TOR a WOW Clone? I don't care.

[sir.rutthed]

So this may be a little late in coming, but I'm bored and just wanted to throw this out there. There's been some talk lately concerning the upcoming Star Wars MMO, specifically that it's "WOW with lightsabers". What I don't understand is, how is that a bad thing? One thing Blizzard does better than almost anyone else in the business is game mechanics. One thing Bioware does better than almost anyone in the business is story. Were we to mix those two things, wouldn't we all win? I played WOW for over a year, and I gotta say that playing the game was actually pretty fun. My only major complaint was that the story was absolute shit. Give me a game with solid PVP/PVE action and a highly competitive atmosphere combined with a Bioware caliber story and I will play the shit out of that game for far longer than I should. That's my bit at least. What say all you on the whole "WOW with lightsabers" thing?

 

[Jadak]

I couldn't care less either. I don't have much interest in any of the gameplay aspects as of yet anyways, but am hoping for the best. But really all I need is something functional, and what really matters to me is something that fills my need for a Star Wars fix, and some good story to carry on with what I wish had been kotor 3.

 

[MisterShine]

Yeah, and World of Warcraft is an Everquest clone.

Everquest was a great game, Warcraft is a great game, and TOR probably will be too.

What say all you on the whole "WOW with lightsabers" thing?

They could at least be accurate and say

"WoW with lightsabers and a decent story"

I'm looking forward to it. A Bioware game where each class's storyline takes at least twice as long as the original Knights of the Old Republic? And there are eight classes?

Do. Want.

 

[Calvar Draveir]

The reason it is a bad thing is because there are plenty of MMOs coming out that challenge existing MMO conventions. We don't need another "refined" version of the same thing. It has been more than 10 years of that. Time for something new. If ToR was the only MMO coming out, then sure, it would be no big deal. But Guild Wars 2, Tera, and many others mean that we CAN get something new and different with a high level of polish.

 

[Aeonknight]

Time to be the negative Nancy.

OP: You played WoW for a year and enjoyed it. Good for you.

Generally speaking, if a player is bored stiff from playing WoW and looking for something new, they don't want to move on to WoW reskinned to look like Star Wars.

The danger around cloning games in general is that it has almost no chance of drawing people away from the original. A WoW player of 6+ years is not about to drop all their achievements, social connections, and invested time/money so they can jump into a rehash of the same damn game. They might try it, but as soon as an update for WoW comes out they'll drop TOR like the dirty whore it is.

As for the gamers who haven't "done it all" in WoW just yet, they might be lured to TOR. Only to find out that there's nowhere near as much content to do as what was still present for them in WoW. Boredom along dealing with class imbalances/glitches in a brand new game will quickly drive them back to good ol' WoW where they can get back to doing whatever it was they were doing before they "quit".

In fact, Extra Credits did an episode on this very subject.
[link]http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-future-of-mmos[/link]

 

[swiftax]

I really don't get why there seems to be a movement devoted to this "TOR will be a WoW clone" thing anyway. If you pick up a new mmo and play it for 10 minates, chances are that it will have the traditional "click/type action bars" system. There are some that don't of course, but very few of those are successful. Its not that Champions online or Age of Conan use the same system because they're unoriginal or cheap, it's because it is a system that is proven to work! It has a very low difficulty curve, reduces the skill level necessary to master it, and in some cases relies on the player being clever rather than just a good shot. It works for the idea of the genre. It makes as much sense to call CoD a Halo clone, because they both have guns that you shoot from fpp.
As it stands, the only real problem with the mmo/action bars system is that it's just so monotonous. Thats where this whole 'grind' thing comes in. Gameplay in WoW generally boils down to "kill 10 dudes. Turn in quest. Go kill 10 slightly bigger dudes, while collecting 10 of they're magical dude-hats. Turn in. Eventually, go kill 1 ultradude. Turn in, get green dude-gloves." It just gets boring after a 10 hours and the night falls, and you start to wonder why you even started. And there is nothing to break the monotonous flow, or even to engage you in what you are doing beyond the promise of the next shiny pair of dude-gloves.
That's where TOR comes in. If all the hype is true, every time you go to the quest giver, you'll have an actual conversation (or the equivalent thereof). This will not only give you insight, and engagement in random npc #42, but gives you a chance to respond, allowing you to develop your own character, and investing you in creating your own story. Besides breaking up the constant grind, story should give players a stronger reason to keep playing, if only to find out how it ends.
Hopefully. It looks really hard to put all that together coherently from where I stand, but I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. But with Bioware at the head, a company who have traditionally concentrated on story to the exception of other things, I'm not too worried.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Dude... In the world of art and media, nothing is original. Someone is always stealing something from someone. The world of art and media functions around the idea that someone takes some idea from another person and then files it down to a bit different shape that suits hes idea.
There is nothing that is original, there was never anything that was original. It is our culture, it takes ideas and models from past and reforms them in to norms ideas and traditions that we use not. ToR might indeed be WoW clone, but WoW is a clone of the last MMO before it and the history repeats itself till the infinity. Our future is a copy from the ideas of the past that have been changed a bit to suit the needs of the future. Some of these ideas are huge success, some of the are not. But just think about it, if copying the ideas of past would be "illegal" or "banned" somehow, how little of cultural content we would really have...

Get used to the idea that new is a clone of past with some variations. Beside, why should you care what others say? Just say "fuck you, I don't care. I am going to play it anyway because I happen to like it. You do not control my life, I do..."

If you happen to like something, I am no-one to say it is a bad thing to like it. Subjective things have no objective answer.

 

[Sixcess]

It's a bad thing because with a skilled development team, a major IP and a couple of hundred million dollars of development cash they could have at least tried to do something different, and they didn't.

Let's be clear about this - TOR is not like WoW in the sense that they're both MMOs. Tor is like WoW in the sense that it is like WoW, specifically. The visuals, the gear, the combat - it's all very similar. Blatantly so.

I've played other MMOs, and they look and play less like WoW than TOR does.

 

[Corven]

It baffles me as to how quickly most people forget how turn based and MMO like the original kotor games themselves were.

It's only a bad thing for those who don't want to play another hot key mmo, and I can't really blame them, gliding your hand across your number key in a repetitive fashion for every enemy encounter with no strategy beyond not stealing aggro from the tank or not standing in things like fire or dots.

It becomes old hat fairly quick, and it seems like a great time to innovate on how these games can operate, like others have said there are mmos in development that are bucking the trend of hot key mmos and they do look very promising, I myself will probably be picking up guild wars 2 day one because from what I've seen of it has impressed me greatly.

I'll also probably be getting SWTOR as well, I am tired of hot key mmos myself but I can overlook those mechanics due to other aspects of the game that particularly interest me, such as how the game can be for the most part played as a single player game, with personalized storyline for each class rather than current trends in mmos where you have the same "faction story" as everyone else and the only thing that differentiates you is your race and class.

 

[go-10]

so basically it'll be what World of Stracraft should've been?

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

Every game that does more of the same is an opportunity wasted. However much you enjoy it. And we already played WoW, that's the jist of it. And we already played "WoW clones" too. There IS such a thing as being bored of more of the same even if that "same" is good to begin with. If you don't care for that, that's perfectly fine, but don't go around saying that those who are bored are wrong and should shut up and/or move along.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

While I do believe that its gameplay won't deliver anything I haven't seen in wow. I'll probably get it because I loved Kotor. So, if the multiplayer aspect of the game doesn't get in the way of the storytelling, I'll play it a couple of months. Though I highly doubt I'll become a long-term subscriber.

Guild Wars 2 on the other hand ...

Well.

 

[chstens]

The combat system is like KOTOR, just without the ability to pause. There, now be silent.

 

[VladG]

Time to be the negative Nancy.

OP: You played WoW for a year and enjoyed it. Good for you.

Generally speaking, if a player is bored stiff from playing WoW and looking for something new, they don't want to move on to WoW reskinned to look like Star Wars.

The danger around cloning games in general is that it has almost no chance of drawing people away from the original. A WoW player of 6+ years is not about to drop all their achievements, social connections, and invested time/money so they can jump into a rehash of the same damn game. They might try it, but as soon as an update for WoW comes out they'll drop TOR like the dirty whore it is.

As for the gamers who haven't "done it all" in WoW just yet, they might be lured to TOR. Only to find out that there's nowhere near as much content to do as what was still present for them in WoW. Boredom along dealing with class imbalances/glitches in a brand new game will quickly drive them back to good ol' WoW where they can get back to doing whatever it was they were doing before they "quit".

In fact, Extra Credits did an episode on this very subject.
[link]http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-future-of-mmos[/link]

I kinda agree. I'm pretty burned out on WoW right now and I will certainly give ToR a try. But I expect I'll be back to WoW eventually, or just quit on this kind of MMO for good. Like it or not, WoW is the best out there at the moment and I don't see ToR taking it down or being much better.

 

[Stall]

... so COD clones are this horrible cancer killing the industry, but WOW clones are just fine? Is there something I'm fucking missing here?

Ah that's right... people worship the ground Bioware walks on. The rules never apply to Bioware, even though they are grossly overrated and haven't made a good game since KotOR. If Bioware released a "COD clone" (for some reason), people would make tender, sweet love to it all night... totally forgetting all the bile they spewed towards the "industry grey, brown n bloom" FPSs that they despise so much.

Smell that certain 'H' word? Yeah... I smell it too.

Yeah, and World of Warcraft is an Everquest clone.

Saying WOW is an "Everquest Clone" is like saying Half-Life is a Doom clone. Just because two games are in the same genre doesn't mean one is a clone of the other. WoW had enough innovations that it was significantly different than Everquest at the time of its launch. So congrats. You just revealed to the world that you've never played, read, or heard a cent about Everquest.

... the same can't be said for TOR. EVERYTHING I have read has pretty much bluntly said it isn't doing anything new, besides this pretense on a "focus on story". If you want innovation, then just wait for GW2 instead of playing another feeble attempt by a publisher to get a piece of the WOW pie.

 

[sir.rutthed]

So this may be a little late in coming, but I'm bored and just wanted to throw this out there. There's been some talk lately concerning the upcoming Star Wars MMO, specifically that it's "WOW with lightsabers". What I don't understand is, how is that a bad thing? One thing Blizzard does better than almost anyone else in the business is game mechanics. One thing Bioware does better than almost anyone in the business is story. Were we to mix those two things, wouldn't we all win? I played WOW for over a year, and I gotta say that playing the game was actually pretty fun. My only major complaint was that the story was absolute shit. Give me a game with solid PVP/PVE action and a highly competitive atmosphere combined with a Bioware caliber story and I will play the shit out of that game for far longer than I should. That's my bit at least. What say all you on the whole "WOW with lightsabers" thing?

The old Bioware made excellent stories. Excellent. Better than almost anyone.

The new one makes Dragon Age 2.

Once you gather your jaw up from the floor and dust it off, you should then try to play any kind of PVP in WOW.

Sorry you just threw up all over your keyboard. Might want to clean that up.

Two things:

1. Fuck that. Dragon Age 2 was a good game. The only reason it's so lowly regarded is because it's the worst game Bioware's made which I will freely admit. And it's still better than 80% of the games out there. That just goes to show how great Bioware are at what they do.

2. PVP was my thing in WOW. It's most of what I did. I played a Paladin and a Death Knight (yes I am a massochist, thank you for asking!) and in general I really enjoyed it. I can understand if you didn't like it, and it's true that FUCKING ROGUES were way OP when I was on, but it was still a lot of fun for me and my friends.

It's a bad thing because with a skilled development team, a major IP and a couple of hundred million dollars of development cash they could have at least tried to do something different, and they didn't.

Let's be clear about this - TOR is not like WoW in the sense that they're both MMOs. Tor is like WoW in the sense that it is like WoW, specifically. The visuals, the gear, the combat - it's all very similar. Blatantly so.

I've played other MMOs, and they look and play less like WoW than TOR does.

They are doing something different. You know, the whole story/full voice cast thing. That's a pretty fucking big deal. This is something nobody else has ever tried on this scale before and it's ignorant to say that it's all the same. Ya there's big boss battles and raids, but it baffles me completely when people say it's a "clone". They're not the same thing. Not even close.

 

[sir.rutthed]

... so COD clones are this horrible cancer killing the industry, but WOW clones are just fine? Is there something I'm fucking missing here?

Ah that's right... people worship the ground Bioware walks on. The rules never apply to Bioware, even though they are grossly overrated and haven't made a good game since KotOR. If Bioware released a "COD clone" (for some reason), people would make tender, sweet love to it all night... totally forgetting all the bile they spewed towards the "industry grey, brown n bloom" FPSs that they despise so much.

Smell that certain 'H' word? Yeah... I smell it too.

Yeah, and World of Warcraft is an Everquest clone.

Saying WOW is an "Everquest Clone" is like saying Half-Life is a Doom clone. Just because two games are in the same genre doesn't mean one is a clone of the other. WoW had enough innovations that it was significantly different than Everquest at the time of its launch. So congrats. You just revealed to the world that you've never played, read, or heard a cent about Everquest.

... the same can't be said for TOR. EVERYTHING I have read has pretty much bluntly said it isn't doing anything new, besides this pretense on a "focus on story". If you want innovation, then just wait for GW2 instead of playing another feeble attempt by a publisher to get a piece of the WOW pie.

I don't give two flying shits about COD clones. That's not what this thread is about. Nor is it about Bioware fanboysim. Again, it's about whether mixing Bliz style mechanics with Bioware style storytelling is actually a bad thing for the genre. Whether you're a fan or not, you have to admit Bioware is at least above average in the story department if nothing else.