FFXIV/WOW cross over event?

[Eli85]

This Khajiit wishes you played more MMOs, even if this one largely agrees with the rest of your points. This one notes agreement with everything you said except this one notes that Elder Scrolls Online is doing very well right now, and has been for a few years now - and is a radical departure from any other MMO this one has yet to encounter.

So, ESO really isn't that much different from WoW. The real big distinguishing part was its leveling process and the do any expansion in any order you want (which is one thing I love about ESO). But it's still the theme park blue print that WoW normalized. The bulk of the game — end game — is still do the same repetitive content over and over to get more gear and / or alternate advancement points to become stronger. Which is what XIV is. Which is what SWTOR is. Which is what every successful MMO is. Even before that, to look at ESO, you enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone. It's the same thing, with slightly different points of emphasis.

People like and dislike different things. It's not ridiculous at all. I do think that it IS ridiculous to hate something that one has never played though, and I have ran into a lot of people in FF XIV who fit into that category. If FF XIV was just another WoW clone I wouldn't be here. It is not, thankfully. Not by a long shot. But there is some influences here, of course. How could there not be?

But it is. See the above. There are things that are emphasized here that are not in WoW, but leveling and end game, it is mechanically and philosophically the exact same thing. The only real, tangible and practical differences between WoW and XIV (that are not aesthetically based) are the complexity of the crafting systems, how alts are handled, the GCD, and the amount and focus of the end game content. Maybe those different flavours are enough for you, but you're fooling yourself if you think this game did not lift the WoW blue print.

Ok lets walk down that road. I hate to break it to you friend. Vanilla WoW is a polished version of the mmos before it.

Not at all, no. The MMOs that came before WoW played so, so differently, that you probably should classify them in different genres. Blizzard looked at the MMO landscape and said, "Here is everything that should go away," and then created WoW. It wasn't just a polished MMO; it was a complete re-definition of the genre that no successful game has strayed from since.

[Vahlnir]

So, ESO really isn't that much different from WoW. The real big distinguishing part was its leveling process and the do any expansion in any order you want (which is one thing I love about ESO). But it's still the theme park blue print that WoW normalized. The bulk of the game — end game — is still do the same repetitive content over and over to get more gear and / or alternate advancement points to become stronger. Which is what XIV is. Which is what SWTOR is. Which is what every successful MMO is. Even before that, to look at ESO, you enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone. It's the same thing, with slightly different points of emphasis.



But it is. See the above. There are things that are emphasized here that are not in WoW, but leveling and end game, it is mechanically and philosophically the exact same thing. The only real, tangible and practical differences between WoW and XIV (that are not aesthetically based) are the complexity of the crafting systems, how alts are handled, the GCD, and the amount and focus of the end game content. Maybe those different flavours are enough for you, but you're fooling yourself if you think this game did not lift the WoW blue print.



Not at all, no. The MMOs that came before WoW played so, so differently, that you probably should classify them in different genres. Blizzard looked at the MMO landscape and said, "Here is everything that should go away," and then created WoW. It wasn't just a polished MMO; it was a complete re-definition of the genre that no successful game has strayed from since.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Good luck.

[Lium]

So, ESO really isn't that much different from WoW. The real big distinguishing part was its leveling process and the do any expansion in any order you want (which is one thing I love about ESO). But it's still the theme park blue print that WoW normalized. The bulk of the game — end game — is still do the same repetitive content over and over to get more gear and / or alternate advancement points to become stronger. Which is what XIV is. Which is what SWTOR is. Which is what every successful MMO is. Even before that, to look at ESO, you enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone. It's the same thing, with slightly different points of emphasis.

Uh...you've just described pretty much every Western MMO ever. Hell, these things were all popularized in MUD games.

I'm not at all discounting WoW's influence on this game. In fact, I've said many times FFXIV is a WoW clone. But WoW's endgame was completely lifted from EQ, their devs even said so. A few of the early Blizzard devs were EQ raid leaders. That's actually documented. I mean this line here: "You enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone," is quite literally ever RPG in the history of RPGs. Yet the way you put it, WoW normalized this playstyle.

It was normalized nearly 30 years before WoW.

[Eli85]

Uh...you've just described pretty much every Western MMO ever. Hell, these things were all popularized in MUD games.

I'm not at all discounting WoW's influence on this game. In fact, I've said many times FFXIV is a WoW clone. But WoW's endgame was completely lifted from EQ, their devs even said so. A few of the early Blizzard devs were EQ raid leaders. That's actually documented. I mean this line here: "You enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone," is quite literally ever RPG in the history of RPGs. Yet the way you put it, WoW normalized this playstyle.

It was normalized nearly 30 years before WoW.

That is really not every RPG in the history of RPGs. I can think of a lot of games that do not follow it. Speaking in MMOs, Asheron's Call, Final Fantasy XI, and EverQuest were all not like that; you went zone to zone but it was more mob grinding without any real quest options (in fact, since we're here, WoW was the first game that moved away from mob grinding to questing as the main source of leveling up). WoW was the first MMO who said, "OK, let's hide the grind behind quests and zone story," which the other MMOs did not do. At all. So, again, in this particular instance, this is not "polishing what was done before," but instead radically changing the way a particular facet (leveling) was done in the genre.

It was absolutely not. You obviously have never played mmos previous to WoW.

I played Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, EverQuest, and Star Wars Galaxies. All of which predate WoW.

Try again.

[Lium]

That is really not every RPG in the history of RPGs. I can think of a lot of games that do not follow it. Speaking in MMOs, Asheron's Call, Final Fantasy XI, and EverQuest were all not like that; you went zone to zone but it was more mob grinding without any real quest options (in fact, since we're here, WoW was the first game that moved away from mob grinding to questing as the main source of leveling up). WoW was the first MMO who said, "OK, let's hide the grind behind quests and zone story," which the other MMOs did not do. At all. So, again, in this particular instance, this is not "polishing what was done before," but instead radically changing the way a particular facet (leveling) was done in the genre.

Mob grinding was a huge part of vanilla WoW. You would go to a quest hub, pick up all the quests which were all variants of "Kill 10 bears," and there was never enough quests to get you to the next level, so you would have to grind mobs to level up. This was particularly the case in the Arathi Highlands as Alliance. I remember grinding for days on my holy pally to level. What made it fun, though, was that I was on a PvP server, which kept things lively and entertaining.

There was no main story or even real zone stories in vanilla WoW. There was some quest chains here and there, but that was about it. (At least from an Alliance perspective. I've heard there was more of a story on Horde side in zones like Ashenvale and Hillsbrad Foothills, or in the Forsaken starting zones.) The game was entirely (and still is, for the most part) centered on raiding. "Stories" were associated with, and locked behind, raid content. Like classic Onyxia and Blackwing Lair. AQ 20/40 and Naxx. That was especially the case in the expansions. I remember when TBC came out and there were many complaints on the forums because such a small percentage of the playerbase would actually ever see Illidan and the inside of The Black Temple because you had to be in a high-end progression guild to even see it. It really wasn't until Wrath (which I loved immensely) that there was some semblance of a cohesive story, and players were able to interact with Arthas at varying points while leveling.

The release of Cataclysm is when you REALLY started seeing more of a focus on a main story. And that was no coincidence because in 2011, SWTOR was launching and BioWare's entire pitch for that game was "STORY, STORY, STORY", so Blizzard had to keep pace with what they thought was going to be their main competition.

Understand, I am not in any way knocking WoW. I played it (with some breaks) from 2005 - 2016. It was a great game and it's impact on the video game industry cannot be overstated. I just think you are equating many RPG standards to WoW, and that simply is not the case.

[Reap00]

So, ESO really isn't that much different from WoW. The real big distinguishing part was its leveling process and the do any expansion in any order you want (which is one thing I love about ESO). But it's still the theme park blue print that WoW normalized. The bulk of the game — end game — is still do the same repetitive content over and over to get more gear and / or alternate advancement points to become stronger. Which is what XIV is. Which is what SWTOR is. Which is what every successful MMO is. Even before that, to look at ESO, you enter a zone, do the main quest (and side quest if you like), complete it, move on to the next zone. It's the same thing, with slightly different points of emphasis.



But it is. See the above. There are things that are emphasized here that are not in WoW, but leveling and end game, it is mechanically and philosophically the exact same thing. The only real, tangible and practical differences between WoW and XIV (that are not aesthetically based) are the complexity of the crafting systems, how alts are handled, the GCD, and the amount and focus of the end game content. Maybe those different flavours are enough for you, but you're fooling yourself if you think this game did not lift the WoW blue print.



Not at all, no. The MMOs that came before WoW played so, so differently, that you probably should classify them in different genres. Blizzard looked at the MMO landscape and said, "Here is everything that should go away," and then created WoW. It wasn't just a polished MMO; it was a complete re-definition of the genre that no successful game has strayed from since.

It was absolutely not. You obviously have never played mmos previous to WoW.

[Makeda]

So, ESO really isn't that much different from WoW.

Um...

ESO:
1. Universal scaling on everything. ALL content other than raids is scaled to what FFXIV would call 'expert'. A level 1 and a max level can adventure together.
2. Gear remains 'mostly' constant - but has 'sets' that matter and make the difference in endgame.
3. Infiniate 'champion points' means your character keeps expanding over time. There are hundreds of individual custom things to spend them on.
4. Class/Job is largely meaningless - you build your character based on what weapons you pick up, what things you try to do. You get skill points, you spend them as desired.
5. Combat is action based - not target based. You swing into an area - the first thing you hit gets hit, unless it's an AOE then anything in the spot you aim at is hit.
6. Tanking is... weird... no threat table. Just an instant zero cooldown 15-second duration taunt (provoke). To tank multiple mobs you spam your taunt around the room - hoping to hit the right things and not something you already taunted. Mitigation is... holding up a shield to block, then using heavy attacks to recharge.
7. Healing is... weird... you attack stuff to charge your resource, then spend it on healing abailities that are single or aoe or duo target. The single ones - you gotta 'hit-scan' aim that like it was Overwatch.
8. The factions are... meaningless. I can make a character of faction A, and go to the capital of Faction B and grab a quest from their military general to attack my own side... It only matters when you enter PvP.
9. Racial stats are EXTREMELY VITAL. Even after the patch to make them non-vital, they're still about 20% of your effectiveness...
10. Crafting is highly customizable - you research new traits. Butonce you have them it's just 'click this button to craft that item'

WoW:
1. Scaling is highly limited. Outside of current expac it's in brackets by 'these couple expansions' but in dungeons it's not there.
2. The classes make ALL the difference. You gain abilities as you level like in FFXIV. You can't just randomly pick up a staff or do a quest and gain fireball spells like in ESO. You can't just hit a key and stealth, and then improve it because you want to - these things are locked at level 1.
3. There is minor tweaking with a small number of talents.
4. Gear is everything.
5. Factions cannot even talk to each other without using exploits (I think the pandas might be an exception).
6. Racial stats are... about as important as they are in FFXIV.
7. Tanking is all about having massive AoE threat. You walk in, hit one AoE, and have the whole room locked down. Like well, FFXIV 5.0
8. Raid tanking has no MT or OT - it's a tank swap every X-seconds after a tankbuster.
9. Healers only attack to kill time or get small buffs outside of a few classes that... are the exact opposite of that and mostly heal by attacking.
10. Combat is tab-targeted like in FFXIV.
11. There is no class/job switching like FFXIV.
12. You craft the recipes your skill in a profession has unlocked, or that you found as drops from mobs. No researching and no crafting 'game' like FFXIV.

- These two games are polar opposites. FFXIV sits very close to the WoW spectrum of that range.

[Artorias]

A Crossover Event with WoW? Nah, no interest.