Why not make a MMO EXACTLY like World of Warcraft?

I was reading Openedge’s comments about Lord of the Rings Online, and remembering claims by a Turbine exec that LotRO was destined to overtake and surpass WoW, which seems unlikely to me. A EA exec thinks WAR will be huge. Everyone thinks the magic formula is to copy WoW, then change something to make it different.

People claim other MMOs don’t get a lot of traction unless they more or less copy WoW.

Why not go all the way, and make an exact copy? Oh, change the names of the races and the models and anything that is copyrighted, trademarked or patented, but otherwise, make it identical. Identical enough so that all WoW add-ons work with it. Identical enough so that even if Hunter becomes Tracker, they still do all the same things.

Blatant, unashamed copying.

Happens in the real world, all the time. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, all as identical as they can be, right down to the trays. The path to success is not by being different, but by being a 100% compatible drop-in replacement.

WoW players no longer have to wonder, with these games, if they will like it. It’s the same thing. They KNOW they will. Just with different looking toons, areas which are a little different (but not too different), lore which is pretty much what they are used to.

Maybe the problem with WoW-likes isn’t that they are similar to WoW, but that they aren’t similar ENOUGH.