Let's compare early WoW with early TOR

[Coramac]

nope your wrong

 

Can't tell if you are serious or not but--

 

*Flight paths, quest based leveling, instances, in game mail. WoW didn't quite invent them all, but none of the other major released had any of them before.

 

False. DAOC was released with horse paths which in the content was functionally the same as flight paths. It may have been even superior for a quick travel system.

 

*WoW was a loot party far beyond what other games offered at the time. The sheer number of quests dwarfed the competition. WoW at release had 50x the number of quests EQ had and EQ had a 5 year head start.

 

DAOC had a lot of quests. There definitely wasn't 50x the number of quests of DAOC.

 

*Instances were properly used. Not this "spawn new zone_01" crap we have now because of too many people. Instances solved the Vox/Naggy issue of world spawn camping.

 

Instances were used properly in Everquest and introduced before WoW.

 

*The added rest exp. The skill trees were far more involved then any other mainstream MMO at the time. The release was the best release I had seen of any major MMO in terms of stability at the time (something that was usually hit and miss for major releases).

 

DAOC's skill tree was by far more intricate than WoW's talent system. WoW may have been the first to do rested EXO. I would also argue that EQ's AA system was better done than the WoW talents although it didn't promote diversification.

 

*I don't care for WoW anymore. But it was completely groundbreaking what they did back then. They basically broke the genre because nothing else is as good or polished as it.

 

It was as polished. It basically just stole things from other MMOs that were good. This is Blizzards MMO. Warcraft is a straight rip off of Warhammer Fantasy right down to the map. Starcraft is nothing more than Warhammer 40K. WoW early raids to me felt like nothing but recycled PoP raids.

[Coramac]

It took 40 people to complete a raid in vanilla. That is a lot of gearing time, and a lot of prep.

It takes 10 people to do a raid in Cataclysm. You can also do raids through LFR (lol easy practice mode). In Vanilla, Rag was not the first raid end boss. There were many other before him. Deathwing was the only end boss of this patch. It took about 1 month for people to kill heroic Deathwing, which is certainly long enough in my mind. Hell, to date, only 90 guilds have killed him on heroic.

 

Rag was the only real end boss unless you consider Onyxia an end boss which doesn't really fit thematically with her instance.

[Dreiko]

Rag was the only real end boss unless you consider Onyxia an end boss which doesn't really fit thematically with her instance.

 

ever heard of Kel`thuzad?

[gullfisk]

Wow is not grindy.

 

Anarchy Online is grindy.

[mcfabulous]

wow this has progressed like.. 2 pages in 3 hours yet its still on the front page, forums are dead now ^_^

[blacksarevok]

People have selective memory when it comes to vanilla WoW. They like to remember the few good things and forget the overwhelming amount of bad things.

 

 

On another note, I miss when gaming was a hobby and not the mainstream culture it has evolved into now.

[mcfabulous]

People have selective memory when it comes to vanilla WoW. They like to remember the few good things and forget the overwhelming amount of bad things.

 

 

On another note, I miss when gaming was a hobby and not the mainstream culture it has evolved into now.

 

I agree, I miss being frowned upon.

[Wintermutes]

Congratulations. If SWTOR can be sent back in time and made to run on old PCs, it has an excellent chance of unseating Everquest as the king of all MMOs.

 

If you want to make a comparison between SWTOR and WoW, and claim that WoW cloned EQ the way that SWTOR cloned WoW, then consider this:

 

When WoW came out, no one was wondering when Blizzard would get around to implementing basic features of EQ into WoW. There was NO QUESTION when WoW came out that it had some amazing innovations (being able to gain the majority of your XP from questing? Completely customizable UI?) and there was no question that it matched and exceeded EQ in every possible way.

 

So if you want to make the comparison, and justify the bugs or whatever in SWTOR by pointing out that WoW had bugs too, then by all means, show me how SWTOR is a quantum leap over WoW as an MMO. Because I don't see it.

 

WoW exceeded EQ by a factor of 20 because it did everything right compared to the competition. It not only took customers from the competition but it grew the entire MMO market by leaps and bounds.

 

Show me SWTOR doing that, and then you'll be comparing apples to apples. Right now you're comparing an apple to an entire orchard of oranges and saying they're the same because they both have some soft spots.

[Akaidian]

So if you want to make the comparison, and justify the bugs or whatever in SWTOR by pointing out that WoW had bugs too, then by all means, show me how SWTOR is a quantum leap over WoW as an MMO. Because I don't see it.

 

WoW exceeded EQ by a factor of 20 because it did everything right compared to the competition. It not only took customers from the competition but it grew the entire MMO market by leaps and bounds.

 

Exactly, and to rehash my point which adds onto this, comparing this game in its infancy to a game made 7 years ago in its infancy is like saying if a new car company came out literally out of the blue and had a car the same size as say the honda civic, but had specifications of a car made in 1990's (worse mileage, safety, same price etc) that people would give it concessions and still buy it over a civic which has been refined. And thats retarded to think. People expect the entire industry to be able to learn from one companies mistakes, and they should.

[PlanetXpress]

Bugs aside, I'd say early WoW did better at improving upon the MMORPG genre and creating a game that even people from outside the genre wanted to play.

 

SWTOR has not really improved the genre or taken it anywhere different. They took early WoW's template from 7 years ago and added in their 9 year-old dialog system from KOTOR. Nothing really improved upon and nothing to bring new players into the genre other than the Star Wars name itself.

[lrage]

Can't tell if you are serious or not but--

 

*Flight paths, quest based leveling, instances, in game mail. WoW didn't quite invent them all, but none of the other major released had any of them before.

 

False. DAOC was released with horse paths which in the content was functionally the same as flight paths. It may have been even superior for a quick travel system.

 

*WoW was a loot party far beyond what other games offered at the time. The sheer number of quests dwarfed the competition. WoW at release had 50x the number of quests EQ had and EQ had a 5 year head start.

 

DAOC had a lot of quests. There definitely wasn't 50x the number of quests of DAOC.

 

*Instances were properly used. Not this "spawn new zone_01" crap we have now because of too many people. Instances solved the Vox/Naggy issue of world spawn camping.

 

Instances were used properly in Everquest and introduced before WoW.

 

*The added rest exp. The skill trees were far more involved then any other mainstream MMO at the time. The release was the best release I had seen of any major MMO in terms of stability at the time (something that was usually hit and miss for major releases).

 

DAOC's skill tree was by far more intricate than WoW's talent system. WoW may have been the first to do rested EXO. I would also argue that EQ's AA system was better done than the WoW talents although it didn't promote diversification.

 

*I don't care for WoW anymore. But it was completely groundbreaking what they did back then. They basically broke the genre because nothing else is as good or polished as it.

 

It was as polished. It basically just stole things from other MMOs that were good. This is Blizzards MMO. Warcraft is a straight rip off of Warhammer Fantasy right down to the map. Starcraft is nothing more than Warhammer 40K. WoW early raids to me felt like nothing but recycled PoP raids.

 

DAoC. Hell I used to IRC with Tweety and got in the beta hand picked from Mythic.

DAoC did have horsepaths. That's not a flight path. And yes, there's a nice difference. WoW has never been afraid to use the Z axis for travel. See flying mounts. It's a speed difference. It's a perspective difference. And no, DAoC was not faster.

 

No, DAoC had NO WHERE near the number of quests. Just stop it. WoW at release, except for a few small gaps, basically allowed a complete leveling experience via questing. DAoC wasn't even in that realm.

 

No, EQ had no instances when WoW released. Zip nada NONE.

 

DAoC skill trees? They weren't as intricate. Also, Blizzard owns Diablo, and ever since Diablo II's skill trees nearly everyone has ripped it off ever since. It was more like a Elder Scrolls system.

 

And EQ's AA were complete crap. The ultimate grind to not-level but dump points into AA so you could either have something you really need, or complete fluff, your choice.

 

Sorry you didn't like it. Many did and it gutted EQ. Of course WoW is a rip off of Warhammer. It was built as a Warhammer game and the licensing was denied so they released it on it's own. GW messed up, that's not Blizzard's fault. And really, if you were more honest about things you'd give them mroe credit. You're pretending they're apple and WoW doesn't innovate. It's ALL JUST RIPPED OFF. Instances. LFG. Arena. BG's. Tier'd loot. Etc. Etc. Etc. All ripped off, right?

[LordBerenger]

I wish i could force push the WoW cry babies back to Pandacraft.

[dtim]

No, EQ had no instances when WoW released. Zip nada NONE.

 

I agree with many of your points but this is wrong. Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion was released in 2003 and had instanced dungeons.

[JansanRuno]

The current WoW has cost the players 4-6 billion dollars to create. It's more fair to compare SWTOR to early Wow.

[Fallensouls]

There is no comparison, WoW was a crap game when it started, and still is. The graphics alone always have looked dumb. I mean look at what they made elves look like. To make my point, Elves certainly do not look like tolkens version. No WoW is a game made for 10 year olds. This is a game made for 14 + big difference. With that in mind is there any wonder why there is Mr. T head grenades and Pandas in WoW ??? You dont think the MMO community as a Whole takes WoW seriously do you? The only reason WoW is so popular is because of all the kiddies playing it, and those who like a easy mode game, which this is not. With the obvious bending over wow is doing for thier community its a matter of time ( if it isnt happening already) before it does the MMO crawl of slow death like so many before it. Edited January 24, 2012 by Fallensouls

[xngxng]

Let's not.

 

This.

[Romiz]

The current WoW has cost the players 4-6 billion dollars to create. It's more fair to compare SWTOR to early Wow.

 

Here is a shocker for you.

 

The game has made somewhere in the area of 5 billion gross. Only 300 million has gone into the game expansions and improvements (based on a E3 Interview for the last expansion). Other cost you would have to look up are server upkeep and replacement, base wages (Not Bonuses), and cost of sites. But you can bet at least 60% to 75% of that 5 billion was net profits. The profits go to the company management and investors.

 

 

But also agree with the statement noted above. Lets not compare. We are comparing apples to oranges.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Romiz

[Barathos]

Congratulations. If SWTOR can be sent back in time and made to run on old PCs, it has an excellent chance of unseating Everquest as the king of all MMOs.

 

If you want to make a comparison between SWTOR and WoW, and claim that WoW cloned EQ the way that SWTOR cloned WoW, then consider this:

 

When WoW came out, no one was wondering when Blizzard would get around to implementing basic features of EQ into WoW. There was NO QUESTION when WoW came out that it had some amazing innovations (being able to gain the majority of your XP from questing? Completely customizable UI?) and there was no question that it matched and exceeded EQ in every possible way.

 

So if you want to make the comparison, and justify the bugs or whatever in SWTOR by pointing out that WoW had bugs too, then by all means, show me how SWTOR is a quantum leap over WoW as an MMO. Because I don't see it.

 

WoW exceeded EQ by a factor of 20 because it did everything right compared to the competition. It not only took customers from the competition but it grew the entire MMO market by leaps and bounds.

 

Show me SWTOR doing that, and then you'll be comparing apples to apples. Right now you're comparing an apple to an entire orchard of oranges and saying they're the same because they both have some soft spots.

 

This. This. THIS. THIS. THIS.!!!! I couldn't have said it better.

 

There is no comparison, WoW was a crap game when it started, and still is. The graphics alone always have looked dumb. I mean look at what they made elves look like. To make my point, Elves certainly do not look like tolkens version. No WoW is a game made for 10 year olds. This is a game made for 14 + big difference. With that in mind is there any wonder why there is Mr. T head grenades and Pandas in WoW ??? You dont think the MMO community as a Whole takes WoW seriously do you? The only reason WoW is so popular is because of all the kiddies playing it, and those who like a easy mode game, which this is not. With the obvious bending over wow is doing for thier community its a matter of time ( if it isnt happening already) before it does the MMO crawl of slow death like so many before it.

 

Do it with me... Take a deep breath, and let it all out. Slowly. Gently. That's right..

 

Do you feel better? Is all the WoW hate gone?

[BobaFurz]

I did play WoW beta until release and again in 2005/2007 and honestly the game was in quiete good shape. It has its issues and bugs of course, some bugs were around for a lot longer after release. At this time WoW release was known, even it had hickups and server crashes, as one of the smoothest in this time. There were performance problems i.e. lag since people did pvp raids with 100+ players meeting another 100 enemy players in the other faction towns. But overall it was more complete in comparison to swtor. There were no Battlegrounds but open world pvp, well open world pvp did really happen a lot in comparison to swtor.

 

But both games are not compareable, one is a major mmorpg with a persistant open world and the other one is a linear mmo with an instanced world.

 

WoW in 2004 was for sure not mediocore like some did write here and for sure not crap....it was an amazing release and the world did suck you in. There is no secret why this game was so successfull, it was just unique.

 

 

 

You have to compare WoW in 2004 aswell to the existing mmorpgs in this time:

 

* DAOC

* Everquest I

* Asherons Call I

* Ultima Online

* Anarchy Online

* Neocron

* Shadowbane

...

 

 

If you compare the existing mmorpgs in this time there is no wonder why WoW did come as a real bombshell.

 

Go and compare the games and you will see why it was not a flop.

Edited January 24, 2012 by BobaFurz

[Sleekit]

I love the people calling WoW's leveling linear when TOR is 100x more linear. Have you guys made an alt? SAME QUESTS except for the Story line. And even then you go to the SAME EXACT AREA FOR EVERYONE. This game has almost 0% replayabilitiy outside of class quests. Because I'll tell you listening to the same people with the same issues sucks. And for WoW not having a story line. It did, 99% of people were just to *********** lazy to read. Quest logs involved probably 4x as much text as there is in TOR.

not played since the cata revamp ? wow is now one of the most linear mmos in existence. you can forget about just grabbing a random quest in a zone. you start a chain a the start of a zone and you'll go all they way through a zone and into the start of the next on the same chain. no side quests, no group quests (all removed in cata), no deviation from the fixed path.

 

quit eulogising something even that games own developers have said is in a bad way in the last few weeks.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Sleekit

[lrage]

I agree with many of your points but this is wrong. Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion was released in 2003 and had instanced dungeons.

 

That maybe completely fair. I think they were added after release, or that could have been PoP. I do mix up stuff after Luclin. Regardless, WoW was in beta for like 2 years. And their instances were known since before even F&F style beta began. For example I just did a qoogle date search and can find WoW instances discussion and info from 2002 np.

[BobaFurz]

not played since the cata revamp ? wow is now one of the most linear mmos in existence. you can forget about just grabbing a random quest in a zone. you start a chain a the start of a zone and you'll go all they way through a zone and into the start of the next on the same chain. no side quests, no group quests (all removed in cata), no deviation from the fixed path.

 

quit eulogising something even that games own developers have said is in a bad way in the last few weeks.

 

Last time I did play WoW was in the first quartal of 2007, so I did quit 1-2 months after the first expansion pack. Actually I didnt buy the expansion at all. It seems with cata the game changed a lot. Seems like I did quit when the game was at it peak almost, thats good and I did love playing it at this time. Alterac Valley 24/7 was the bombe, awesome pvp battles...really massive ! not just 8v8 hehe.

 

WoW came out that it had some amazing innovations (being able to gain the majority of your XP from questing? Completely customizable UI?) and there was no question that it matched and exceeded EQ in every possible way.

 

This is one major point, it was very innovative at this time and the quest leveling was just amazing. It wasnt just boring quests, kill here and that it was a like you wrote: Level advancing with a new quest system AND really funny content and animations.

Edited January 24, 2012 by BobaFurz

[Dosblade]

You really should not ever compare World of WarCraft with SWTOR. You will just get very upset or depressed. You find sever years later they didnt try to do anything better. You have voices sure but what about a finished MMO? PVP? Trader? Endgame? The list is hugh. There are things they new about for at least 5 years but did not do anything. They launched a unfinished MMO and like every other mmo said it was the best launch ever.

 

Which even if true is all it has going for it. Want end game..you HAVE to wait many months. Better graphics? Maybe.. maybe late March. Dont take my word for anything.. just try and ask them. Like a few bad mmos they will not talk to us. Just a one post here and there.

 

Don't get me wrong I am playing and having fun but take out voices and killing 10, 30 then right after 45 more .. sorry the voices did nothing for this.

[mSum]

Now that we have the internet "Gold" really means "Alpha". And patch #10 = "Beta".

[Coramac]

DAoC. Hell I used to IRC with Tweety and got in the beta hand picked from Mythic.

DAoC did have horsepaths. That's not a flight path. And yes, there's a nice difference. WoW has never been afraid to use the Z axis for travel. See flying mounts. It's a speed difference. It's a perspective difference. And no, DAoC was not faster.

 

It's a difference. It's a minor difference.

 

No, DAoC had NO WHERE near the number of quests. Just stop it. WoW at release, except for a few small gaps, basically allowed a complete leveling experience via questing. DAoC wasn't even in that realm.

 

There were more than a few gaps at release. DAoC still had a lot of quests. WoW didn't have 50x the number of DAoC quests at release. I doubt it had 50x that of EQ.

 

No, EQ had no instances when WoW released. Zip nada NONE.

 

As another poster pointed out, LDoN predates WoW. Additionally, Plane of Time was instanced. You know how I know you didn't play EQ?

 

DAoC skill trees? They weren't as intricate. Also, Blizzard owns Diablo, and ever since Diablo II's skill trees nearly everyone has ripped it off ever since. It was more like a Elder Scrolls system.

 

Disagree. Their talent trees increased functionality and abilities were granted largely on talent point spending.

 

Sorry you didn't like it. Many did and it gutted EQ. Of course WoW is a rip off of Warhammer. It was built as a Warhammer game and the licensing was denied so they released it on it's own. GW messed up, that's not Blizzard's fault. And really, if you were more honest about things you'd give them mroe credit. You're pretending they're apple and WoW doesn't innovate. It's ALL JUST RIPPED OFF. Instances. LFG. Arena. BG's. Tier'd loot. Etc. Etc. Etc. All ripped off, right?

 

Who said I didn't like it? I really liked WoW. I probably have a whole lot more time logged in than it than you do. It was a great game. That's not the same as innovating.

-Instances - taken from other games

-The original LFG at vanilla- taken from other games, the LFG finder is pretty innovative (I don't like it but I see why others do)

-Arena- I hated arenas, I see why people like them, you know how I know you didn't play Guild Wars?

-Tier'd loot- defintiely taken from other games

 

Vanilla WoW didn't innovate much in my opinion at all. They brought together everything that was good in other games and didn't bring much of the bad. That's not really innovation in my opinion. It can, and did for WoW, make an fantastic game. I've seen some people say that everyone is getting burned out on the genre. I had played MMOs for about as long before WoW as I have now. Playing WoW was the same awe struck feeling I had when I played EQ for the first time. It's not the genre, it's the games.