There is no denying that Blizzard has a real winner with World of Warcraft. With over 200 servers called realms and 8 million subscribers it has reached new heights in the increasingly title heavy MMORPG arena. Of course when a game is as good and successful as World of Warcraft, you always get the inevitable clones start rolling through. Quake was one of the most influential FPS games of the 1990s and it spawned a massive number of clones. Games like Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom and Quake spawned an entire industry that is still alive and kicking with games like F.E.A.R and Crysis!


Left: Lord of the Rings Online Center: World of Warcraft Right: Warhammer Online


In the case of World of Warcraft, while far from perfect, is as close to perfect as has been possible in the fantasy MMORPG space. While some have criticised its lack of indepth content (I for one disagree with those criticisms, but it is a free country), its massive subscriber base and its frequent content patches tell a different story. Less than a week ago the Blizzard developers released the first content patch since the release of The Burning Crusade. The patch fixed a large number of bugs and balance issues as well as realising the potential of Mt. Hyjal that would be familiar to anyone who played Warcraft 3 and its expansion pack The Frozen Throne. It also saw the release of the latest 25-man raid encounter The Black Temple. The old guard of MMOs have lost a large percentage of their player base since World of Warcraft's release. Games like EverQuest and its sequel, as well as EVE Online are games that were adversely affected with World of Warcraft's release.

But instead of developing a game with something different such as the space based EVE Online, the newest MMORPG's are going the familiar route that many have gone before, into the fantasy realm. Playing some of these games feels oddly familiar at times and even cursory glances at the user interfaces and features make them look all too familiar. Yes, I am speaking of World of Warcraft clones. One of my first impressions of games like Lord of the Rings Online was not positive because many things seemed to be like World of Warcraft. Of course playing further and hearing what people say has somewhat changed my mind. Lord of the Rings Online does have some innovative features. When I say this I am not just referring to Lord of the Rings Online (So no attacking me fanbois!) but why must every fantasy MMO include Dwarves, Elves and humans? I for one am getting tired of the same ideas which really can all be traced back to a single idea rehashed a million times.

EVE Online CEO Hilmar Petursson says:

"I just don't understand why people do yet another fantasy game. Why make a clone of World of Warcraft? ... World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this [genre]. It's been done. Do something else."

Looking at the list of MMORPG's to be released in 2007 and 2008 does not paint a good picture. Many of them seem to be the same rehashed ideas with some twists and slightly different gameplay, but thank goodness they are not all like this. There is a small company that is still pretty new called Perpetual Entertainment. They are currently developing two new MMOs, one some of you might know as Star Trek Online and the other due for release this year is Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. Familiar fantasy theme, but the game delves into a mythological Roman background which will give this game something new and fresh.

Another of the upcoming fantasy highlights is Age of Conan. There are resemblances to World of Warcraft here, but it is tough to call it a clone since Conan spawned many of the fantasy genre conventions that we saw in games such as Ultima Online, and EverQuest. It also has a twist that the first 20 levels of a new character's existence will be single-player!

Of course what analysis of upcoming fantasy MMO games would be complete with the daddy of them all, Warhammer Online. It is well known that original Warcraft game lore borrowed much from the Warhammer tabletop games, so the similarities are more a Warcraft ripped Warhammer off then the other way around, but there is no denying the similarities of the two.

Thank goodness that fantasy MMOs are not the only ones currently in development! Blizzard largely has the market cornered thanks to World of Warcraft and it must be seen as financially risky to develop a fantasy based MMO at this point. MMOs usually have per-month subscription fees in order to play the game and many people will simply not pay for more than one game at a time, so why bother spending many thousands of dollars in development when your chances of success are as miniscule as this?