Reinvention: North Lordaeron

[Pinkley]

E wait for it.... pic.

[Retrogames]

http://www.wowwiki.com/Northeron sorry to burst your bubble

I'm more than aware of what WoWWiki says should be in that location, but that information is non-canonical at best. In fact, one of the maps in that article shows Northeron existing southeast of Quel'thalas, between what is now the Ghostlands and Eastern Plaguelands, on the complete opposite side of the peninsula.

Sorry for necroposting but i had to say my opinion on this as author of the linked work.

First, thanks for posting your thoughts.

I want to clarify a few things in response to your post, especially since it seems like you're misinterpreting my statement. My comment about private servers being unethical is just that; private servers aren't officially sanctioned by Blizzard, so in a way it's like taking their work and editing it. I don't actually object to fan-made creations (it would be especially hypocritical of me considering this thread), though I do have qualms about hacking games and such. As someone who would someday like to design games of my own, in truth I would be upset that other people were tinkering with my work without my permission. That said, you're free to do what you want as long as it's not illegal, it just happens to be my opinion that private servers are somewhat disrespectful to the authors.

Otherwise, I have no problem with what you're doing and I'm actually quite flattered. I would like to point out that I never used the word 'stealing', and you're free to do what you like with your own project. You're perfectly welcome to use my work as a template (and feel free to keep the Thondoril Springs if you want).

Again, it's very flattering that someone was inspired by my work. Keep at it.

It depends on your definition of unethical. I guess it comes down to if you would consider the theft of intellectual property to be unethical. As long as it isn't on a for profit private server I don't personally see an issue, especially when they act as a means of fan creations. Have to say, both the work you and the OP did is pretty nice.

This is pretty much my thoughts exactly; a private server is, as far as the law is concerned, 'wrong', but the actual use is completely innocent and harmless.

So more than "theft" is "inspiration" that is a completely different thing, as i look at level design as a form of art, saying "no i did this first, you can't do this" sounds just childish, another guy attempted to do Northeron on MMOWNED and i didn't freaked at him, everybody is free to reinvent, at this point of view he stole from Blizz, since the World of Azeroth is not his own creation.
That, i admit, pisses me off, instead of respect each other's work he just got annoyed by the fact that :
1- i did my own northeron
2- i did borrow the "dawnstrider" name
3- i didn't followed his work 100%( the "throw a fit thing") < that goes against his point n.2 but *shrug*

Again, I never used the words 'steal' or 'theft'. Borrowed, yes, but borrow doesn't have the same connotation. Again, I don't care what people do with my work (which is why I went to the trouble of the legal disclaimer at the bottom of the post), so it doesn't bother me and I don't object to it. The only thing I object to is the use of Private Servers from a legal standpoint. Beyond that, I wouldn't say I am "annoyed" nor do I feel any disrespect towards your work was intended.

I would have liked to have seen more of my work show up in your version, actually. I guess that was my only real complaint. I dunno how MMO Champion's rules go for discussing Private Servers (my guess is that they object to it), but I would be interested in seeing more of your edits in the area. Shoot me a private message and we'll figure out contact information.

If I could suggest a few things though;
- Rename the zone Northeron as that is an area refered to in WC2, but is not present in game yet. It is also refered to in Day of the Dragon separately to Aerie Peak, so no one can say they are one in the same. It is the homeland of Kurdran Wildhammer, and is know to have a Wildhammer population.
- The Worgen and Trolls I cannot see working together as they are the two most xenophobic races in game, change the area of 'Thondroril Spring' from being a druidic controlled area, to that of a Wildhammer settlement. Its topography is one which the Wildhammer are heavily in favour of.

1. I decided to go with the name North Lordaeron rather than Northeron since the name "Northeron" has more lore attached to it. Notheron doesn't have an official location in the game world, so it could theoretically appear anywhere. North Lordaeron, on the other hand, implies it is connected to the Kingdom of Lordaeron directly.

2. I feel like the Dwarves already have a lot of terrain, while Trolls and Worgen are digging in where ever they can. It also makes little sense for a Wildhammer settlement to connect to Stratholme, which is something I really wanted to do. As for the trolls and worgen 'working together', that's not exactly the case. It's more of the Cenarion Circle establishing an 'eastern base' that the Worgen and trolls can make use of. Neither of those races 'control' the Thondroril Spring area.

All the images, not sure about the text. But I've definitely seen those images before.

I would find that quite difficult since all of those are original drawings (with the exception of the Example Images, which I am very clear on). I would be very interested in seeing where that work is floating around.

Your concept images for Pinewood Canyon are from the dry Rockies, which (aside from being similar to Stonetalon Mountains) are not very "pine" suited compared to what else could be.

I agree with your point; the images I used to represent that particular area is very much drier than I intended. I did a search for the Porcupine Mountains and you're right; that's much closer to what I had in mind. It's not quite as rocky as I pictured it, but still very close. Thanks for the contribution. I'm not sure I'll change the OP to reflect this new information (kind of pointless with Cataclysm a few weeks away), but it's definitely appreciated.

If I use any of these concepts for my own projects in the future, I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thanks for the input.

[Deleted]

I would find that quite difficult since all of those are original drawings (with the exception of the Example Images, which I am very clear on). I would be very interested in seeing where that work is floating around.

It was the maps, concept art and models of the enemies that I've seen before, although it was quite a long time ago. Have you ever posted this before, somewhere else?

[Gamevizier]

are there any posts of this suggestion on Blizz forums? if yes, please share the link :P I wanna check it out.

[Retrogames]

It was the maps, concept art and models of the enemies that I've seen before, although it was quite a long time ago. Have you ever posted this before, somewhere else?

Nope, this was all new when I posted it at MMO-champion.

are there any posts of this suggestion on Blizz forums? if yes, please share the link :P I wanna check it out.

Not to my knowledge, though someone could have linked to it. I decided not to go to the trouble of posting this at the WoW Community forum for three reasons;

1. The layout suffers greatly, especially embedded images, which are vital to the understanding of the concept. WoW's forums force you to click a goofy disclaimer every time you follow a non-blizzard link; some people are just too lazy to click twice, others don't want to run the risk of getting hacked (which is completely reasonable).

2. WoW's forums limit how much content you can post, and this particular thread almost took two posts to put together.

3. Last, but not least, the WoW community forums are an inescapable pit of stupidity. The only thing keeping a thread like this active at the WoW forums would be a slew of "TLDR" or "Wall of Text crits for 9999, lol" messages. It was well-received here, while it would have been trolled into oblivion (or simply ignored) at the official forums.

I like MMO-champion much more, so I guess in my eyes, that makes them more worthy of my effort. =)

[Deleted]

Sorry to bump the thread, but I just checked when your original post was and since it was in Janurary, I'm probably talking about this same thread.

I stand corrected, heh.