“So what did they change from 1.0?” many would ask me in regards to the soon-to-be-relaunched Final Fantasy XIV 2.0, most commonly known with the subtle subtitle “A Realm Reborn.”
“So it’s just World of Warcraft with Final Fantasy painted all over it?” to which I reply with “Yeah… I guess?” as I’m frantically trying to formulate my thoughts to try to evade that notion that ARR was a clone of Blizzard’s long running MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
Now that I think about it, maybe it isn’t a bad thing to just admit that ARR can be closely related to WoW and maybe calling it a “WoW Clone” is not as bad as people make it out to be, right?
Some of you just face palmed out of reaction.
I’d like to see the groups of people with their pitchforks, proclaiming how different ARR is from WoW and that it is more than a clone. At the same time, I’d like to see how many people actually care if ARR is a clone to another game as well. I could sit here and talk about just how amazing ARR is and how it’s unique from WoW, but I’d write myself into frustration. Plus it is a bit too early to talk about it, even if it isn’t against any NDA right now. Trust me, as much as I like to heavily persuade people that ARR is much more than WoW with a palette swap, that time will come later once I get more time in and maybe approach such an endeavor without trying to contrast the two.
But no, this is a thing, a thing that I’m also guilty of as well.
The other day I was in a discussion about what makes a game an MMORPG. There are those out there who swear to everything that games such as Diablo or Phantasy Star Online are MMORPGs. “That’s just crazy!” I would yell out loud. “There’s no persistent world for those games.” Of course this starts discussions as to what is considered persistent and what makes a particular instance an example of that — Quickly it hits me that I am not doing anyone any favors, especially myself.
Why do I care so much about why a game is designated as a specific genre, again? As a matter of fact, in redesigning The Mog Blog, I have decided to remove the “Genre” category in our reviews and what you will need to know on what to categorize a game will be in the review itself. Makes it simple on everyone, hopefully people will keep themselves in order when someone says “Zelda is an RPG.”
We can all agree that in these particular cases, there is a reason — as minute it may be for some — for these arguments to be happening. Some simply refuse to have their games labeled and titled in such a way. Likewise, some feel the need to correct others when something seems — at least to them — blatantly wrong.
There’s also people who use this as troll bait. Silly buggers. Better watch out for those.
I try to not hold too much value in labeling games. I just simply play the games. Not saying you should not care about what defines what, in fact if it gives forth some interesting conversation that somehow makes one better themselves, go for it. As for me, I don’t care that ARR is being called a “WoW clone” from what seems to be coming from the general populace, but rather I’m happy that it does resemble WoW in some way. I actually like WoW. I like Final Fantasy. I’m not trying to devalue the need for conventions like these, rather getting all up in arms without any real aim but to find an absolute is probably taking a few years off your life.
So yes: FFXIV 2.0 is a WoW clone. I cannot wait to play it.
Also: XBox, Square-Enix, Iphone, Soul Calibur 4, and Playstation.
Also: Eyepatches.