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Thursday, February 25, 2010

A plea to WoW tourists out there

I haven't played WoW at all during this week: not even checked my AH toons to renew the expired and cashing out the sold stuff.

I'm so deep into Allods Online. It's just that fun change from WoW, not least because I'm levelling again and in a new lore and surroundings.

I can easily drop in and play for 1-2 hours, get group content done on the fly and be amazed by the crooked humour the designers have put in the questlines. And drop off, only to continue later on. It's not light or easy compared to WoW or EQ2 or any other game I've tried: the quest stories have enough detail in them to make an equal comparison with the two forementioned games.

The plea I mention in the title comes out of this urge to compare everything to WoW. The general chat of Allods Online is filled with comparisons on this and that aspect of WoW, with the nazi-card equivalent of shouting out that "This is just another WoW clone, this and that is copied from WoW". Meaning that a war ensues.

My plea: Could you people take a step back from the game, cool down and stop making the utterly unnecessary comparison. Stop crying that the game -be it Allods, Aion, Fallen Earth or any other game out there- is a copy of WoW. WoW wasn't the first one, and many aspects of WoW are copied from other games. The whole Warcraft-series is a rip off from this and that source. Ever come to think about the green colour of the Orcs? THAT'S FROM WARHAMMER MINIATURE GAME!!! Tolkien's orcs are from brown to black, not green. And there is a story why Games Workshop's orcs became green after a short while in production/marketing. Go find that out and then talk about green orcs being original in Warcraft!

Every game is a compilation of things from earlier ones, the utilities which have been noticed to WORK properly and/or being better than earlier versions. The same goes to movies', tv-series' and all entertainment as well as in technology. There are only so few completely new concepts created and only so often. And most of them are based on something that has been around already for a while.

So instead of whining and crying out that this game is a WoW clone, stop whining and start playing. Allods -just to mention one- sure has the same kind of UI as WoW, but the mechanics contain some pretty clever innovations. Instead of whining and calling names on people trying to enjoy the game AS IT IS, start playing the game and enjoy.

It helps a lot if you shrug off that mantle of WoW when you login to another game, really.

It may even make the change... enjoyable?!