It seems to be fashionable these days to basically rewrite WoW, with some changes, and then claim they are not competing with WoW. Except, you know, they want a few million of their subscribers to switch over, and they have added lots of things to their game to explicitly make it similar to WoW, like a solo-focused leveling path followed by a level-cap instance and raiding game. Even EQ2 gave that a go with their latest expansion. AoC is essentially the same. WAR will be essentially the same. All these games claiming to be about not competing with the behemoth, trying their best to be able to fill in the blanks in this sentence: “We’re just like WoW, except for ____________ (insert feature here)”.
So color me shocked when I loaded up the Wizard101 beta and said to myself, OMFG… this is NOTHING like WoW. These people are NOT competing with WoW. They could give a flying fish whether any WoW players like their game. They have packed more innovation into this one game — this one game FOR CHILDREN — than I have seen in the “grown up” MMO world in years.
KingsIsle, creators of Wizard101 and likely recipients of J.K. Rowling’s curses as she wishes she’d licensed Harry Potter for an MMO sooner, have to be laughing at all the WoWs and AoCs and WARs and EQ2s that just keep remaking the same game, year after year. Sometimes something new comes out and it’s just a slap on the head moment — oh, so this is the kind of game you make when you REALLY don’t care about competing with WoW, you just make the best and most innovative and most fun game you can.
I am hoping Wizard101 does well. I am hoping Chronicles of Spellborn, also with a semi-innovative (though not as much as W101) combat mechanism, does well. But mostly, I am hoping the folks at 38 Studios DON’T. REMAKE. WOW. NOW WITH NEW FEATURE X.
Cuz I won’t play it. I already played WoW. It was called WoW.
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Aaaand… the news is out that WAR will launch with two capital cities instead of six, and is chopping four classes as well.
I already played Warhammer. It was called two-sixths of World of Warcraft.
@Ardwulf
Haha
OMG, this is starting to feel like Deja Vu. The only difference is WAR is cutting content BEFORE launch, while AoC did it AFTER release..
We call that biting off more WoW than you can chew.
Another annoying trend I have noticed as games continue to develop into everything being about money is games designing themselves to be incomplete at launch and then “finishing it” with expansions.
Disciples 3 is a great example. They are purposefully not including 2 of the 4 major playable races which were all included in the first two installments (1 of which is very popular) and announcing they will be in the expansion before the “vanilla” is even released yet.
I could be wrong, but the first 3 or 4 expansions of EQ felt like they were “honest”. They had that “for the fans” kind of feel to them. As if they were designed after they realized people liked the game, and not before, and certainly not with the primary intent being to squeeze just a little more cash out of people.
Every expansion after this, as well as the whole of EQ2, does not feel this way to me. EQ2 feels like an unfinished game in almost every respect to me, and all the other expansions of EQ1 feel cheap, tacked on, and hollow.
A long time ago auto parts were one-time purchases that were well made out of quality materials and they worked practically forever. This put a lot of mechanics out of the job, though. Nowadays most mechanical things are “built to break”, all in the spirit of consumerism. It seems like the gaming industry is rapidly going this route (or has already arrived and is unpacking its things).
It feels like pretty soon all games will have a Steam-like interface where you purchase the “sandbox”, engine, models, skins, maps, titles, races, lighting effects, sound effects, NPCs, gear, and classes separately with varying prices based on quality and uniqueness.
Those little mini dungeon adventures in EQ2 are already dangerously close to this bleak future.
They could have easily made any of the zone-changing world events optional, and most importantly, only available via quick-purchase prior to login.
You don’t remember EQ2′s “Adventure Packs”? Splitpaw, D’Morte and Fallen Dynasty were all optional adventures people could buy, or not. The first couple levels would be given for free.
“Those little mini dungeon adventures in EQ2 are already dangerously close to this bleak future.”
Yes, the Adventure Packs are what i was referring to when I said this. I couldn’t remember the correct product name, and I am unfailingly lazy. =)
“But at the core it’s just a grind to solo to max level/and then raid game, even if that raiding is RvR.”
Ah, but that’s one of the selling points… IF they pull off what they say they’re trying to do, the RvR will start at level one. ;)
But… I’ve been through enough of these (haven’t we all?) that I’ll wait until I see it to truly believe it.
Given the announcements of the massive, deep cuts being made to the game, what are the chances, do you think, that the game that ships will resemble the game they promised? Still, as has been mentioned, if the stuff they do ship is decent, they can patch in the other 2/3 of the game later.