LOTRO: A World of Warcraft Clone?
LOTRO: A World of Warcraft Clone?
How is this a World of Warcraft clone?
Before you people who say this is a clone answer me, let me state a few things.
There are a few "similarities" that I have noticed. But the ones I've noticed are few and far between.
The first thing that is evident is the interface. Okay. The interfaces are similar when you first start out. But I can hardly say that justifies it being a WoW clone at all. And for the people who look at that alone and determine it to be a clone, have you tried pressing CTRL and at the same time? Give it a try and you'll see that if that's what bothers you it can be fixed pretty darn quickly.
Another thing I noticed is that you have to go see a trainer to acquire/use some of your skills. Yeah, and that has been the case in just about every MMO that I have played. Not all, but dang near 90% of them. So, I'm kind of confused about this whole thing here too.
Seriously, outside of those two things, what is it that people are saying makes it a WoW clone? I mean, when people were saying it was a WoW clone I was expecting it to be just like WoW. I mean, a "clone" is an exact duplicate. And I know that even if people were using the word loosely you would still expect a good deal of the games to be just alike.
Now, that being said, there have been many things in the game that I have found completely different than WoW.
First, is the way you build your character. There are skills you acquire from doing things in the world. Like if I keep killing the demon dogs in the Barrows, I get a special skill for smashing their killer canine skulls. This is a skill that I can then develop by taking on more of the beasts. I don't see this in WoW.
Second, the way you progress your character development. You take those skills you learned from being out in the world and fighting things (note that the things you fight are completely voluntary, you don't want to build up the skill you get from smashing demon dogs, you can move onto another beastie) and you apply those skills to your character any old way you like by visiting a Bard and placing them on your character sheet. The possibilities are endless here depending on two things. One, what creatures you decided to keep fighting to develop your skill higher, and two which skills from that developed skill set you put into your characters skill tree.
Another thing that is different is the graphics. This one I REALLY do not understand. I read some peoples posts saying that the graphics are the same. No Way!!!! They are completely different. WoW looks like a cartoon. LotRO does not look like a cartoon. It has a different feel to it. I don't know how to describe it, but cartoon does not come to mind. It fits Middle Earth well and does it sincere justice. Having a game look like a cartoon would not do Middle Earth well, in my opinion. I watched the LotR cartoons and never liked them. However, this I do like.
Another difference is the story line in Lord of the Rings Online. It is good. It is enthralling. And it is a very important central part of the game. It's not something half ass thrown together, it is something that you are a part of throughout your journeys. You go on quests with NPC's who lead the way. They talk to you and you talk back to them. You follow them and they lead you through the story. And it all ties together to give you a feeling of being in the middle of an epic tale. This is not in World of Warcraft. As a matter of fact, I always felt that Wold of Warcraft would have been more aptly named, "World of leftouttheWar-in-Warcraft". In LotRO there is a battle going on and you live it in the story line.
Another big difference I noticed is the focus turned away from just acquiring goodies. WoW was a raiding game. You went for that big ol loot. That was pretty much the goal of the game. I have not seen one person talking about their "phat loot" while playing LotRO. Why? Because that's not the main focus of the game. That alone changes the whole game to me. You're not there just to slash away and do raiding so that you can look cooler than someone else or kick their butt. This is a story driven game. An interesting story at that. So, I don't miss the PvP. I don't need it to keep me interested in this game.
I could go on and on about the differences, but I think you guys get my point. And I'm going to leave the rest open for whoever wants to post some more. I don't want to make my initial post too long or hog the topic.
I just really think that a lot of people played the beta for a short time, saw the interface, got to level 10 maybe (which is so just the very beginning of the game) and made a quick assumption. They haven't seen the rest of the game nor experienced the neat little things that you get to see later on.
Have fun!
