Is Warcraft a "ripoff" of Warhammer?

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Yeah I'm sorry EQ doesn't have better graphics.

EQ2 does have better graphics and especially physics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dGnXoug8yE

Advance mode in EQ2 for graphic customization is so comprehensive no other MMO comes close to it, too. You can pick between CPU or even GPU shadows (I prefer CPU shadows as they look more life like). Shader 3.0. And a host of other options, complete with slider bars for fine control...right down to how many particle effects per scene.

[Budong]

For me its semantics. Highly inspired = ripoff. But then again, English is not my primary language, perhaps I am lost in the field of precise definitions.

Your grasp of the English language is just fine. As with most things Blizzard has done, they took a good idea and made it better. Call it what you will, Blizzard calls it a constantly ringing cash register

[Kevyne-Shandris]

if wow didnt have much of a community then how are we all on mmo champion O-O

Probably banned from the WoW forums like too many of us. lol

[Kurioxan]

the look of icecrowns buildings and walls are very similiar to lotr

That is because after a while Blizzard realized that they could get out with inserting a lot of real life references and transformed WoW into World of Pop References, WoPR in short.

If _any_ other company pulled the amount of blatant stealing of intellectual ideas they would be torched, imagine if it had been EA to do it instead of blizzard, pitchforks would have sold out.

[Deleted]

No, he's claiming WOW didn't have huge marketing when it started.

After a little bit of googling I found out that while WoW didn't have a huge marketing in the west until later, it did have very big marketing in China, when the game launched it there. And in China is where it had most of it's popularity, even then.

But still, an other thing to mention is that Warcraft is a brand, and it was already a very successful brand when WoW launched. So that might have helped "a little". Frozen Throne had sold 5 million copies at 2006 (Yes I know WoW launched 2004, but I couldn't find other figures apart from it having passed 1 million at 2002)

And before burning crusade they really started having it here in the west too.

I think the whole notion of a game having good launch sales based on how good the game is, is a bit of an oxymoron. Since launch sales are based on pre-orders and of course the actual launch sales, but in neither case will most of the audience have actually been able to test the game. You can argue about reviews, but even those can be seen as marketing, seeing how there have been many cases of corrupt reviewers.

[Kurioxan]

Your grasp of the English language is just fine. As with most things Blizzard has done, they took a good idea and made it better. Call it what you will, Blizzard calls it a constantly ringing cash register

highly subjective... warhammer universe is beyond warcraft's by orders of magnitude, lore wise, size wise, scale wise, time wise and so forth :P
Warcraft background is nice and cute, imagine harry potter vs tolkien, both are good, but one is targeted at younger crowds and so is far more simple and straightforward, the other has far more complexity and depth.

To poster above:
Yeah, Blizzard was always a mid sized company, their success was due solely to WoW really, warcraft/starcraft sales werent that impressive till a few years ago, up to then it was a medium company made by nerds who love games making games for other nerds who love games, theeen it became this "thing" we now know and sadly slowly turning into another EA *sighs*

[Pull My Finger]

It still has a community.

In all of WoW's 10million players the game feels like being in NYC, and just as soulless. EQ2? I didn't even start the game alone, as soon as I stepped off the boat and got my first quest, had a player mentor by my side. Helped me with my first weapon and even crate, then stayed until I learned the mechanics (about 17 levels).

THAT'S a community.

Any Taliban training camp has a tighter community and feels less "soulless" than a Walmart, if you know what I'm getting at.

[Stir]

EQ2 does have better graphics and especially physics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dGnXoug8yE

Advance mode in EQ2 for graphic customization is so comprehensive no other MMO comes close to it, too. You can pick between CPU or even GPU shadows (I prefer CPU shadows as they look more life like). Shader 3.0. And a host of other options, complete with slider bars for fine control...right down to how many particle effects per scene.

I mean you no offense, but the models in EQ (after seeing that video) really, réálly aren't as good as those of WoW. It's all far more low-poly, it attempts realism (which is always a mistake, because the human brain triggers more drastically on something that attempts realism than it does on something that doesn't, causing the so-called 'uncanny valley' effect), and its textures are much, much sharper.

So: No; not by a long shot.

[Giants41]

Rip off? Nope. Borrowed ideas? Yes.

[Budong]

highly subjective... warhammer universe is beyond warcraft's by orders of magnitude, lore wise, size wise, scale wise, time wise and so forth :P
Warcraft background is nice and cute, imagine harry potter vs tolkien, both are good, but one is targeted at younger crowds and so is far more simple and straightforward, the other has far more complexity and depth.

To poster above:
Yeah, Blizzard was always a mid sized company, their success was due solely to WoW really, warcraft/starcraft sales werent that impressive till a few years ago, up to then it was a medium company made by nerds who love games making games for other nerds who love games, theeen it became this "thing" we now know and sadly slowly turning into another EA *sighs*

By better I'm talking from a purely business perspective. I would never accuse Blizzard of being highly creative. Opportunistic creative scavengers maybe but not highly creative

Saying this, I do love the lore of the Warcraft universe but I think it could be managed in a more courageous manner.

[Elgand]

EQ2 does have better graphics and especially physics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dGnXoug8yE

Advance mode in EQ2 for graphic customization is so comprehensive no other MMO comes close to it, too. You can pick between CPU or even GPU shadows (I prefer CPU shadows as they look more life like). Shader 3.0. And a host of other options, complete with slider bars for fine control...right down to how many particle effects per scene.

Every single post regarding Everquest and WoW was talking about Everquest, not Everquest 2. Why are you now comparing EQ2 to WoW? Even if you do compare the two, you also need to compare load times, and prevelance of loading. These are all technical portions of the comparison, but WoW's nearly seemless environments easily won me over vs EQ2's 4 load times to simply run through the primary city.

Kinda a side note, EQ2 was and is a decent looking game, but the hardware available to play it when it came out was not nearly up to the task at hand. I still have the CE silver box sitting on my shelf, and it has sat there since WoW launched. Intelligent coding with minimal load times > better graphics that run horribly everytime for me. Maybe i'd like it more now, but GW2 is just too enjoyable atm.

[skulmar]

Technically correct.

Up until the early-mid 90's Tyranids fielded counts as weaponry that was considered biological, but they lacked the overall look and feel currently associated with both them and the Zerg.

I'm willing to admit I was a bit too vehement in my earlier statement.

Early concept work for the Zerg happened in '95 and '96. The mosern Tyranids appeared in a similar fashion at roughly the same time.

Tyranids had a consistent look from Advanced Space Crusade (1990) through the third edition Tyranid Codex (2001). This means the designs predated Starcrafts earliest development by well over half a decade. I would however, not say they are original, as they are clearly inspired by Gieger's Alien.

[Shiki]

highly subjective... warhammer universe is beyond warcraft's by orders of magnitude, lore wise, size wise, scale wise, time wise and so forth :P
Warcraft background is nice and cute, imagine harry potter vs tolkien, both are good, but one is targeted at younger crowds and so is far more simple and straightforward, the other has far more complexity and depth.

This line of thinking... it just flat out doesn't work. One could easily turn that around and say that, and I know this is a purely subjective statement, but that the rather encyclopedic and verbose elements of Tolkien's work is the reason why the writing in the Lord of the Rings blows total ass in comparison to most highly appreciated works of literature. Anyone who would argue that Tolkien was better at spinning the written word than J.K. Rowling would be totally insane. Was he more innovative? Sure. Influential? Probably. Smarter? Maybe. A better or even equal writer? Never.

Mellville described good writing as being like an iceberg -- where you only see the 10% or so that is the tip, with the 90% never actually being stated outright. And I agree with him. It gives verisimilitude to the story in a way that 4000 pages of what the hobbits had for tea and who the previous kings of men were. Just because someone threw an asston of often irrelevant details into a story doesn't mean that it's better for those details. And the same can be said for both LotR and Warhammer.

And, despite its flaws, the fact that the Lord of the Rings didn't become a truly popular franchise until someone who had a really good idea of storytelling boiled it down to Peter Jackson's trilogy of movies serves as evidence of this. I don't think very many people would have appreciated the non-existant extended cut where the first movie lasted 8 hours and consisted mostly of some retarded leprechaun singing and hobbits eating huge meals at the Shire.

It should also be noted that Tolkien was, in some ways, attempting to create a fictional mythology much like that which already existed historically. He loved history, and wasn't exactly trying to create a flawless literary masterpiece. And I love the Lord of the Rings and Warhammer both far more than Warcraft or Harry Potter. But that's probably at least partially because I grew up immersed in the former, not the latter.

tl;dr: The complexity and depth in Warhammer and LotR don't really add as much as you think. And you should be careful when you try to denigrate things for being targeted at younger audiences. There are a lot of people who'd laugh you straight out of the building for thinking Warhammer and LotR are "adult" oriented or "mature" in any way.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I mean you no offense, but the models in EQ (after seeing that video) really, réálly aren't as good as those of WoW. It's all far more low-poly, it attempts realism (which is always a mistake, because the human brain triggers more drastically on something that attempts realism than it does on something that doesn't, causing the so-called 'uncanny valley' effect), and its textures are much, much sharper.

So: No; not by a long shot.

You don't understand EQ2's graphic system at all. It has much more polys than WoW's models.

Check that video more closely. Every rock and object isn't some baked on texture (so seen now). The same with the sand textures. The texturing is all polys. It's very real looking, especially if you're upclose to those objects to see actual environmental bump mapping (not the fake variety).

The other things are the animations which includes the quirks of lifelike motion, for example...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU11eS4Fjsc

WoW has it w-a-y too smooth, when folks do get unbalanced in roadhouse kicks.

I prefer realism over Day-Glo anime style. As others prefer realism of the Dutch masters like Rembrandt over the Impressionism of Van Gogh.

---------- Post added 2012-12-24 at 02:43 AM ----------

Every single post regarding Everquest and WoW was talking about Everquest, not Everquest 2. Why are you now comparing EQ2 to WoW? Even if you do compare the two, you also need to compare load times, and prevelance of loading. These are all technical portions of the comparison, but WoW's nearly seemless environments easily won me over vs EQ2's 4 load times to simply run through the primary city.

Because EQ2 and WoW were released 2 weeks apart. Comparing WoW to EQ is like comparing Warcraft to WoW. It's a different generation of the game, not only in graphics the direction of it's design.

I didn't mind the load times, because unlike WoW EQ2 had good music while waiting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SB9fdUpA4Y

A game with it's own theme song...who would've thought that!

[THoyt]

I love some of the game vs game comments, even-though that's not what we're talking about.

The Warhammer Fantasy is decades old and astronomically huge, far, far bigger than the Warcraft Universe. The original Warcraft story started with a nearly direct rendition of Warhammer, and there's a reason for that. At one point in time, Warcraft was supposed to be an extension of the WH Fantasy. Yes, at Warcrafts core, it's a undeniable "ripoff" of the Warhammer Fantasy.

Blizzard isn't the only group that played off the Warhammer Fantasy though.

[Lemons]

You don't understand EQ2's graphic system at all. It has much more polys than WoW's models.

Check that video more closely. Every rock and object isn't some baked on texture (so seen now). The same with the sand textures. The texturing is all polys. It's very real looking, especially if you're upclose to those objects to see actual environmental bump mapping (not the fake variety).

The other things are the animations which includes the quirks of lifelike motion, for example...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU11eS4Fjsc

WoW has it w-a-y too smooth, when folks do get unbalanced in roadhouse kicks.

I prefer realism over Day-Glo anime style. As others prefer realism of the Dutch masters like Rembrandt over the Impressionism of Van Gogh.

You don't know jack about 3D graphics dude...no one...NO ONE...textures a rock with "all polys"...that would take too much computing power to render in real time, even for today's computers. The rocks I saw in that vid are simple 3D models with a texture slapped onto them just like in WoW, maybe with some bump mapping to make them appear bumpy (I couldn't see too well in that low-quality vid).

[Kurioxan]

snip

Good lord, what an interesting response and odd triggered reaction.
Do notice i meant depth and lore wise, it has far more back story, substance and things to grab.
I mentioned nothing about who was a better writer, who had a better story.

And i did not denigrate anything, that was your own interpretation.

And im sorry but HP is geared towards younger people, does not mean that it cannot have the same or better quality than products geared towards adults, never said that, but they do have different target audiences which do change the type of writing.

There is nothing wrong with 8 hours of singing hobbits, but what you can do in a book isnt what you can do in a movie, so ofc they would cut it (they cut Tom after all, yet I personally feel he was an important character to show how something so important to so many is of no importance to others, gives perspective)

While i love harry potter, i also know that you can see the quality of the books grow as later editions are done.
First 2, perhaps 3 books were written in a very basic and sometimes repetitive way, it much improved later on.

"Harry grabs a stone
Harry throws a stone
Harry's stone hits voluptuous howling banshee in the boob
harry is running away from the voluptous howling banshee"

See, THAT i would understand if you considered denigrative, and yet it is not meant as such.
Every style of writing has its own merit, the intent of storytelling is to (duh me) tell a story, as long the means in which it is told are understood, it is a success.
Dont understand why you had to bring "X is better" to the conversation

[Kivimetsan]

Well actually Blizzard's WC1 was intended to be for Warhammer, but the deal fell through and they had a game, so they just changed some shit and vwallllaaaaaaa we have Warcraft. True story.

[Boogums]

Just saying, I don't see panda people in Warhammer. BOOM.

[Verdugo]

Just saying, I don't see panda people in Warhammer. BOOM.

Thats propably because they went extinct in such harsh environment. Not even worth mentioning.