Things that WOW didn't invent

[Saeviomagy]

WoW HAS revolutionized a lot. But all the revolutions are purely in the MMO department, not in the P&P department.

For example, alternate forms of resource management. Pre-WoW, everyone had mana (Or no abilities at all). And that was it. WoW brought in Energy, Rage, and the Death Knight mechanic that I don't know because I quit before it came out . Now multiple MMOs have different classes that utilize different forms of resource management. But that started in WoW.

Budokan: The Martial Spirit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia had the rage bar, although the more recent art of fighting is probably closer (budokan didn't generate rage for dealing damage, only for blocking attacks).

And I've played any number of PNP games where different magic users have different resources fuelling their abilities, from random die rolls (can I use magic this round? awww, no!) to mana bars, to spending health etc.

As for Starcraft/40k, that's less Blizzard copying, more 40k fans thinking they have ownership of space marines, space elves, and space bugs. It's like Anne Rice claiming she has ownership of vampires.

I dunno - starcraft's stuff looks thematically very, very similar. The space marines have bulky shoulderpads, ride hoverbikes. The space elves have curvy, semi-organic, bonelike structures. The units of space bugs are very very close between the two. It's more than just the basic concept.

not to be too much of an old foggie, but I still remember the second or third FF here in the states had people doing this in the late 80's and I can't imagin it was new then eaither...

Yeah, I'm actually thinking that I've got this perception because of lack of community. I personally used to run simulations and work out the best numbers for thing, but there weren't any centralised places to share and discuss it: I was just a statistics geek like that.

And even in 3e/3.5e I didn't notice people working out damage per round to 2 decimal places. Optimization seemed to be done in broad conceptual strokes. (although I suppose the hulking hurler thread continued on eking out 1% more damage for a long time. Mind you, 1% more damage was 600 million points or something ridiculous).

Dragonlance's tinker gnomes are the one's that put that trope on the map.

Tinker fairies are a pretty old one - they're either a grimm fairy tale OR they were from the <color> book of fairies (there were a few, and I can't remember which color it was).

Basically the story goes: A family found that if they had broken shoes in the house, they would get fixed, so they started taking other people's broken shoes and charging to have them fixed.

Eventually they find out that the shoes are fixed in the middle of the night by tinker fairies, but when they try to thank them, the fairies are scared off. The family loses it's livelyhood.

 

[rjdafoe]

I think its problem is not that it is a PvP oriented game, but rather that it's a Team vs. Team PvP design, rather than the (much better IMHO) three-team design of DAoC. When you have two factions and one gains an advantage, that advantage usually just grows as the losing side hemorrhages players. With a three-way design, when one side gets an advantage, the other two often halt hostilities towards eachother and turn on the big dog until things level out more.

I agree (somewhat) but I am only referring to popularity. There are lots of people, that do not like PVP. The game was built for PVP. They have limited their user base just with this alone.

For the record, the best PVP I have ever done was with DaoC. I played WAR, but my friends are not really into PVP, and the PVE was not as good as WoW. I spend most of my time in PVE, so I went back to where the best experience is at the moment.

Back on topic -

I think WoW brings concepts together in 1 game, and makes that game fun to play. The reason why it is wildy successful and popular is becuase of this. They recongnize good features, integrate them into the game well, and ake it fun to play. Did they really invent anything? I don't think so at all. I think they took concepts, integrated them into their game (and thereby improving them - at least in WoW).

 

[Sonny]

Tinker fairies are a pretty old one - they're either a grimm fairy tale OR they were from the <color> book of fairies (there were a few, and I can't remember which color it was).

Basically the story goes: A family found that if they had broken shoes in the house, they would get fixed, so they started taking other people's broken shoes and charging to have them fixed.

Eventually they find out that the shoes are fixed in the middle of the night by tinker fairies, but when they try to thank them, the fairies are scared off. The family loses it's livelyhood.

Yes, but there's a huge difference between being handy about the house, and making numerous wacky streampunk or magitech devices, constructions, ships, etc... which is what Dragonlance Tinker Gnomes do. And it's exactly what WoW Gnomes are like.

 

[amerigoV]

This is an interesting idea. When listing WOW things it would be nice if people could explain to us non WOWers what they actually are. I have no idea what "aggro" is for example.

The BEST term from WOW is Wife AGGRO - when you are in a raid or instance (think gaming with your friends) and your significant other comes over and starts yelling about spending too much time playing that damn game, why haven't you taken out the trash, etc. {this can be a non-gaming event as well - say watching too much football}

So, you need to find a place to indulge your habit that you will not draw the wife's attention.

(and yes, I have been in a raid and seen "AFK a minute - wife aggro")

 

[SSquirrel]

It's rare to be in a raid and not see it some months I'm also a fan of instead of someone informing of the specifics of their needed bathroom visit, the phrase has become "AFK bio break".

 

[ExploderWizard]

The BEST term from WOW is Wife AGGRO - when you are in a raid or instance (think gaming with your friends) and your significant other comes over and starts yelling about spending too much time playing that damn game, why haven't you taken out the trash, etc. {this can be a non-gaming event as well - say watching too much football}

So, you need to find a place to indulge your habit that you will not draw the wife's attention.

(and yes, I have been in a raid and seen "AFK a minute - wife aggro")

This happens a lot because the players don't spend enough time between raids grinding wife faction rep.

 

[Sonny]

The BEST term from WOW is Wife AGGRO - when you are in a raid or instance (think gaming with your friends) and your significant other comes over and starts yelling about spending too much time playing that damn game, why haven't you taken out the trash, etc. {this can be a non-gaming event as well - say watching too much football}

So, you need to find a place to indulge your habit that you will not draw the wife's attention.

(and yes, I have been in a raid and seen "AFK a minute - wife aggro")

Actually, using aggro for real people is something I first saw in Everquest around 2001. EQ also had a command called "Consider" that gave you information on how powerful a mob was in comparison to you, as well as how they felt about you (friendly, neutral, dubious, etc...).

A common excuse to log off the game was ones family "Conning Dubious" to them.

 

[Halivar]

EQ also had a command called "Consider" that gave you information on how powerful a mob was in comparison to you, as well as how they felt about you (friendly, neutral, dubious, etc...).

They got this from MUD's. I don't know if it started in ROM or its ancestors Merc or Diku. If you used "consider" on a high level mob, it would say "Death will thank you for your gift." When I first saw that, I thought it meant I was going to kill it easily.

Ahh, those were the days.

 

[Sonny]

They got this from MUD's. I don't know if it started in ROM or its ancestors Merc or Diku. If you used "consider" on a high level mob, it would say "Death will thank you for your gift." When I first saw that, I thought it meant I was going to kill it easily.

Ahh, those were the days.

True =)

I recall a minor controversy early on, with people accusing EQ of using Dikumud code, since many of the commands, emotes, etc... were the same. Of course that had a lot to do with Brad McQuaid being a huge fan of TorilMUD*.







*Hey we wrapped right back around to D&D (well sort of)

 

[Saeviomagy]

True =)

I recall a minor controversy early on, with people accusing EQ of using Dikumud code, since many of the commands, emotes, etc... were the same. Of course that had a lot to do with Brad McQuaid being a huge fan of TorilMUD*.

*Hey we wrapped right back around to D&D (well sort of)

Well, yeah, eq and wow are basically muds with some graphics strapped on.

That's starting to diverge now, with more and more stuff depending on your position in the 3d world, but there's still a lot that is similar.