I鈥檝e seen a few articles lately discussing the good and bad things about 鈥渃loned鈥 MMO鈥檚. The closed beta release of Wind Slayer has reignited debate on whether blatantly cloning an MMO is good for the gamers, the game itself and the industry as a whole.
For those who haven鈥檛 seen it, Wind Slayer is almost a carbon copy of another MMO; Maple Story. It does have a few differences in some areas (such as PvP) but the similarities are too many to ignore. Wind Slayer just doesn鈥檛 seem to have any original ideas of its own and even resorts to flat-out plagiarism at times; one of the NPC quest givers is named 鈥淕angdalf鈥, naturally he鈥檚 a kindly old wizard (who would have guessed?) and in one of the quest texts his name is misspelled as 鈥淕andalf鈥.
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But Wind Slayer is not the game that shamelessly plucks its essence from other sources:
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Wind Slayer vs. Maple Story
Lineage 2 vs. Shaiya
Lord of the Rings Online vs. 鈥ell, a little bit of everything.
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While the focus is currently on whether or not cloned games are any good, I鈥檝e become a bit more worried about the genre overall.
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Cloning games, while not always a good thing, is still accepted in the MMO community. The humble MMO seems to be now stuck in a rut. Game after game gets released and everyone, to some extent, knows exactly what to expect.
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With the exception of Aeronauts, every new MMO I鈥檝e tried in the last year has been comfortingly familiar. It鈥檚 that cosy feeling you get when you know exactly what you鈥檙e doing even if it鈥檚 your first time on a 鈥渘ew鈥 game, like snuggling up to that favourite blanket you鈥檝e had since you were 4 years old after your Mum had to wash it.
Same comfortable blanket, doesn鈥檛 smell like it did yesterday.
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New ideas in the genre seem to be few and far between and the games that do try it usually fail due to poor implementation or not having enough funding. Because an MMO鈥檚 success fully depends on its players, cloning games seems like a safe bet for developers and gamers simply because people want that comfort.
Whether you鈥檙e for cloning or against it, nobody wants to be a noob again鈥 ever.
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It鈥檚 why people still play Counter-Strike 1.5 in net caf茅s across the globe. It鈥檚 why people have elevated Starcraft to levels seen in elite sporting competitions.
Hell, it鈥檚 why people still freaking play Runescape.
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People pay for what they want and the majority of gamers don鈥檛 want to be confused by new game mechanics, new styles and new ideas. People play MMO鈥檚 for any number of reasons but nobody plays to feel like a noob all over again.
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But therein lies the problem. If developers are afraid to take chances then the genre will end up stagnating to the point where all that gets released is clones of other successful games. We鈥檇 end up missing out on so much if developers are too afraid to try new things.
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Even though survival-horror MMO鈥檚 have been tried, they generally had too little funding to accomplish anything worthwhile and these sorts of results can stop big name developers from making a game like Dead Rising Online.Like that idea? You may never see it if MMO鈥檚 get stuck the way they are.
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How about Alien vs. Predator Online?
Or maybe Firefly Online?
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Those concepts have people excited all over the world, but if the MMO developers end up too afraid to make anything but a clone then they鈥檒l never see the light of day.
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Here鈥檚 hoping that some developers out there take the plunge into some great new ideas鈥
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-Tob
