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Something remarkable you'll see in consoles but NEVER in mmos.. Ever.
popinjay
Member Posts: 6,539
DICE: Halo, Call Of Duty Inspired Battlefield 3's Battlelog
"I looked at all social networks from Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, to of course [Halo] Waypoint and [Call of Duty] Elite. We looked at everything," he told Gamasutra in a recent interview.
"Thats inspirational for me just finding out what other people do and just sort of grabbing the good pieces out of it," he added.
What? That's right. A gamemaker actually admitting that he finds inspiration from his competitors... unashamed. This is what's wrong with the mmo industry imo. It's too cutthroat and that attitude filters down to the fans.
Imagine if Blizzard had said "Yeah, we looked at Warhammer's lore and really loved it. We thought it was top notch so we designed a game after it but changed it slightly."
Or imagine Rift or any of the other "WoW clones" said "Yeah, you know.. we wanted to make an mmo and the first thought we had was we wanted to make WoW, but better. We didn't know if we would succeed but we were so impressed with what they did as the leader in the industry we decided it's best to copy a good part of what they do. We even went after their fans with our ads because we were so confident they'd be right at home."
Or if SWTOR said "We love what GW1 did with mercenaries. They were almost part of your story in a way after you hired them because you used them all throughout your leveling. But we wanted to expand on that and make them more intimately intertwined to the story and you, as well as things that they did."
Instead most mmo makers rarely talk about one another. They try to avoid it like the plague. Not only do they not say anything GOOD about their competition in any sort of way, but they go out of their way to nitpick them in other ways. I remember Mark Jacobs comments about AoC after War launched when AoC was dropping hard. He was talking about their problems, none of the good things they did and basically was saying we won't end up this way. There are other examples of this throught gaming history.
Simply put, the fans of these games get that attitude from these devs and then they all go on a "my game is better than your game" theme that you can easily see where they picked it up. The joke being probably a third of the people making their NEW game used to work in some capacity on the game those fans are now berating, but to stupid to know about.
I was really impressed that instead of denying where their inspiration came from, DICE rightfully gave proper credit and that shows class. That will go a long way towards respect in my book when a company isn't afraid of it's competition and acts like it by showing them just credit.
Comments
To just quickly respond to one point, about the Mercs/Companions, I don't really recall or care as to when KOTOR1 came out and GW1 came out. I'm merely assuming KOTOR came out before the latter of the two; don't you agree that anything related to KOTOR would feel odd without companions?
I do atleast, I'm most likely not buying TOR. But atleast that's how I look at it.
I apologize if that was fairly off-topic.
But we know plenty of games we've played where we went "Man, this is the same thing from X game. They just lifted it" without the company even once mentioning it themselves.
The most recent was Rift with their cross-server LFD tool. Everyone KNOWS where it came from and why they added it to Rift. That's not even a discussion among intelligent people. But did Trion admit or even mention something like "We wanted to improve the functionality of our game's dungeons, and to do that we looked at what WoW was doing. We wanted a system like theirs but not completely like theirs, one that would fit our game."
Seriously, would that have been too hard to do? Instead what happens is they put that in, then players go "You stole that from WoW". Then fanbois go "so, WoW stole X from Y game." And so on and so forth which is just retarded.
Just give people the credit they deserve in this industry; it's really not that hard for adults to do.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Well Idisagree whit you, you say company's /developers dont admit their love for a other game or their likes for sertain game systems made by others but they do admit that, they do admit they tried to improve (fancy word for copy) the systems and put it in their game.
its the players, the players are the ones that scream and cry about mechanics comming from x game and others how that aint true and all other sorts of compare and judge funk.
its a normal wide use practice to not sue one other in the gaming bussiness for "improving" on exsisting idea's as they all know bussiness would become very very hard whitin a decade.
and the typical mud trowing happens in every industrie, PR teams will when they can try to discredit a direct concurent,both on the pc and console market (or any other industrie , infact it happens in every single part of live, work,politics,social live)
Look at it this way.
X team says "We liked Y's game so much. We just loved it to pieces, and we wanted to see if we could improve on it. We don't know if we succeeded though, etc. and etc."
Player C says "So wait, they copied this piece from Y? So...is the original better? I should go try it."
One day letter "Wow, the original IS better! I'm going to play Y more often."
X team "WE'RE LOSING SUBSCRIBERS LIKE HOTCAKES, ABANDON SHIP, ABANDON SHIP!"
You don't know a player's personal preference, but companies won't want to give players incentive to play another game by insinuating that they might have copied a little bit from something else.
Besides, not all console companies are as nice and fluffy as you think. DICE is a nice one. Activision is not. DICE wants to improve on their game. Activision bashes said game to garner more players to Call of Duty.
I wanted to agree with you until I read this...
You're obviously an anti-wow/Bizzard fanboy of some sort.
IF you had said something along the lines of "If Blizzard or Warhammer had said they looked at Lord of the Rings books and really loved it..."
OR anything else I might fully agree with you. Unfortunately Warhammer stole it's ideas from someone, and Blizzard has done the same. Picking on Blizzard (probably one of largest and most well known Game Developers there is these days) just shows the hate.
PS - Yes, i'm a Blizzard fanboy. I have NEVER and will never attend a blizcon or anything of the sort. But every game they've pumped out has been top quality. Even Starcraft 2 which I dislike.
Just fyi, Rift openly admitted several times that they are not looking to create unique game, but to combine the best from the successors and improve it.
I hear developers claim their inspiration came from other games all the time. Even the TOR developers said they used WoW as a model.
Sarcasm is not a crime!
Quite a few MMORPG devs mention inspirations in the same sort of offhanded way as the article.
Nobody, not even the linked article, just outright says, "We want to make Game X but better."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Battlefield 3 ftw!
Ugh, it's just a BF1942 clone.
I'm not meaning to say Rift said something that they didn't. I'm pointing out something to show they didn't acknowledge where they got their ideas from as respect, just like every other mmo.
Please don't take it personally against your game.
"TO MICHAEL!"
You're obviously an anti-wow/Bizzard fanboy of some sort.
IF you had said something along the lines of "If Blizzard or Warhammer had said they looked at Lord of the Rings books and really loved it..."
OR anything else I might fully agree with you. Unfortunately Warhammer stole it's ideas from someone, and Blizzard has done the same. Picking on Blizzard (probably one of largest and most well known Game Developers there is these days) just shows the hate.
PS - Yes, i'm a Blizzard fanboy. I have NEVER and will never attend a blizcon or anything of the sort. But every game they've pumped out has been top quality. Even Starcraft 2 which I dislike.
Actually, I played WoW for about eight months and enjoyed every minute I played it until I unsubbed during The Burning Crusade. There was nothing about the company of the game that made me quit. I simply went onto another one.
I skipped WOTLK because I was playing another mmo instead. I went back and tried Cataclysm and liked it as well enjoying WOTLK zones and the new areas as well as seeing the world totatlly destroyed which was fantasically done, but I moved on because I let too much time pass on my sub and I actually forgot how to play my three 50s effectively, and didn't feel like rerolling all the way to 85. (although I rolled a Worgen to 32)
I think Blizzard is the best run company in the mmo business and never had a problem with their customer service. My time in WoW was great when I played there and I have nothing bad to say about it.
I am anything but an "anti-WoW/Blizzard" fanboy. I didn't "pick on Blizzard". I used them as an example as a "what if". You internet psychologists crack me the hell up. Attack the person, never addressing the issue.
If you had read a little futher down, you'd see I explained I was using Blizzard as an example and said it wasn't perfect.
"TO MICHAEL!"
This is actually not true according to the people (who are involved in the MMO industry) I talked with.
The GDC 2011 had some very frank people from Blizzard and other companies say 'yeah, you guys showed us how to make it work' and Blizzard saying 'It does work but you encounter XYZ problems and this is how we solved ours'.
If anyone is actually serious about development / design side, conventions like the GDC is the apex of it. Not only is it a great networking tool, but people are open and up-front.
Unless it is 'un-released, our legal team will sue me!' type, they are more than willing to discuss and debate.
Although, I did hear some of the big names from Capcom going 'I am XYZ so they can't fire me!' and revealing a few things the PR didn't want them to.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I think all companies take inspiration from other sources, whether it's to use something someone else did as a starting point and modify it, or to decide they don't want to do what another company did and try to go in a different direction. Maybe companies specifically try not to mention other companies for fear of getting sued or something, but I did find this quote about where GW2 has drawn some inspiration.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/20/guild-wars-2-the-kitchen-sink-post/3/
Flannum says “we look to a lot of other games, not just MMOs. You know, our down mechanic is a good example of a mechanic that clearly we gain inspiration from team based shooters like Left 4 Dead, and Borderlands, and things like that. We’re constantly looking at other games. We’re really big game players. We’re all always looking at ‘Hey, what other cool stuff are other games in other genres doing?’ not only MMOs. We certainly look at other MMOs. It’s really about gaining inspiration, and not just ripping that off straight, but seeing how it actually fits in your game with what you’re trying to accomplish.”
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
the whole point of evolution is making the good things in our world better. Things that are good succeed for a reason, its survival of the fittest. This applies to all aspects of life. Those that adapt survive.
Now in the gaming world this is also true, but that doesn't mean a less technically advanced game can't become dominant.
In order for games to be successful the main thing they need to achieve is releasing the endorphins in our brain. The greater the realase of the game, the more addicting, like any drug.
Now to the OP, gaming is a business, of course they are going to scout the competition and see what made them successful. Thats business 101, and as a consumer all you want is a game that can release those endorphins.
if X team is blatantly ripping off features just making them worse, being honest and upfront will be the least of their problems. they are gonna bleed subscribers no matter what.
there are vampires...as a concept, in general. popular culture you know.
then there are vampires stories like Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampire stories like Anne Rice's Lestat, and vampire stories like Twilight's love story between Edward and Bella.
all similar, yet different....some more similar than others....You get the idea.
Now, if Twilight was a Game's Workshop's IP, Blizzard's vampires would be "Edgar's love story with Nella" and they would cast actors that look, talk, move and act exactly like Twilight's actors, then put them in the exact same locations and situations, repeating the same script except for a few different words here and there.
Just with better FX, a more epic soundtrack, and lots more explosions.
there is a point where the similarities are SO obvious, SO blatant and SO shameful, that it transcends the concept of "similar" and become an "A to the Z" plaguarism. How can someone hold any respect for the plagiarist after that point is beyond me.
Thats what your beloved Blizzard did, not only with WAR but also with WAR40k.
you like their games? fine, its normal. They are the best game makers out there, handsdown, by a mile. They just happen to have zero-point-zero creativity and have being plagiarizing GW's IP for years on end.
Dont argue about this point, just like I dont argue about them being the top leader of the MMO industry.
facts are facts.
WoW makes money. Let's do what they do!
Guild Wars was released in 2005. KOTOR was released in 2003.
Why would BioWare say that? Have you not played any of their games before? They ALL had companions. That is part of BioWare's style long before ArenaNet was even a company.
Fun, difficult, deep, gameplay and mechanics that doesn't always feel uninspired or get repetitive after a few minutes. Games that are willing to offer a level of challenge that isn't accessible for all. Mature 18+ content.
I don't know, could probably keep going tossing almost anything out of my ass. Though imo there are always going to be lots of things we'll see in console/SP games but not in MMO's, and that has a lot to do with MMO's needing/wanting to be open to the largest playerbase as possible.
I don't understand why its a big deal to say what you were inspired by. SWTOR Developers did sort of say they want to stick to the basic rules of WoW and breaking them would be silly. Does that not count?
TOR Companions came from BioWare games before not GW1.
The gaming industry has the added advantage (similar to the fashion industry) that if you design something that incorporates features from games, you don't get sued. Personally, I find the idea great. It takes far too long for games to go from design to release now as it is. We don't need companies having to create something 100% new every time they try to release a game.
Also, Trion more or less said the same thing...they looked at stuff they liked and incorporated it into their game. Whether you liked Rift or not or whether or not you think they are a 'success', they've had the best release and the best six months of pretty much any game since...what...WoW?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There are many companies who borrow ideas, mechanics or other features (large or small) from their competitors or older games. This is well known.
The example using Bioware was not meant to be a direct example of doing that nor was it to say they didn't have companions.
It was for purposes of using two games. Perhaps Game A and Game B would have been better. I'll remember that for next time.
Please see above."TO MICHAEL!"
Missing an opportunity to scream WOW CLONE would be such a waste.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.