When Tencent announced Tarisland back in January, just as World of Warcraft was being yanked offline in China, just about everyone, including us, called it a WoW clone, and not necessarily in a negative way. It was aping WoW so hard it actually made older WoW clones like Runes of Magic or Allods Online look that much more innocent. The first gameplay trailer looked exactly like classic settings in WoW: Teldrassil, loping sabre cats, dirigibles, dragons, and even some of the same voice actors used for WoW China. At least in terms of setting, it’s frankly the cloniest clone we’ve ever seen, apart from the literal rip-offs that Blizzard tends to sue into the ground.
“[W]atching that trailer makes me think Tencent figured out exactly where the legally actionable line for a company of its size would be and then danced right up to that line, like your brother in the backseat of a long car ride edging closer to you while announcing he isn’t technically on your side,” MOP’s Eliot quipped.
But Tencent is still insisting that it’s not a clone in the literal or figurative sense of the term as used by MMORPG players.
“Tarisland is an original MMORPG with a fresh IP,” Tencent producer Yangmin told VG247 in a brief interview this week. “Whether it’s in terms of narrative content, gameplay experience, or commercial design, we are committed to delivering a completely new gaming experience. Currently, the game is still in its early stages, and there may be significant adjustments before the final version is released. We ask for your patience as we aim to deliver more exciting original content to our players.”
Tarisland should not actually still be in its “early stages” at this point as the game is currently in a global closed beta with a plan to launch later this year.
Tencent also says that the timing of the original trailer back in January – three days after the NetEase/Blizzard sunset – was coincidental. “We had already planned to issue the trailer at that time,” Yangmin says.
