Name 5 original concepts within world of warcraft

[vesseblah]

As for listing 5 original concepts, I find that really difficult. I mean, Arthas and his story was the most original, imo (even though it followed rather closely to King Arthur and the Holy Grail in terms of "concept").

Arthas follows Hamlet in many important elements. Wayward prince's journey of revenge, corruption and fall into madness after murder of the king. Just the killer is different in Shakespeare's version.

[Kathranis]

Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance, the Morgaine Stories, Marvel's Thor, and the Lovecraft Mythos are probably the biggest influences on the Warcraft setting as a whole.

Although the modern fantasy genre as a whole has roots in Norse mythology, filtered through Tolkien's works, Warcraft really draws the majority of its inspiration directly from those settings.

The setting's originality mainly comes from Blizzard reimagining pretty much everything they put into the game. They don't really just lift things wholesale from other settings, but rather take the core concept and rework it to suit the Warcraft setting.

Probably the biggest thing they've done in this regard is to incorporate real world cultures into those of the various races in the setting, such that orcs were given a strong Mongolian influence while the tauren had a native American influence, and so on.

This is also applied to their architecture and overall design. The blood elves, for example, are pretty much the standard high elf trope, with a bit of dark elf thrown in, but their architecture has an obvious Arabic flair that makes them seem far more unique. The night elves, on the other hand, are a mix of wood elf and dark elf tropes, and received a mixture of Korean and Norse influences, with parallels to the myths of the Amazons and druids.

As these concepts are tied together and woven into the lore, they create a massive setting with a world which is quite unique, despite featuring all the typical fantasy tropes.

You see the same thing with the creature designs. Pretty much every creature in WoW is based on mythological creatures or pulled from a D&D monster manual, but very rarely do they actually resemble the source material beyond the core concept. The Tol'vir are a good example, obviously based on sphynxes, but given a unique centaur-like appearance that makes them look and feel more original.

[Cammancy]

it looks like the god Tiamat in D&D only thing differe is the blue head. Tiamat mat had 5 heads Red/Gold/White/Black/Green

---------- Post added 2012-07-15 at 07:01 PM ----------

Every Themed Fantasy game evermade can thank D&D the original fantasy rpg that started in the 1950's if not a bit earlyer.

<Rubs brow>

Chromatus isn't a god. He's a dragon made from the sewn up heads of other dragonflight corpses, animated with a spark from the Eye of Eternity (I think, I don't have his page open) He's a giant unstoppable, raging pile of corpses. They never actually really killed him, because a foul magic is keeping his body from being destroyed, and he's currently in stasis.

If that's not 'original' then I give up entirely on this thread.

[vesseblah]

Chromatus

This is Tiamat from AD&D... They could be twins...



And she's based on Scylla (six-headed sea monster) from Odysseia, some 3000 years ago.

[tohyatvc]

5. Chromaggus

... Is a reference to Chrono Trigger.
http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Magus#Magus_as_a_Boss

Not just in name, but the fact that he indicates his weakness during the fight, that shifts.

[Chonar]

Hee, see its not that easy to come up with original concepts within world of warcraft thats not come before.

I'm waiting for the point.

Every story in existance is a reimagining of an older story, of even an older story, of even an OLDER story, of some experience a tribal shaman had while eating hallucinogenic berries.

The trick is to keep telling it in newer and more exciting ways.

[SmokeBlader]

Faction favoritism

Can't think of anything else original in a fantasy setting.

[Uldreth]

Pretty hard to find original stuff in anything these days.

As such I don't think there is much originality in warcraft, we have most Tolkienian and Lovecraftian cliches here as well as the universe itself is heavily based on WH40K however I think it is itself a bit original how they adapted WH40K to a bit different setting if it makes any sense.

Still a few things (I'm pretty sure most of these was said by others but meh):

-Orcs being "good". I am pretty sure Warcraft did that first. We already had alien and not-so-mindless Orks in WH40K but they were still a very aggressive and belligerent species that is not even similiar to the "nobility" of orcs in Warcraft.

-Trolls. I don't think we have similiar trolls in any other fantasy universe.

-Undead. Not the general concept but the way the forsaken are. I won't say "good" since they arent really "good" by our definition but they aren't mindless zombies or mindless zombies controlled by a superior intelligence.

-Integration of magic and technology. Not necessarily a super new concept, I am pretty sure we can find a few other examples of this, one of them being WH40K which is also a science fantasy setting, BUT WH40K is more sci-fi than fantasy while Warcraft is more fantasy than sci-fi. Like some other user said, magic here is being more of a science than a supernatural thing and those Naaru stuff (magical spaceships) and the setting of "fantasy in space and across multiple planets" seems pretty original to me. MAYBE it is possible to bring examples of others doing this before warcraft but this is far from a milked fantasy cliché.

-Eredar. I think the concept of the main demons emerging from a spiritually "pure" species but also retaining the existence of that pure species that even look identical to the demons except their skin color is a rather unique trait.


By the way, does anyone else besides me think that the Naaru might be based off the Vorlons of Babylon 5? (B5 spoilers might follow)

I mean, the concept of beings of light is hardly a new one even for B5 but the way they are seems very similiar.
Both are very manipulative species that achieve that by appearing as beings of purity to "lesser species", in case of the Naaru, as the source of Light and in case of the Vorlons, as angels that seem benevolent and altruistic and want to unite the "lesser species" into an army of light against a common enemy (Burning Legion and the Shadows respectively).

The only difference is that the Naaru have not shown a sinister side yet while the Vorlons were a bit spooky even during the very beginning of the series (Threatening the station with destruction if they don't give out Sinclair in the pilot, destroying Deathwalker's ship, etc.) and then in season 4 they take an almost 180° turn and so do the Shadows and further twists.
Hell, they even namedropped Valen in the form of Velen (very similair figures).

[Magemaerlimi]

WoW in itself. And 12million subs.