Spurned Chinese Publisher May Create WoW Knockoff

Earlier this year, Chinese game publisher The9 lost the rights to operate World of Warcraft in China. Now, it appears they are trying to solve their financial troubles by making World of Fight, which bears a suspicious resemblance to World of Warcraft. Others have noted similarities between World of Fight and Warhammer Online. Quoting Eurogamer: "According to the China Journal report, Chinese industry observers 'wonder whether The9 is launching a "shanzhai," or knock-off, World of Warcraft in hopes of keeping WOW players,' with iResearch analyst Zhao Xufeng noting that 'with the topic staying in the centre of attention, The9 can easily attract attention by doing this.'"

Comments

Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[andyn]

Oh, come on. We all know the fact that that most MMORPGs are practically clones of each other anyway...

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Renraku]

I bet they have some kind of actual code from Blizzard, be it server software, client software, whatever. And they likely have the source to compile on their machines. So whatever game they use will probably be a direct clone of WoW.

I bet their first expansion will be Flaming Crusades, and their second will be Wrath of the Zombie king.

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they have some kind of actual code from Blizzard,

I bet you don't have any proof of your accusations.
You'r no better than SCO....

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet their first expansion will be Flaming Crusades, and their second will be Wrath of the Zombie king.

You should have done some research before coming up with the names.

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[gEvil (beta)]

I bet their first expansion will be Flaming Crusades, and their second will be Wrath of the Zombie king.

You make it sound like these guys have gotten into the game business.

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Only naive and uncultured morons like you think that. Have you even left your country?

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[elrous0]

Is it wrong that I would be much more interested in seeing their "Sunday School Musical" than "High School Musical 3"?

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true.. 1st world nations actually just hand the stuff to China.. mostly so the Chinese can mass produce it.. but can you really fault them for keeping some of the gizmos themselves and of course adapting it to be more China-centric (localization, adaptation of cultural differences, so on..)

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[gEvil (beta)]

Not at all. I'm sure some of their knockoffs are probably better movies than the ones they're ripping off.

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[narfspoon]

http://icanhashappy.blogspot.com/2008/10/funny-chinese-knock-off-products.html

It's like having your very own Replicator.
Except it's not portable or fueled by dilithium crystals.
Instead, it's slower, more messy, employs millions of people, and takes up 38,560 sq. km.
I can't wait until Apple sells me one in 50 years!

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[narfspoon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[sortius_nod]

I bet their first expansion will be Flaming Crusades, and their second will be Wrath of the Zombie king.

Actually, no... considering that they removed all undead from WoW in China citing being offensive to Chinese culture, I don't think the second expansion will be called this.

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Deadfyre_Deadsoul]

Why not. The already have World of Walmart

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this is another case of "The Boy who cried wolf".
China really need to start learn how to earn trust from others or there will be more unintelligent naysayers who earn more trust than her.

Buh-bye gold farmers!

[GodfatherofSoul]

Haven't played in a while, but I didn't know about this. Now, hopefully the inflation hell that is gold farming will settle down prices and make it worth the time to farm.

Re:Buh-bye gold farmers!

[Camann]

This will not affect them at all. The version which was distributed by The9 was China only. The accounts and items/gold associated with them were not transferable to the US, EU, etc. servers.

The gold sellers always have and still will continue to play other versions of the game NOT distributed by The9 in order to water down the in-game economies in these other regions. So they're most likely pointing and laughing at The9. The gold sellers don't care.

Re:Buh-bye gold farmers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft

now i can go sell gold on their servers

how do you say "Thank you sir/madame for your support! low prices gold now at Yaoexpress.cn! Extra gold for yen special! thank much!" in china speak?

Re:Buh-bye gold farmers!

[Daravon]

American WoW in China has nothing to do with China in American Wow.

Dethroning WoW

[DreamsAreOkToo]

A lot of people have made the observation that it's basically impossible to raise the capital and perform the beta testing required to dethrone WoW. But all these factors aren't valid in China. Especially with their copyright laws. And the source code of WoW's servers...

Re:Dethroning WoW

[MLS100]

Where'd you get the idea they have the WoW server source code?

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

they did chinese language localization for WoW. they ran WoW servers on chinese hardware. they censored some parts of the story for WoW. they sent chinese programmers to the usa to custom fit parts of the story to chinese audiences. they were paid a shitload of money to partner on WoW. what makes you think they dont ?

Re:Dethroning WoW

[goodmanj]

they did chinese language localization for WoW

Localization that requires source code is bad localization.

they censored some parts of the story for WoW

Censors don't need to see the source.

they sent chinese programmers to the usa to custom fit parts of the story to chinese audiences

Story design that requires source code is bad story design.

Every US corporation that isn't led by total idiots has figured out that if you make your widget in China, six months from now you're going to be competing against the factories you outsourced to. So if you don't want to be shot with your own pistol, you'd best keep your trade secrets out of China.

Either that, or make a product with a 6-month lifetime. Blizzard, as it happens, does both. Paranoid control over IP, *plus* new expansions which render stolen IP obsolete.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[cheetah]

Mainly because you wouldn't need any source code to do any of the localization. Not to say they wouldn't have access to development tools built for WoW or that they wouldn't have a very good idea how the game was put together internally.

They might even be able to take the WoW engine and mod it heavily into a new game... but the core would still but the same under all of those changes. I doubt they could even change game mechanics. But maybe they don't want to... It would look like a new game but have the feel of WoW. Which might be just what they are looking to do.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

This all assumes that the coders:

1. Knew what good design was.
2. Weren't told to ship ASAP and screw 'design'.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Jugalator]

what makes you think they dont ?

That they aren't Blizzard Entertainment?

None of what you mentioned need source code, and would just introduce huge risks.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Narpak]

A lot of people have made the observation that it's basically impossible to raise the capital and perform the beta testing required to dethrone WoW.

Now Blizzard might have more capital than most; but I wouldn't underestimate the resources of Bioware and their partnership with LucasArts. Given speculating about how good Star wars - Old Republic will be is pure conjecture at this point; though if anyone is going to "dethrone" wow in any near future I reckon Bioware is as likely a candidate as any.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Yvanhoe]

If the Chinese company is willing to completely disregard IP laws, a good reverse engineering, a good hooking of the various needed libs, even if only in binary form, could provide them with enough tools to make such a game. They probably already have the tools to modify every graphical part, every text part and every story from the game. All they have to do is change some menu screens, some IP addresses and to make "different but oh so similar" models and textures in the inimitable Chinese style.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[mooglez]

This all assumes that the coders:

1. Knew what good design was.
2. Weren't told to ship ASAP and screw 'design'.

We are talking about Blizzard here, not a random software house.

they are famous for shipping late because they weren't happy enough with it yet.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[RiotingPacifist]

But all these factors aren't valid in China. Especially with their copyright laws. And the source code of WoW's servers...

Either they have seen the source code and may violate copyright laws (unlikely),
OR the haven't so all that cloning would violate are software patents (if blizzard even had any) which aren't valid many places outside the US!

Re:Dethroning WoW

[drinkypoo]

But first, someone would have to make a Star Wars game that doesn't suck, which hasn't been done since XvT. I say this as someone who spends many hours playing SW:BF II in spite of its many warts and limited play just because you get to do so much killin' and the play control is as good as it gets for a console FPS. Sure beats the living fuck out of Halo (incl. 2) in that regard.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Antidamage]

Why would you reverse-engineer WoW when you can simply write your own?

All these arguments intimate that WoW has something worth stealing other than look and feel. It doesn't.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Would not be surprised if they have the source code to the client as well.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Andy Dodd]

I think many people have things the other way around.

Content is king. Creating an alternative engine for existing artwork (and likely in WoW's case, scripted content) is a lot easier than creating new artwork from scratch for an existing engine.

Even if they don't have server/client engine source, the sorts of things The9 was doing would require them to have the *content* and that's far more important than the engine source most likely.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[jedidiah]

This is all especially funny considering the fact that WoW is ultimately a knockoff itself.

Nevermind the "pirates". You need to worry about the competing game studios.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[ildon]

Not to denigrate their programmers' skills, but in Blizzard's case the "shipping late because they're not happy with it" thing generally refers to gameplay, not necessarily to the portability or maintainability or extensibility or whatever of their code.

Granted, not having easily extensible code for an MMO would be pretty stupid, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard is not stupid.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[bezza]

Tie Fighter was better, and it came after!

Re:Dethroning WoW

[drinkypoo]

Now I have to look this up. I could have sworn it was X-Wing, Tie Fighter, XvT. ...

Oh, you are so owned.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060623025112/www.lucasarts.com/20th/history_2.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20060626090047/www.lucasarts.com/20th/history_3.htm

Re:Dethroning WoW

[stummies]

If you haven't played it, X-Wing Alliance is a great game. Yeah, same gameplay as XvT, but I thought it had a good story.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Daravon]

If this is true, I can finally play my Night Elf Mohawk on my Sorny computer system?

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the source basically is the object code? Most of the official server's logic, including quest, spell, creep and item scripting, is written in Lua 5.1 (just like the client's UI is).

Given Blizzard's crack legal team, however, and their incredible track record of scary legal successes, merely being in China may not, in fact, be enough to shield The9 if they actually were to try something like that!

Re:Dethroning WoW

[kyliaar]

Thank you.

For once a post that said exactly what I would said... only better.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[naubol]

I disagree that "content is king". Unless code == content.

No other RTS plays quite like Blizzard RTS's, and some of that has to do with code at least.

So much of how wow "plays" and how polished the mechanisms are has to do with excellent coding.

The best games have good artwork AND good code.

How do you think all that art gets animated and rendered, anyway?

N

Re:Dethroning WoW

[Nefarious Wheel]

Remember that the content, the artwork, lives mostly on the client. To run an MMORPG you're passing messages back and forth that essentially provide location and status such as keypresses. You're passing messages back and forth, not graphics (except during updates of course). So most (if not all) of the artwork is indeed generally available.

A terrible idea

[ShooterNeo]

This is about the worst idea a Chinese firm could have. It's one thing to knock off a physical good where you have access to the factory that makes the goods, and the manufacturing process is well understood. See knockoff chinese cars, watches, etc.

But, World of Warcraft is a gigantic software application. It probably has as many or more lines of code as any computer game ever created. It's been through years of testing and refinement, and has god knows how many hours invested into the artwork and graphics.

Recreating all that from scratch, even if you have a working example to clone, is a huge financial blunder and a waste of resources.

Note : I don't play WoW. My statements about it's internal complexity are based upon the fact that an MMORPG project is the biggest game project there is, with 5+ million lines of code. And WoW has a stupendously large budget, given the fact that the game charges customers over a billion dollars in subscription fees per year.

That's more money than any Hollywood movie has ever taken in.

One wonders what Blizzard does with it's cut of the revenue : in theory, they could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

really ? what makes you think they dont have access to the code ?
they used to run WoW SERVERS.

Re:A terrible idea

[magarity]

Remember that Chinese programmers can be hired for less than $400/month. The labor-hours part of your argument becomes worth a lot less after this factor is added in. And it doesn't have to be 100% as good as the real thing to steal a significant part of the customer base if priced accordingly.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders what Blizzard does with it's cut of the revenue : in theory, they could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.

Or they could — and this is entirely blue-sky thinking, mind you — use said revenue to develop a theoretical sequel to StarCraft, an obscure RTS they made a few years back.

And, unbeknown to many, Blizzard, back when they were a plucky, unknown company called "Blizzard Entertainment", put together a charming, though largely forgotten, duo of games under the "Diablo" name. Now, I know there's little chance you've heard of them (not many have), but from what I understand, they were sort of dungeon crawl games with online components. They DO have a small cult following, though, so maybe — just maybe — they could throw their loyal fans a bone and make a third game in the series.

Again, just wild, crazy ideas I've got.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You can download a "WoW SERVERS" off any torrent site. It's compiled code. Idiot.

Re:A terrible idea

[Kotoku]

I used to remember a Warcraft...but I had a whole bunch of little characters, and I ran the cities! I wonder if I'm thinking of something else...

Re:A terrible idea

[Unoti]

What you're saying is true. But do keep in mind that if everyone always did the reasonable, rational thing, we'd not get a lot of the progress we've made over time. For example, I could take what you wrote above, and substitute, say, OS/360 in there:

OS/360 is a gigantic software application. It probably has as many or more lines of code as any computer program ever created. It's been through years of testing and refinement, and has god knows how many hours invested into the [whatever]. Recreating all that from scratch, even if you have a working example to clone, is a huge financial blunder and a waste of resources.

It may be that it's a bad idea or a waste of resources. But just because there's something big and established doesn't automatically make it a bad idea to try to challenge it. There's an ebb and flow to everything, especially computer games. But there's even an ebb and flow to the power of nations. India, China, Russia, other places, are going to see a lot more time in the limelight in the future of technology. They're already having an impact in all kinds of areas that the US dominated exclusively just a decade ago and it seemed hard to imagine they'd be stepping out of the shadow of the US any time in our lifetimes. It's not so hard to imagine, now.

WoW is big and established, but one day it will, it must be, dethroned. It hasn't been that long since it seemed unthinkable that EQ could lose its throne..

Re:A terrible idea

[seifried]

Having a high volume of programmers won't necessarily result in a good product (or indeed any product at all). This isn't like building the 3 Gorges dam where you can overcome poor engineering and construction practices by simply using way more concrete.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that WoW is particularly huge based on lined of code. The quests basically all come from 1 template, the AI is non-existent and the whole thing is based on repetition. When playing, I get the feeling they're aiming at creating as much content as possible with as little coding as possible. Keeps the bugs down and speeds up content creation.

Same goes for the art too, actually. They're using plenty of color swaps and similar recycling methods.

Re:A terrible idea

[magarity]

Having any given number of programmers doesn't result in a good product; it is assumed there is proper project management in place if this copycat effort is a legitimate threat. Otherwise nevermind the entire article.

Re:A terrible idea

[Kumiorava]

I don't think WOW has any spectacular code in it, it's all about the game design, story, tools and polish. That's what makes knock offs appealing, the code is cheap compared to other aspects of the game project. Having example ready and being satisfied with minimal changes and feature reductions will make whole thing orders of magnitude easier.

When I was selling the game projects myself it was always hard to explain the customers that source code is not the most valuable asset. We needed to be able to reuse and redevelop the code, no point in making same simple algorithms or patterns over and over again or figure out "appendix" where pre-existing or reusable routines are listed. Game projects are all about the game design, audio, art, and the whole refinement of the project. With many genres we are already in a point where scripting and tools are the main code that is written. Very little engine development needs to be done, unless something differentiating on the engine front is needed.

Of course with WOW there is a lot of code and it's going to be hard to duplicate, but to focus on the code as the main asset is not necessarily true anymore...

Re:A terrible idea

[noundi]

Because they didn't download it from a torrent site, you fucking idiot. There's most likely a tool created by Blizzard to change localization and new stories or sieges or whatever. Stop being so fucking retarded but I guess even you figured out you were when posting as AC, people don't hand out code left and right, even though they should.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

ha, try telling that to microsoft!

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That is most likely MangOS which is a reverse engineered WoW client/server. However, it would be a great place to start. It's surprisingly complete and playable and actively developed.

Re:A terrible idea

[loutr]

Have you played WotLK ? They introduced "phasing" (zones change to reflect what you have accomplished during previous quests), and lots of quests are really different from the "kill X mobs" / "gather Y items" quests. And they also introduced vehicle fights.

I agree that WoW doesn't have the most original or complex gameplay, but they really did try to enhance it for Wrath.

Re:A terrible idea

[hey!]

I'm not sure that the kind of things you can determine from an extremely detailed familiarity with the system behavior are so worthless.

The biggest expense in any really complicated project is either (a) effort expended on things you don't need or (b) effort expended to get things you overlooked done by yesterday. Having a punch list containing exactly the things that need to be done is a huge money saver. I've never played WoW, but I doubt there's anything particularly special about the AI or physics simulations or anything like that. If there were, knowing that it was there and necessary would be a big help.

After that you need artistic talent. Where would a country with 1.3 billion people and an undervalued currency find that? I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of value to be found in just re-skinning the old game concepts in an artistically exotic way. I was watching one of my kids play one of those Link games, and was surprised (I guess I shouldn't have been) to see Japanese ukiyo-e influenced art elements.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the market in China would pay substantially less for the nockoff vs the western original product. Sure it costs less to make, sure the quality will be worse, but the killers is the lower level of possible income. It's economy of scale. This whole thing just stinks of Chinese posturing. Always scared shitless of losing face. Wonder what they did to piss Blizzard off.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

They could modify MaNGOS: the open source MMORPG server (http://getmangos.com), add their own WOW like content based on UDB (http://udbforums.org/index.php?topic=5298.0), and release a compatible client. That would be the hard part but definitely doable.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"the AI is non-existent"

How about you try programming pathfinding around multiple corners (it's many orders of magnitude harder than simple homing), a threat system capable of handling hundreds of enemies and a half dozen boss abilities? Just because it's not the strategic thinking chess-playing type of AI does not mean it's anywhere near easy.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you seriously underestimate the innovative abilities of the Chinese programmers.
You also don't know enough math to know the sheer number of programmers out there that are Chinese and can code circles around the other programmers.
Once the Chinese programmers engage themselves into some effort, they can create the equivalent of the WOW in a short while.

Also some people say "never rewrite from scratch". That's nonsense. Great designers are not afraid of tearing up anything and starting from scratch because they know they are great designers.

Re:A terrible idea

[jsegal205]

I agree, but why reinvent the wheel?

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to remember...

I think I forgot what you were trying to say.

Re:A terrible idea

[garylian]

I would think that some older and more established MMOs would have quite a bit more lines of code than WoW. EQ comes to mind, with 14 expansions released, probably has more code. EQ2 may have more, since there has been more expansions released for it. Lineage II has been around for a long time and has had quite a few expansions. And there are plenty of Asian style MMOs out there that have had numerous expansions. And Vanguard, for all its crappiness, is a huge game.

I don't have the latest EQ2 expansion installed on my PC, since I stopped playing before it came out, and it takes up 9.5GB on my HD. WoW is sitting at 15.9GB right now, but well over 2GB of that is old patch files that don't seem to delete themselves after being applied, and there may be more that I haven't deleted manually elsewhere. By c ontrast, my Vanguard install (that hasn't been patched in more than a year now) that never had a box expansion, is at 18.7GB.

You have to remember that WoW is designed to run on a fairly low end machine. The graphics are pretty tame, not being much advanced over EQ's graphics these days, and they certainly don't require a powerful graphics card. It's one of the reasons the game is so popular. People don't have to upgrade their PCs to play it. Just about any stock PC will play WoW fine.

Don't assume that because the most people play the game, it has the most code. It just appeals to the most people.

Re:A terrible idea

[ROBOKATZ]

Of course -- and I realize you're being sarcastic -- they are doing what you say, AND their job postings have made it clear they are also working on a "next-gen" MMO.

Re:A terrible idea

[otomoton]

Why would they even need MangOs? They already have the *real* server side software, not an emulated approximation.

Re:A terrible idea

[sabt-pestnu]

And all this while maintaining their compatibility - in at least the original content areas - with the hardware they originally wrote it for. Hardware that is grossly out of date today. (I should know, I have some of it...)

Other companies (*cough* NCSoft *cough*) have made changes that make the game very much less playable with the original hardware specs. It'll *run*, but performance sucks.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can run your own WoW server using one of a couple freely available open source packages. Google for 'mangos'.

As a lark I setup a server at home, worked great. Had complete quest database, decent set of tools already available.. And it worked with existing clients without any modifications.

For someone to make this a commercial venture isn't a terrible idea in terms of implementation -- that work has already been done. It's a terrible idea legally in terms of intellectual property, but China hasn't exactly been the steward of IP rights that the US has been..

Re:A terrible idea

[sabt-pestnu]

In the end, "lines of code" bears little resemblance to anything of any real interest.

A lot of modern MMOs are media - sound, pictures, scripts to make things go. You compare Vanguard, EQ2, and WoW, but include the amount of space taken up by the media.

You compare various games by the number of expansions. (A little Yoda voice runs through my head: "Expansions do not make one great".) But an expansion that contains "a new region, and the population and quests and all that go with it" could be almost entirely scripted, conceivably. A different expansion could add a major change to how the game handles things without adding new content. (City of Heroes "ragdoll physics" comes to mind.)

You make a more useful comparison ("Vanguard is ...a huge game"), though. I think features are a much more interesting comparison than simply "lines of code".

Code can be loose or concise, well written or poorly written, maintainable or not. All of which affect the "lines of code" without necessarily affecting functionality. "Lines of code" can be "wasted" on a small feature that nobody cares about; or a very few "lines of code" could have a critical impact on (eg) whether your latency was 100ms or 850ms.

I agree, though, that WoW has done a spectacular job of restraining itself so that the hardware that originally ran it can still run very nearly everything it could originally. (Allow me to regale you, some time, with my stories of Alterac Valley on dialup...) Not all companies have managed that trick, and most require beefier hardware than WoW does.

Re:A terrible idea

[naubol]

Properly written code is a compendium of solutions to small problems. If a problem is well solved, why try to solve that problem again? This is why coders push for abstraction, generics, templates, etc. A major point is to be able to rip out the common required solutions to common problems and with possibly a little refactoring adapt it to your new project.

Re:A terrible idea

[brkello]

You are obviously not a programmer. Just the UI alone is going to be a huge number of lines of code, just because they made it so modable. Let's just take the effects of food for example. Eating food can make you huge, make you tiny, turn you in to a skeleton/whelp/etc, make you spit fire, make you vomit, make you shoot fireworks, and even make you drunk (blurring your screen, making you unable to run in a straight line, and effecting the text you type). That alone would be many many lines of code. The core game mechanics, net code, server distribution code, database code is going to be easily millions of lines of code.

I know Slashdot likes to bash WoW. But bash it about the grind, the addictiveness, the boringness or something legitimate. WoW probably has more lines of code than almost any application in existence. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

"World of Fight"

[nomadic]

You know, when you translate phrases from other languages you're allowed to make them grammatically sound. World of Fighting would have, presumably, the same meaning but actually not sound quite as ridiculous in English.

Re:"World of Fight"

[weegiekev]

You know, when you translate phrases from other languages you're allowed to make them grammatically sound. World of Fighting would have, presumably, the same meaning but actually not sound quite as ridiculous in English.

They translated it into Chinglish for the local market

Re:"World of Fight"

[jaxtherat]

What, you mean like Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon#Unauthorised_Chinese_Harry_Potter_books

Re:"World of Fight"

[SEWilco]

Well, someone's likely to end up in court with a world of pain.

Sucks to be Blizzard...

[Jeian]

... 'cause given the current state of copyright law in China, I'm pretty sure the Chinese government/legal system ain't gonna give a damn.

Re:Sucks to be Blizzard...

[Anonymous Coward]

All Blizzard can do is cry. Importing technology and then simply copying it is a long standing chinese tradition.

A recently launched browser online strategy game comes to mind, that borrowed (read: copied) graphics from at least one strategy game.

Re:Sucks to be Blizzard...

[American Terrorist]

This doesn't matter unless they make the game actually fun to play. Will Chinese people be willing to pay the few cents per hour they currently pay for WoW for a shitty Chinese knock-off? I doubt it.

Re:Sucks to be Blizzard...

[Dunbal]

The Chinese interpretation of copyright is "you have the right to copy"...

Re:Sucks to be Blizzard...

[RiotingPacifist]

How is cloning software a violation of copyright? or should OO.o developers be sued for violating ms copyright on producing an office suite that works with ms docs?

I'm confused!

[Anonymous Coward]

We know World of Warcraft is a knock-off of other MMOs! And Warcraft itself is a Warhammer knockoff!

Yet Warhammer Online is a WOW knockoff.

And Warhammer fantasy is what, a D&D knockoff?

But wait, isn't D&D online a knockoff?

Ack! I'm confused by all the inbreeding!

Re:I'm confused!

[binarylarry]

Well then, why aren't you complaining to your mom, dad, aunt and uncle, instead of bitching at us on Slashdot.

Re:I'm confused!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, why aren't you complaining to your mom, dad, aunt and uncle, instead of bitching at us on Slashdot.

Because they don't never come down in the basement no more. :-(

Good, then we can get Pandaren

[Kenja]

If Blizzard pulls out of china we can finally get pandaren in the game, sounds good to me.

Re:Good, then we can get Pandaren

[Praseodymn]

Panda ren.. only after learning to speak Chinese do I finally get it.

The Chinese spot fakes better than anyone

[Praseodymn]

and those kids won't play a fake WoW.

Re:The Chinese spot fakes better than anyone

[Gutboy]

Of course they won't. Who would buy the gold they are farming?

What the...?

[Bottoms]

WOF? World of Fail - "were u cum 2 farm teh gLOLdz"

Ooh!

[Greyfox]

I can't wait to create a character over there to farm and sell glod* all day and night! Time to pop out and buy an English to Not-Quite-Mandarin phrase book!

* The World of Fight currency

Re:Ooh!

[Anonymous Coward]

glod

No no, it's grod!

Re:Ooh!

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

That sounds like as much fun as if everything you touch turns to Glod.

Never rewrite from scratch. Never.

[CuteSteveJobs]

> Blizzard ... could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.

As Joel Spolsky points out, the worst mistake a software company can make is to rewrite software from scratch. There used to be argument that new code was better code because the programmers were building on what they learned from their first version. But in practice, old code is *tested* *working* code, far superior to new and untested. (Ever debugged? Argh!) Plus writing from scratch risks burning out your experienced developers aka "Boss, it's time for me to find a new challenge". A better idea is to incrementally enhance the code over time. In ten years you wouldn't recognize it anyway, and it'd be far better than any Wow 2 written from scratch could be.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

Re:Never rewrite from scratch. Never.

[ShooterNeo]

Maybe not a "empty compiler window" rewrite, but a major fork that stayed in closed developement for a couple years. Enough to advance the graphics system to near photorealistic levels, revamp the AI, etc.

How is this news?

[Opportunist]

This just in, yet another MMO mimicking WoW in the making. Film at 11.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in, yet another MMO mimicking WoW in the making. Film at 11.

Which stole the idea from Everquest.

Yes, yes.

[Cheney]

But will the

Re:Yes, yes.

[rob1980]

Well that's certainly an interesting

OpenOffice.org vs. KC Munchkin

[tepples]

How is cloning software a violation of copyright? or should OO.o developers be sued for violating ms copyright on producing an office suite that works with ms docs?

At least under United States law, there's a difference. Functional software like OpenOffice.org appears to fall cleanly under Lotus v. Borland. For entertainment works, on the other hand, U.S. precedents are mixed: KC Munchkin for Odyssey 2 (clone of Namco's Pac-Man) was ruled infringing, but Data East's Fighter's History (clone of Capcom's Street Fighter II) wasn't. And I expect U.S. law to come into play once The9 tries to attract U.S. customers.

Re:OpenOffice.org vs. KC Munchkin

[edremy]

Why would The9 care about US customers? The majority of WoW's playerbase is in Asia anyway, and there are plenty of Asian MMORPGs with high subscriber numbers that aren't even on the US radar. They'll have plenty of customers merely by stripping out chunks of that and then they'll never have to worry about IP laws, trademarks or any of those annoying Western concepts like ideas having value.

But... But...

[KefkaZ]

Who will farm their gold?

Awesome! \:D/

[Anonymous Coward]

How much will it cost per month?

Since QuakeLive is for free and fun I don't see myself paying much money for online games anymore...

And will non-chinese also be able to play it?

What about KungFu moves? :D

Another 'WoW Killer' in the works?

[Drakkenmensch]

Good luck with that. It's worked so well in the past for everyone whose games I've seen land in the discount clearance bin shortly before the servers shut down for good.

The first rule...

[GPLDAN]

Come on, Slashdot!

The first rule of World of Fight is that nobody talks about World of Fight.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard is smart about this

[The Analog Kid]

Since they went so hard after Glider in the US. I'm pretty sure they realize that going into a joint venture with a Chinese company leaves them open to be totally screwed if they decide to leave them. It's happened many times with other companies. The Chinese don't recognize US intellectual property, and government officals are easily bribed to look the other way.

Clone wars...

[Anonymous Coward]

All these MMOs are clones of J.R. Tolkien's world, who used to be racist, then recanted. Just thought I'd add in the racist part.

Yeah, and?

[StikyPad]

Still others have noticed the huge similarity between EQ/WoW/DAoC/AC/CoH/CoV/D&DO/FFXI/GW/LotRO/SWG/WAR ad nauseum. Many have proposed categorizing these "games" in some sort of genre.