'We put the 'No' in Innovation'

[Morreion]

Anti-Aliased: We put the no in innovation (Massively)

...Why are we trying to build a better Warcraft? Why do games today seem to all try to encapsulate the spirit of Warcraft instead of trying to develop their own themes and evoke different feelings?

Designers keep telling me, "We're building a better MMO." No, you're not, you're trying to build a better Warcraft, and it's consistently failing. Stop trying to do it. Most other genres figured out to stop trying to put the square peg into the exclamation point shaped hole, yet we still keep trying to jam it in there because "We know it will work this time, guys!"

There is absolutely nothing wrong by being inspired by another game and no one is asking anyone to completely reinvent the wheel. Not everything has to change in a game for it to be brilliant and effective. But there are gaming ideas out there that no one has even touched. Or, ideas that have been touched and have failed, but are certainly open for someone else to try again.

For example, I don't think anyone is going to say that Auto Assault was a bad idea on paper. Who doesn't want to play an open world version of Twisted Metal? Myst Online is another good example -- I'd love a huge open world where I got to solve puzzles with my friends and just adventure.

This is a big pet peeve of mine. Sure, I understand games are a business and that making money is the goal for the devs. But WoW is the king of WoW-like games, stop trying to make a better WoW already! There are plenty of game ideas that have only been briefly touched upon, or completely new ideas to try. Many people are looking for something different. Throw us a bone and quit trying and failing to imitate WoW- WoW does WoW the best!

[Regolyth]

Agreed Gack. I think people need to realize that WoW isn't all that original in the first place. Almost all of it's concepts have been borrowed from one game or another. On top of that, it's story lends itself to other games as well. Look at all of the quests that are parodies of popular movies. Heck, even a whole zone is modeled after Lord of the Rings!

The Battleground mechanic is just an improvement on DAoC's battlegrounds. Questing, is, well questing. It's been around forever. Grinding dungeons for loot, hours upon hours a day? Everquest. The look and feel of the game? Warhammer (the game/novels, not the MMO). Not a lot about WoW is original. Blizzard did two things that made WoW so successful.

The first is that they created a great, fun game based on all previous MMOs and fantasy lore available to them. They took all of that information, and molded it into a wonderful, smooth game. They didn't try to reinvent a lot, they just took what was there, and made it better. The second thing that did was market the heck out of that game. Blizzard had a huge marketing campaign for WoW, and still do. It's all over the world, and that, is why Blizzard is so successful with their games.