How exactly is FFXIV like WoW?

[Kayo]

Never played WoW but interested in picking it up with the new expansion. I keep seeing people reference WoW when describing this game but no direct comparisons are made to features.

I know FATEs are the dynamic events from GW2, what features were taken from WoW?

To those with the IQ of a potato any MMORPG with a quest based leveling design is "like WoW" or a "WoW clone." Pay no attention. If you want to play WoW, knock yourself out, its a good game specially for those trying it out for the first time. However dont go in expecting it to be "like FFXIV" because you heard/read some neanderthal say it in-between grunts. Its not ... at least not any more than CoD is like or a clone of Battlefield or whatever.

[Xatsh]

WoW Clone

1) Endgame Instance Raid Progression
2) Quest driven leveling
3) Item Level
4) Duty/Dungeon Finder'
5) Short Lived Content (content that is negated ever major patch to allow new players to catch up)
6) Quick Leveling (can get to cap in less then 60hrs of focused playtime.)
7) Focus on accessibility and simplicity of game mechanics
8) Rotation Based tab target combat
9) The UI design is a pure WoW clone. but then again everyone adopted the model.


XIV is a game based off WoW. Is there differences, yes. But if you never played WoW and you go into that game. You will immediately recognize aspects of the game. Example you will know how the UI works more or less without ever playing the game. You will understand rotation for combat. You will know to go to quest to get xp. You will know to be ready to join raids and dungeons at endgame to get the best gear. WoW invented the Themepark mmo, XIV based on Yoshidas own Words is using that model in XIV. XIV is a pure Themepark game based on the concept of WoW but with a FF twist.

[Fyce]

WoW Clone

1) Endgame Instance Raid Progression
2) Quest driven leveling
3) Item Level
4) Duty/Dungeon Finder'
5) Short Lived Content (content that is negated ever major patch to allow new players to catch up)
6) Quick Leveling (can get to cap in less then 60hrs of focused playtime.)
7) Focus on accessibility and simplicity of game mechanics
8) Rotation Based tab target combat
9) The UI design is a pure WoW clone. but then again everyone adopted the model.

A lot of these were defining the MMORPG genre before WoW even existed.
What you are describing is a lot of well known game mechanics for the MMORPG genre, meaning that we find these in a lot of games.
WoW made them popular, but that's it.
Plus, using the word "clone" means that it's a perfect copy of the original, which is obviously not the case for FF XIV.

[Gramul]

A lot of these were defining the MMORPG genre before WoW even existed.
What you are describing is a lot of well known game mechanics for the MMORPG genre, meaning that we find these in a lot of games.
WoW made them popular, but that's it.
Plus, using the word "clone" means that it's a perfect copy of the original, which is obviously not the case for FF XIV.

Would you mind listing them and for what games? Because most of these where either introduced or made popular by WoW. MMO's prior where more based on the Everquest/Ultima sandbox model.

Secondly, "clone" in the instance of media, especially games, is referring to the core structure and model used in its design. If "clone" was a literal exact copy, the only use of the word would be for having multiple disks of the same game.

[Tsukino]

Unless someone was on the original development team, they can't really say for sure which features "came from WoW." We know that Yoshida instructed the team to learn from WoW and other games in the same way the development team for FFXI learned from EQ, but which elements came from where cannot be known. And, of course, if you trace back the origin of a feature, that doesn't mean the XIV team took it from that game, and indeed may have taken WoW's (or another game's) later interpretation of that feature.

What people can do is list some features which hold common ground between two games, and that is what most people here are doing already.

Here's some I can think of:

• Quest-based, primarily solo progression
• Treatment of the leveling up portion of the game as an "introduction" for the "real" game at max level
• Linear equipment progression and the "item level" system governing progress past the level cap
• An open world exists, but most if not all group content is instanced
• Boss fights are heavily scripted and rely on memorizing patterns and following "telegraph" markings and other visual cues, plus "announcements" from the boss
• Combat is based around a "global cooldown" imposed by a used ability on most or all other abilities
• A cross-server automatic group-building system is in place to allow people to enter instanced content more rapidly
• Cross-server PvP matching in the same manner
• Most if not all equipment worth having cannot be sold to other players and must be "won" from its respective content
• Most if not all equipment binds when equipped/used and can never be re-sold to another player
• The economy is based mostly on player-game interaction and not player-player interaction
• Repeatable daily/weekly quests exist to provide players with money or other items/tokens when their normal level-up quests are all complete

[madolyn]

The difference lies with the fun factor in this game literally being completely drained by the addition of ridiculous "beast tribe" dailies, unnecessary changes to systems such as spiritbonding which ultimately hurt the economy even more, gated features that don't even deserve to be gated such as the ability to dye your chocobo, AF armor, and silly quests to unlock some emotes.

This is mostly my opinion from someone who has completed all of coil and who has an FC and doesn't really have to worry about the gates...just keeping others in mind but I also do find most of the stuff that gets added to the game to be rather boring, pointless, or just nonsense.

flame on.

[PixelPirate]

Instructional videos:
http://youtu.be/dpmy7Ze18NY
http://youtu.be/TeO2oNe19Ko