No Legit Azeroth Comparisons

[Rollcageuk]

I have been seeing more and more posts on both the TOR and WOW forums comparing the 2 games, and the response from either side is turning into a weird groundhog day thing as they always fall into basically the following trend.

 

“TOR is rubbish, WOW do everything so much better.”

“TOR has only been out 2 weeks, of course there are issues”

“Are you saying we should be comparing TOR to WOW vanilla? That is stupid, you can’t compare a game in 2011 to a game in 2007, you have to compare it to WOW as it is now”.

 

And so on and so. Basically on every thread where people are complaining, threatening to quit, or bigging either game up a little too much, the above posts are present 90% of the time.

So, what is the truth? can you compare either game honestly, without showing too much of either fanboy fanaticism...well as far as I am concerned, no, you can’t. here’s why?

-----

Ok, wow came out in 2004. As far as MMO’s go, it pretty much beat any others out at the time. It appealed to a huge already established WC fanbase as well as bringing new people into the market. Was it innovative, well no, not really. A lot of what it did had already been done before, but it did do a lot of it better. It was a lot bigger than most and by the simple size of the world, it was mind blowing to most people. However, it was not without its problems; huge class inbalance, mass server crashes, servers down for weeks, very little end game, no proper PvP, rubbish UI, no mods at the time.. along with a host of other things.

Now, Look at the TOR Launch. No-one can deny the launch has been a lot smoother than...just about any other MMO. Yes there are server queues but at least they are working, lag is rare, or very little. But, the difference is that BW knew this was going to happen. No-one at Blizzard could have known the level of uptake they were going to get so that is an issue that could have been forgiven.

Now some say that you should compare the 2 as they are at release, but in all honesty you can’t do that. You can’t compare games that were released 7 years apart, technology has changed, developers have changed, expectations have changed. The PvP on TOR isn’t very good ATM, ok, it was rubbish in WOW at the beginning but Blizzard got better, and now people expect more.

 

Ok, so compare WOW now with TOR. Hmm...no.

 

The reason being is simple. WOW took 4 years to build originally, and since then they have had 7 years of consistent development. That is 11 years of work, and the logs, complaints and suggestions of 10million subscribers to base their development on. That is a lot of time, a lot of money and an unprecedented amount of work that you probably will never see again in a game development. So, as a result coming to TOR that has had only 3 years development and saying we want X, we want Y, Wow has X, Wow does Y better..it’s really unrealistic. 11 years development versus 3....you will not get exactly the same.

Yes, they could have literally copied everything WOW has, but apart from the fact it is still a lot of work, it also means that TOR becomes WOW. Speaking as someone who quit WOW, I don’t want exactly the same, I want SW, not WOW. Yes, there are things that WOW did well and I want SW to have, but they should still be different enough that I know. As an FYI, Rift tried to copy too much of WOW and you know what everyone did, they quit and went back to WOW saying it was too alike...so lessons should be learned.

 

All you can do is play the game, and decide if it’s ok. A lot of the things being asked for will eventually be delivered or at least the BW equivalent will be, but the comparisons being done are frankly ridiculous. Combat Logs are not game breaking, The AH is not game breaking, the bugs with nodes is not game breaking, the poor spaceship missions are not game breaking, Addons are not game breaking, even the unbalanced PvP is not game breaking and I play a JK who suck.

 

If I was to say the one thing that is game breaking, it is the ability delay, and the BW team have said this is top of their list to fix.

 

To the WOW players that keep complaining about Wow has this, WOW has that...I suggest you go back to WOW. Not in a nasty way, but simply the reality that if you want a game with 11 years of development, then you need to go play one. Come back to TOR in 8 years, and if it’s still here, it will probably have all those things you listed.

[Tarotdoom]

You might regret posting this lol. I just made a similar post and have started a riot

[pursang]

Compare TOR's gameplay to WoW sure, just don't compare the twos' content.

[Tradieus]

I like you.

 

You also better be prepared to be trolled into oblivion by a mass amount of forum complainers and fanboys of either game.

[Moroder]

Too much logic in the OP- Don yer flame vest my friend, they mass on the hills with the smell of blood in their nostrils

[Tarotdoom]

Or maybe not as my post has just been closed lol

[Woyto]

I guess all MMOs will have difficulties at launch (and 3+ months later). Some will do better some will do worse. Even so many single player games are released unfinished.

 

Does it mean that the paying customer should be happy about it? Hell no! But I don't see a change comming very soon.

[kharnynb]

You are forgetting 2 very important things.

 

1. Swtor has to compete with Wow now, not wow 7 years ago.

2. They should have had a long hard look at wow and seen what wow did right and wrong.

 

The User Interface in swtor is amateurish, both skillbars, maps etc, and the auction house etc. This could have been easily avoided. You say they aren't gamebreaking, but they are bad enough for people to stop playing, especially since the market is so much bigger nowadays.

[Tradieus]

inb4 waiting for GW2!!!!

[Aleryan]

You are forgetting 2 very important things.

 

1. Swtor has to compete with Wow now, not wow 7 years ago.

 

Pretty sure he said that, and in any case, WoW kinda sucks right now, boring and nothing to look forward to for a very long time.. That's my response to everyone who says this (like we haven't seen it a thousand times already) like it's some kind of debate I WIN argument.

[Red_Cruiser]

Pretty sure he said that, and in any case, WoW kinda sucks right now, boring and nothing to look forward to for a very long time.. That's my response to everyone who says this (like we haven't seen it a thousand times already) like it's some kind of debate I WIN argument.

 

Boring and nothing to look forward to for a very long time is exactly what people will be saying one week after SWTOR patch 1.1.

[Vulfer]

Waiting for GW2!

 

Also, good post.

 

There are some features they could've included from WoW...oh wait, they are planning to, they have always been planning to as far as I can tell. They were just forced out the door early by EA.

[Rollcageuk]

You are forgetting 2 very important things.

 

1. Swtor has to compete with Wow now, not wow 7 years ago.

2. They should have had a long hard look at wow and seen what wow did right and wrong.

 

The User Interface in swtor is amateurish, both skillbars, maps etc, and the auction house etc. This could have been easily avoided. You say they aren't gamebreaking, but they are bad enough for people to stop playing, especially since the market is so much bigger nowadays.

 

They are going to to implement most if not all the things in your list, but they simply would not have had enough time to do it before at some point having to release the game.

As my original point states, you can't fit 11 years of solid development into a 3 year timeframe, and no publisher is going to give you the funding to do 11 years development without some payback. It's madness to think anything otherwise.

you want those things, most of us want those things, but to expect them all for release is pure fantasy.

 

So, in fact they have "had a long hard look at wow", but the simple facts of the real world are , you have to release the game at some point.

[Senden]

It's simple really... If you make a sim racing game you get compared to GT/Forza, if you make an arcade run and gun shooter you get compared to COD, if you make a football/soccer sim you get compared to Fifa/PES, if you make a theme park linear mmo you get compared to WoW. That's how it has and will almost always work.

[KerinKor]

I have been seeing more and more posts on both the TOR and WOW forums comparing the 2 games, and the response from either side is turning into a weird groundhog day thing as they always fall into basically the following trend.

So you'd start yet another of these worthless threads, right?

[Rollcageuk]

So you'd start yet another of these worthless threads, right?

 

You should really read my original post before clicking respond as I am trying to tell people why you should stop with those kinds of posts as in most cases they are invalid.

 

So either you don't get the point I was making.......Or are you just trolling. Probably the later.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Rollcageuk

[Quaade]

You should really read my original post before clicking respond as I am trying to tell people why you should stop with those kinds of posts as in most cases they are invalid.

 

So either you don't get the point I was making.......Or are you just trolling. Probably the later.

 

Why are they invalid? Nothing exists in vacuum and some of the design decisions, both gameplay and world design simply won't hold up under closer scrutiny to that game from which much of their inspiration comes from.

[Valceanu]

Seriously now...does anyone think that the WOW phenomenon was not a complete and utter fluke?? ... do you think that will ever happen to any other MMO?? i dont mean to say that the game was not well done...in fact it was the most polished of its time but that was just one factor in its favor. It also happened to launch at the correct time in a market prepared to take it in. And there were other factors too...but the point is that WoW had the success it did because by some twist of fate these factors came together at precisely the right time...and while a do appreciate the work Blizzard did with that game, im a realist.

 

As far as WoW itself is concerned...its had no appeal to me for a long time (although i did play it for a good 4-5 years or so). After TBC they began introducing lots of features that only endorse "laziness" and these days the age requirement for that game is no higher then 7-8 years old. This all culminates with MoP which will soon launch. At least thats how it looks from where i stand.

 

If i was goona compare TOR with anything it would be TBC WoW...that was the best period for that game IMHO.

 

Even so, TOR brings a lot to the table as far as i am concerned as it brings RPG back into the mmorpg genre...its not just another bland mmo. It has its faults and id like to see the ability delay, UI, AH system and so on fixed...the devs have recognized their faults at least to a certain extent and are working towards fixing things. On the other hand, there are a lot of things (like LFG tool, dual spec and so on) that have been discussed to death in other threads that i would prefer not to be included in TOR...from that perspective at least, for me, TOR is ahead of WoW.

 

...just my 2 cents.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Valceanu

[Nangasaur]

You might regret posting this lol. I just made a similar post and have started a riot

There are probably a thousand threads by now which discuss the exact same things.

[Greuceanu]

you lost me at :

 

"Ok, wow came out in 2004. As far as MMO’s go, it pretty much beat any others out at the time. It appealed to a huge already established WC fanbase"

 

And assuming you are taking Swtor side in the matter ,

 

if you tell me there are more WC fans then Star Wars out there you dont deserve my time to read the post

[Mr_Crueak]

“Are you saying we should be comparing TOR to WOW vanilla? That is stupid, you can’t compare a game in 2011 to a game in 2007, you have to compare it to WOW as it is now”.

 

.

 

uhm wow vanilla was released in 2004!

[Lethality]

Now some say that you should compare the 2 as they are at release, but in all honesty you can’t do that. You can’t compare games that were released 7 years apart, technology has changed, developers have changed, expectations have changed.

 

The reason being is simple. WOW took 4 years to build originally, and since then they have had 7 years of consistent development. That is 11 years of work, and the logs, complaints and suggestions of 10million subscribers to base their development on. That is a lot of time, a lot of money and an unprecedented amount of work that you probably will never see again in a game development. So, as a result coming to TOR that has had only 3 years development and saying we want X, we want Y, Wow has X, Wow does Y better..it’s really unrealistic. 11 years development versus 3....you will not get exactly the same.

 

I just want to correct one fact

 

TOR began development in 2005. We only heard about it 3/4 years ago. So it was 6 years in development - longer than WoW or any other MMO.

 

Having said that, I think you do have to compare the games as they both are _TODAY_ just as you'd compare any other competing products based on the versions you'd actually be purchasing. Think of purchasing a new car and applying the same philosophy - people would expect the 2011 model to match the 2011 model of a competing car that came out in 2004, even though it had 7 years of refinement.

 

To the WOW players that keep complaining about Wow has this, WOW has that...I suggest you go back to WOW. Not in a nasty way, but simply the reality that if you want a game with 11 years of development, then you need to go play one. Come back to TOR in 8 years, and if it’s still here, it will probably have all those things you listed.

 

Well, some features can definitely be pushed back... but missing things like guild progression and guild features? World events? An achievement system? A workable auction house interface (with free text search)? I think these are the type of things that should have been part of launch. No one expected a flu PvP ladder and ranking system on day 1. But some of the standard features, yes.

 

If I was to say the one thing that is game breaking, it is the ability delay, and the BW team have said this is top of their list to fix.

.

All you can do is play the game, and decide if it’s ok. A lot of the things being asked for will eventually be delivered or at least the BW equivalent will be, but the comparisons being done are frankly ridiculous. Combat Logs are not game breaking, The AH is not game breaking, the bugs with nodes is not game breaking, the poor spaceship missions are not game breaking, Addons are not game breaking, even the unbalanced PvP is not game breaking and I play a JK who suck.

 

This is true... players (and payers) have to decide if they're willing to stay in a situation that will undoubtedly improve.

[Lethality]

you lost me at :

 

"Ok, wow came out in 2004. As far as MMO’s go, it pretty much beat any others out at the time. It appealed to a huge already established WC fanbase"

 

And assuming you are taking Swtor side in the matter ,

 

if you tell me there are more WC fans then Star Wars out there you dont deserve my time to read the post

 

There are probably more GAMERS that are WC fans than gamers that are Star Wars fans. There many Star Wars fans that don't and would't touch video games. Lots of 'em.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Lethality

[ImperialSun]

The Warcraft Universe, its lore, its characters and everything about it is just amateurish and so Fisher Price, it just flat out sucks.

 

WC is nothing but a poor mans kiddy copy of the Warhammer universe imo.

 

Driz

[Lethality]

The Warcraft Universe, its lore, its characters and everything about it is just amateurish and so Fisher Price, it just flat out sucks.

 

WC is nothing but a poor mans kiddy copy of the Warhammer universe imo.

 

Driz

 

And which one is more popular with gamers?

 

Star Wars has undoubtedly a huge fan base and tremendous amounts of back story and a great place to tell more stories. But so did Lord of The Rings. It takes more than that.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Lethality