Blizzard: Developing World of Warcraft clones 'not the right move'

With these kind of games, it pretty much doesn't matter how much better the game is, how different the game is, how much cheaper the game is, what the game offers, any of that.
Most people are just going to go to WoW.

In a ways, sort of, it's kind of like how people go to iPods for MP3 players. Or Kleenex for sneezin' tissue. Though kleenex is a better sneezin' tissue than the iPod is an MP3 player.

You don't mess with Blizzard. Blizzard messes with you!

Then again, Activision is filled with a bunch of woossies that crave one thing: money. But, Blizzard is a bit different, I guess.

Hey, you know... the game industry would be better off with less clones, period.

it will come to like this

"man i hate WoW....oh look a new MMORPG, lets play that now"
2 days later
"why the hell did i play that game? WoW so much better"

Hum... So.. the next Blizz MMO will be an FPS? set in space? with hot chicks? and without leveling system?

If it's true, count me in ;D

I think originality has little to do with it, it's all about personal investment. WoW captured most the market by being very "casual" for its time, and by the time their competitors caught up, too many people had vested interest in WoW.

I still think it's going to take a huge IP to knock WoW down, but more than that it's going to take a game that makes you think back on WoW and remember how hoorrrrible it was (whether it was or not isn't really the issue, the perception is all that matters).

Don't know how you accomplish that, but Conan had a good start for me. Full audio was the primary reason, there. Problem was, it didn't continue, so after a while I remembered the GOOD parts of WoW, and switched back.

It's a hard line to walk. Here's to hoping SWTOR can do it!

How can people live with leveling system if skill based system is so much better? (Ultima Online style)

Shadowbane was the best MMO to date. End of story!

The past couple years have essentially proved Mr. Blizzard's statement.

This is true. Unlike single player games that have solid endings, people quit playing a MMO when they get bored of it. Clones only work when the player wants more but
finished the current game. Since MMOs don't end, copying something to sell to a community that got tired of it is foolish.

It just always urks me that people in general seem to think that somehow WOW was the first MMORPG and from it spawned all other MMORPG games and therefore all other MMORPG are inferior ....

sorry to say WOW wasn't the first MMORPG, It however did do a good job of picking and choosing what did and didn't work in other MMORPG that came before it and conglomeration all of that into a rather nice game along with adding a bit of its own seasonings here and there. I don't want to blow your minds but they weren't even the first fantasy adventure RPG, I know I know its a shock, just sit down and try to catch your breath.

WOW did bring a few new things with it to the table, but I hardly think any other game looking at WOW and saying hey that feature works we should use something similar, much in the way that WOW itself looked over the market and picked features that worked from other games, should be written off as a knockoff.

ZOMG a game with Elves, WOW CLONE WOW CLONE !!!!!!

People do want something different, something interesting and new but they also crave something familiar, its a nice and rather agitating paradox to dance around.

personally I think part of it is that a lot of the people who instantly claim clone have significant time and money already invested in WOW and feel the need to fanatically defend their game by attempting to belittle the competition at even the slightest provocation by any game that might steal even an infinitesimal market share away from WOW.

Then again WOW is on what its third expansion ? if general MMO progression follows suit its about out of steam, Generally your get between three to five expansions on an mmo before its put out to pasture and die a slow slow death while the developers move on with its replacement. So they might have a right to fearfully lash out at anything that resembles competition. I will however agree that the world defiantly doesn't need any more Silkroad Clones.

i think that it is obvious, that unless some new player enters the market with radical new ideas that blizzard will own the majority of the online market.

even if it isn't wow, they already know so much from it that there next MMO is just as easily going to be a success.

I played WoW long enough to realize it was the same old grind you find in any MMO game.

I find it interesting what lengths players of non-WoW MMO's will go to defend their chosen time waster. It doesn't matter if (LOTOR,AoC,Vanguard,Warhammer,etc) has some features that WoW doesn't, it's a clone, and a poor one at that.

In any case, the first MMO without fetch quests will have my money. And BioWare has stated that TOR will not have them, so it looks like I'm on board.

Thank you for saying that. What I was thinking but you put it so much better.

Thank god Ragnarok online is no where close to being a clone of WoW. It's why I

I want FFXIV :(

Nadril:

I'm not against the idea of quests, I'm against the "fetch" quests. i.e.

- Get me 10 wolf ears
- Kill 10 bears

etc, etc. ad nauseum.

I'm MMO-less as well. I've tried many of them. The fantasy MMO's are all "me too" WoW clones, and the ones set in other genres are very WoW-like, but are not as polished and lack a lot of content.

I hear Planet of ConflictMaking already has two expansions lined up.

Planet of ConflictMaking: The Flaming Jihad
and
Planet of ConflictMaking: Anger of the Undead Ruler

I AM THE WARCHIEF!

I still say Lord of the Rings Online is underappreciated. While it did take some conventions of WoW, lets face it...Lord of the Rings was around before Warcraft. So naturally its going to be high fantasy based. But it still adds new ideas to the genre. Which, ironically enough, Blizzard has then incorporated into THEIR game.

WoW was one in a long line of fantasy MMOs a few years ago. I was an avid EQ player and a there was a new flavor of the week, many copying EQs format. WoW was was proclaimed to be the EQ killer and another denounced it as the newest fad.

WoW was the game that finally usurped EQ. It's no doubt a great game and it addressed the issues people had with EQ and was well made. I still believe EQ and EQ2 are better games, but that is my preference. I could never get a good group of players to hang with in EQ2, but I still feel it is the best MMO I've ever played.

My point is, WoW will have players for years to come. The time investment and nostalgia will keep players (like me) only have 1 good MMO life in them. I can't ever dedicate 300+ days played to a game again.

What it is going to take for WoW to be dethroned is a new game that pulls the casuals out of WoW and brings in the future MMOers first. WoW's graphics being stylized helps them from being so dated, but eventually they will be. I'm really we'd see SOE take some lessons from WoW on a technical standpoint and release EQ3.