgs.  I asked them what other mmorpg they played and they said none.  lol.   I saw on a forum somewhere and someone was calling Anarchy Online a World of Warcraft clone...rolf.  Anarchy Online came out in 2001.  Its rather silly that people think that world of warcraft was the first mmorpg although it did help kick start the genre 10 fold.

Originally posted by Brain-dead

I would call cartoony grindy MMOs WoW clones. Aion comes to mind.

This is nonsence. There have been many MMO's released before wow that where cartoony, toontown, final fantasy 11 and city of heroes comes to mind. Also WoW was actually the least grind intensive game when it was released, compared to games before it the effort to reach end-game was minor. Games like Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and everquest had far more grind and where released before wow.

The only reason you are calling these things a WoW clone is because you never played any other game before it, or you would have known that WoW never pioneered these elements.

Can we pack a few more over used BADLY misused words into this thread? 

THEMEPARK  -  go look up its original meaning. Learn it and stop using it incorrectly.

WoW clone  -   Stop using it altogether because there is no way in hell you turds can wrap your head around it. Lotro is not like wow at all   Books  alone  should shut you up. War is... more like WoW than lotro but still lets be serious  keeps  should again shut you up.

A clone doesn't have a few similar features  it has all the same features.

My experience is that people call every MMO a WOW Clone for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Boredom

2. Lack of intelligence

3. To provoke a reponse from other forum posters

I have seen WoWClone posted in almost every single forum thread on some MMO sites. Even in threads regarding games that are obviously nothing like WoW. It's pretty ridiculous and I have to say I am pretty sick of it. But I never respond, it's best not to. You only satisfy them by provoking them. 

Marcus

Originally posted by Carl132p

Can we pack a few more over used BADLY misused words into this thread? 

 

THEMEPARK  -  go look up its original meaning. Learn it and stop using it incorrectly.

 

WoW clone  -   Stop using it altogether because there is no way in hell you turds can wrap your head around it. Lotro is not like wow at all   Books  alone  should shut you up. War is... more like WoW than lotro but still lets be serious  keeps  should again shut you up.

 

A clone doesn't have a few similar features  it has all the same features.

*affected*

Originally posted by Abrahmm

It's probably because nearly every MMO to release since WoW has done it's best to mimic WoW with the hope of stealing some of WoW's slice of the pie. WoW didn't originally create many of the features it has, but since it made those features a success, the amount of quality, original games has dropped dramatically, and the number of "standard", WoW like MMOs that attempt to copy the features, accessability, and easiness of WoW has sky rocketed. Since WoW, we have seen few sandboxes, and none that are outstanding.

That is why every game is called a WoW clone. Partially the features, partially because the intent of the developers is painfully obvious.

I totally agree with you on some of this. The "standard" has gone way done for so many players and WoW has given many people only 1 impression, WoW. You have ton of newer players (talking about any game pre-WoW) who think they know what "hardcore" or success is. They have this standard that WoW is the best game on the market, which it really isn't. A lot of the features aren't innovative or new, the customer service is horrible and the content becomes extremely easy, yet people still play it. The fan base of Blizzard pre WoW is HUGE all around the world, which also drives their success. Regardless if Blizzard made a horrible MMO, there would still be a ridiculous amount of people playing it.

Back to my point. People label games as WoW clones because they only have 1 standard and 1 point of view. I've played every single MMO to date (okay, maybe minus a few) and I don't see it this way. The only thing that  WoW has going for it is the largest subscription base on the market, but as far as creativeness, fun factor and replayability, the game is too easy and not innovative any more (aka copying RVR and Siege weapons when WAR is released, I mean come on.....really?)

Success means subscriptions for some people. In that case I guess you can say WoW is a complete success.

Wow is techincally an EQ clone, because it borrows heavily from that games design concepts.  However the gameplay of wow and eq are very dissimilar.  People can play each game and find them completely different.

Other games are getting labeled as wow clones, because they do borrow heavily from the design of wow with one big difference from the above example.  After playing said game it is easy to get the feeling of having done the majority of the game already when playing warcraft.  You know where the quests are going to lead and how they are going to progress before you even complete them.  The majority of the gameplay is something that like wow in almost the same exact manner. 

I understand that a lot of games have worked hard to carve their own identity with focuses on pvp over pve, new mechanics and some innovative features, but at the end of the day far to many games feel like playing some distorted version of warcraft.  There is enough sameness in the core of the gameplay that it doesn't differenitiate itself enough and I am pretty sure that is an intentional choice by game developers. 

@Ihmotepp

I agree. I always believed that sandbox may even be somewhat contradictory term when talking about MMORPGs. I've heard somewhere about a Fallout MMORPG, though I don't really know if it is true, I have no clue on how they are going to try to keep the sandbox atmosphere in a MMORPG. Games like TES and Fallout are greatly successful because you have freedom to impact the world around you, which makes them sandbox games, and this is very limited in MMORPGs in general, because your liberties will only go up to other players'. Which means you probably won't get to steal from players, kill NPCs or anything like that, because people would whine. I enjoy Oblivion because I can build the world the way I want it to be, and there is no one else to tell me how it should be done, I'm sure that most people agree on this when talking about Single-player sandbox games.

The whole "WoW clone" irritates me also, since AFAIK WoW had absolutely nothing new or original when it launched.  What's funny is most of these people using that term want a MMO that's a 3D UO clone.

Originally posted by Shana77

I think when people use the WoW clone  description, they are talking about easy to level, forced soloing in the early levels, quest grind, with raiding at the end.

 Most MMO players got introduced to the genre by WoW and thus its most MMO'ers first MMO game and they will compare any game to it.

 

This I disagree with. If you say alot of video gamers instead of MMO'ers then Id say you are correct :)

Originally posted by beeker255

Originally posted by Shana77

I think when people use the WoW clone  description, they are talking about easy to level, forced soloing in the early levels, quest grind, with raiding at the end.

 Most MMO players got introduced to the genre by WoW and thus its most MMO'ers first MMO game and they will compare any game to it.

 

 

This I disagree with. If you say alot of video gamers instead of MMO'ers then Id say you are correct :)

WoW is an MMO, so all those people playing WoW are now MMO'ers.

Originally posted by Darth_Osor

The whole "WoW clone" irritates me also, since AFAIK WoW had absolutely nothing new or original when it launched.  What's funny is most of these people using that term want a MMO that's a 3D UO clone.

And UO was a Meridian clone.

Think again:

Dumbed-down, Free2Play MMOGs (crap).

I wish all these crappy developers would stop making game-clones!!!  I mean, I'm so sick of playing the same game-clones for the last 10 years!!!

When is someone going to make something that's not a game-clone!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!