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Similarities Between WoW & GW2 Abiliites
InkStorm
Member Posts: 3
I can't help but get the feeling that WoW's panda expansion is copying ideas from GW2. I'm not talking about everything but there are certain abilities that stand out.
Warriors, in particular, will get a war banner when the class never needed or required such a tool. It brings nothing new to the class as certain abilities were removed so their functionality could be given to it. Some could even argue that this ability is worse as it's a static buff/debuff that must be directly placed on the ground.
The warlock's lvl 87 spell is practically the exact same thing as the mesmer's portal. Think about how the mesmer's ability works and then read this tooltip description. "Creates a demonic gateway between two locations. Stepping into the gateway causes any party member to be instantly transported to the other gateway." They're the exact same spell!
The hunter's new powershot talent, while not exactly gamebreakingly hard to conceive, is the ranger's long shot which deals damage based upon the distance between the caster and his target.
Similarly, the rogue's new blanket invisibility reeks of the mesmer's veil ability. Rogues are masters of silence and perfected that ability themselves. How, though, would a rogue instantly silence and hide a heavily plated and clunky character like a warrior? Now think about how they would instantly cloak a dozen warriors at the same time... It just doesn't make sense, If they used magic then maybe, but they don't and that's the reason it's a believable ability for a caster like the mesmer.
I could keep going but I feel this is a good stopping point. Some of the other abilities they've released share a similarity but differ overall while others simply haven't been revealed yet.
Comments
Games borrow things from each other all the time. If they didn't the genre as a whole wouldn't change over time.
GW2's WvW is heavily inspired by DAoC, for example.
Just sounds like Blizzard being Blizzard. That's all. Hopefully GW2 comes out first, so that we won't have too many arguements about who stole what, from whom.
I both understand and agree that games need to borrow and recreate old material to further develop the genre, but this simply feels wrong on a multitude of levels. GW2 isn't even out yet and a variety of the tools they decided on will be implemented in another game before it's even released. The freshness and originality they should have brought will be diminished and a new feeling that these abilities are knock offs of WoW will replace them.
Every idea in every Blizzard (not Blizzard North) game is stolen.
Warcraft, the original Warcraft, happened because they couldn't get a Warhammer license. So they just changed things around a tiny bit so that it didn't infringe upon the license, but it was obviously just an Americanised Warhammer. Starcraft, because once again they couldn't get the license, was just a Warhammer 40k game. Both borrowed liberally from strategy games that had come before.
In fact, the only Blizzard games I can think of that didn't just outright steal things were Diablo and Diablo II (hello Blizzard North!).
World of Warcraft continued the tradition by stealing the idea for resource nodes from Final Fantasy XI, just implemented slightly differently, raids from Everquest, and mechanics from a slew of MMOs that had come before. The thing is is that Blizzard often does exactly what other people have done but with more polish, more marketing, and a larger appeal to the lowest common denominator. What makes it work is that they know to only steal the good mechanics/ideas/settinngs.
Frankly? I'd love to see SOE team up with Games Workshop and ArenaNet to sue the shit out of them, but we all know that's not going to happen. Sigh. :P
Everything they've done is based upon stolen stuff, though. We all know that. So... yeah, they're stealing things from ArenaNet. I mean, they've already stolen the idea for transmutation stones (calling it 'transmogrification,' which is oh so clever), and now they're just outright thieving GW2's ideas.
And the end of the day, though, WoW is still going to be a grindy, uninspired mess. And you know what they say, too many cooks spoil the broth - and too many stolen ideas have left the game such in such a fustercluck of a state that they don't even know where they're going with it any more.
And, sorry WoW fans (employees?), this is common knowledge.
So yeah. Stealing banners? Huge surprise.
Even if it were true it doesnt bother me in the least. I hope they copy more good ideas from GW2 and other games and make their game a better game than it is. And same goes for every mmo out there, including gw2 (of which im a great fan, btw).
Im not afraid of evolution.
Except that having played DAoC, WvWvW has come so far that it only has minor similarities to RvR.
Moreover, DAoC didn't invent RvR, nor is it the only game to use it. [Source.]
If anything, it's a massive revolution based upon a base idea. It isn't outright theft (taking something and not evolving it or changing it in any way, barring a few cosmetic changes so that they don't get sued) like Blizzard do.
Evolution is fine. I support evolution. Evolution is a brililant thing. But evolution means taking something and making it better. But in Blizzard's case it's very frequently either taking something and making a few minor changes so they don't get sued (Warhammer license), or taking something and making it actually worse (transmutation stones).
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That's really what I'm trying to explain, here. Blizzard hasn't ever evolved anything ever. Just stolen, polished, and marketed. Evolution is great, doing something inspired by something else is fantastic, but the outright IP theft that Blizzard engages in makes my skin crawl. If I worked for them I would just feel so, so dirty.
But even if they dont make the idea better, they make their own game better. Dont get me wrong, i believe in giving credit where credit is due, but having all these all too frequently complacent mmo companies elbowing each other for implementing the new ideas first is refreshing. Thats one of the biggest accomplishments of Anet , imho, stirring the colossus into movement again. They tried a game with lot of novel concepts (and functional ones, at that) and blizzard is going to have to adapt . Good for Anet.
Seriously, this is the scab you want to pick at? Ok, you like freshness and originality so show us your creativity. Create 5 character classes each with 20 skills. The classes and skills have to be 100% original and never used in any game, book or other media at anytime in history. This should be a piece of cake for you.
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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Not sure any of those ideas above are a completely new concept to any recent or upcoming game...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
agree - and Blizzard may not be borrowing - some of these concept could have been thought of independently
what fantasy mmo doesnt have a wizard casting fireballs ? heh
EQ2 fan sites
I mean little stuff like that doesn't matter to me, if they copy GW 2 as whole(Which is what makes it innovative to be honest) then ANET should raise a brow...maybe.
Like many said the individual things GW 2 is doing isn't new in MMOs....as whole entirely different story.
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Well I don't know of stone soup but that riftstalker skill sounds just like one of the many Assassin shadow step skills from the original GW game. Also the banner skills bit was also in the original GW game (though they weren't moveable after first being placed). We also saw the GW2 banner skills at Gamescom and PAX in 2010 so unless Rift banner skills were also shown before the game's release (which I honestly don't know as I didn't follow it) then GW had it beforehand.
I'm not saying everything else the op said was right/wrong but at least some of your points might be a bit off.
I can easily say that I over-reacted while looking back at the first post. It was just an odd feeling of recognition as I saw each ability for the first time and realized that I'd already seen them before. I already knew WoW was a mish-mash of different games but I didn't expect a single expansion would rely so heavily on it.
The "Pet Battle System", i.e. pokemon complete with gym trainers
The two new BG ideas they introduced which were damn near rip-offs from TF2's mine carts nad Rift's murder ball.
The end point hunter talents including powershot being identical to skills from DotA.
+ whatever else i missed
The warrior and the warlock ability is just a grp wide version of a spell they already have and the rogue spell I think is probably just a coincidence in how it is similar to the mesmer spell. However the banner and possibly the hunter ability I agree might be directly stolen concepts. Having played a hunter since open beta WoW until I last fall.. I dont see ghostcrawler coming up with this on his own and since he likes to think he is the only one that matters.... yea.
Like other have said tho and as another thread stated, games borrow from other games since the second game was developed(obviously im stretching things but you get the point). Just like movies are usually the same plot done a different way.. there are only so many new ideas in media to be had and sometimes redoing something to work on w/e you are working on is fine. I am surprised you didn't bring up Tera's plans for DEs.. which came up right after the GW2 press beta weekend success.
@Dream Chaser.. I was wondering about your resourse node comment.. I dont think that was stolen from FF.. I am pretty sure that resource nodes have been around a looonnnnggg time. I know they had them in Runescape pre WoW and at least then(only played it back then so if this isnt current, thats why) they worked the exact same way as WoW's.
MoP or Pandaclysm.. w/e you want to call it
its still an end to Blizzard catering to the western market. they are doing things for the Asian market primarily now. That has been stated by them. Pokemon and pandas are ever popular with that market as well as many other changes to WoW. My point is, and yea I nearly forgot it myself 
you can't look at WoW the same anymore.. new management, new stories, new market.
blizzard always does this, look at warhammer and wow, first time I saw a pull ability was in warhammer, few months later wotlk releases with a hero class with its own pull.
I could give many more eg.
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I don't mind these minor "similarities" as well.
Unless I hear a WoW fanboy say, that GW2 is copying WoW because of this.. then we have a problem and my blood starts to boil.. good times.
Eat me!
its called inspiration.
you know what is more amazing, is that DAOC did the RvR 10 years ago.
That's like finding a 747 in the tomb of Tutankhamon.
>.< 2 words...
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they took some pointers from the guild wars 2 trade show demos too. hunters starting with pets and getting rid of ammo...few months after gamescom 2010.
you cant even say that was from GW2, the WoW hunters had been begging for that for eons.. also they had promised no ammo or changed ammo for years. Of course they could have finally decided to do it because GW2 had.
http://wow.joystiq.com/tag/yak-mount/
Dolyak stolen? Or just regular yak....CONSPIRACY>!?
The warlock already had a demonic portal teleport for personal use. I do wish they worked a little differently instead of sounding like a mirror skill.
It does seem like a few similarities exist but it's not like people haven't stolen off WoW. Also adding these features sound good theoretically but building a combat system from the ground up with the feature in mind is different.
The ranger ability for example. Take into consideration the combat system and the pvp in WoW. Ask yourself does the ranger have enough escape ablities to make the talent effective? How does this change player playstyles? How will the damage balance out in pvp? pve? Will people cry OP? How do I counter someone who thrives on distance if I do not have abilties to close distances?
There are major class balances to consider when introducing something different. I remember another MMO i played where I rolled a healer class. It was also the only archer class in that game. This class was one of the most powerful classes in the game because I was self buffing self healing with excellent single target damage. I can see where they were trying to innovate but you can see what I am saying that adding more isn't necessarily making it better.
edit edit - http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/17/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-toolkits-and-themes/
Just took the time to read the article. I think the writer has more ideas than the developer.
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Really who cares? Never played WoW never will, so I don't care if there are similar skills or features as long as it makes GW2 better.
I laughed so hard.. this is a blatant ripoff of something so stupid to rip off... why on earth are their yak mounts?!?!? If anything a water buffalo would be more appropriate but such a silly mount.