Warcraft and Warhammer

[Satan]

Straight from the horse's mouth:

http://m.kotaku.com/5929157/the-maki...arcraft-part-1

And an entire article on the subject: http://m.kotaku.com/5929161/how-warc...that-saved-wow

[Ultimate Life Form]

Years after the launch of Warcraft my dad, upon returning from a trip to Asia, gave me a present of a set of Warhammer miniatures in the form of a skeleton charioteer and horses with the comment: "I found these cool toys on my trip and they reminded me a lot of your game; you might want to have your legal department contact them because I think they're ripping you off."

Uh-huh. Typical dad behavior no, no clue what's going on.

But thankfully these days have long since passed; right now there is no semblance between the two and not even dads would hit on the idea of confusing them. Blizzard has spent the past 10 years meticulously and diligently disfiguring their once great franchise beyond recognition, doing their utmost to destroy it at its roots. Now with Mists of Pandaria they've come close to finally achieving their long-term goal. I think it is no coincidence that 'Mist' is German for 'crap'.

I'll choose good (or should I say evil) old GW Orcs over this any day. As for the Blizzard fans: Jay Wilson'd all over again!

[Bingo the Fun Monkey]

Thanks for the link! As many portions of my friend-o-sphere exists in the massive overlap between Warcraft and Warhammer/Gaming, this has been a hotly debated (or rather intensively speculated) over the years. I'm also a fan of the term "from the horse's mouth".

Both universes have their merits. I've had tons of fun exploring both.

[Valden]

Warcraft III the Frozen Throne was/is my favourite RTS game ever. I know the game world is a ripped off Old World, but I still loved it and the gameplay. As an RTS Warcraft fan, I am keeping a low profile during all this WoW nonsense, and waiting patiently for Warcraft IV (it probably won't even be in development for a few more years)

[Arnizipal]

Blizzard and GW Orcs still look incredibly similar to me but I guess even GW laywers wouldn't dare to take on Blizzard

I think it is no coincidence that 'Mist' is German for 'crap'.

I do hope they thought of this when they were dubbing Pokémon

[Urgat]

Uh-huh. Typical dad behavior no, no clue what's going on.

Ah. Dad behaviour right The number of people on the net who claimed that Warhammer Online was a total rip off of WoW... Now where's that Penny Arcade strip?

[Arnizipal]

Now where's that Penny Arcade strip?

This one?

[Slyphor]

beat me to it

My favorite strip of all time.

[Urgat]

This one?

Dat's da one
Seriously the comments on the WOW and W:AR forums when W:AR was in beta were really driving me crazy too
"cm'on, they totally copied the orcs I mean they're green too! I'm gonna run in that game around and shoot hail the Horde lolz"

[Beastlord]

Warcraft III the Frozen Throne was/is my favourite RTS game ever. I know the game world is a ripped off Old World, but I still loved it and the gameplay. As an RTS Warcraft fan, I am keeping a low profile during all this WoW nonsense, and waiting patiently for Warcraft IV (it probably won't even be in development for a few more years)

I love Warcraft III too, although I have very nostalgic feelings about II, can you get it for a modern PC? Although Warhammer has clearly influenced Warcraft, GWs own ripping off of D&D and Tolkein kindof means they can't complain in my mind... Also I have to say that when I was playing Warhammer 3 and warcraft 2, WH orcs looked decidedly different to how they are now - if anything the WH orcs have evolved to look more like WC rather than the other way around.. Just food for thought

[Urgat]

Warcraft III the Frozen Throne was/is my favourite RTS game ever. I know the game world is a ripped off Old World, but I still loved it and the gameplay.

To be quite fair, apart from a couple things that simply couldn't be changed (at random: green orcs ), the Warcraft world has evolved in an entirely new direction, there's nothing much in common anymore that isn't just plain fantasy cliché. And Warcraft tends to shy away from those anyway. Just as an example, take dwarfs, they've really evolved beyond the underground miner stereotype. They've also spared us the usual elf/dwarf enmity.

Oh, my favorite one remains the first Warcraft. It had that dark mood that I much prefer to the more cartoony sequels.

[Scalebug]

It is interesting to think of how the fantasy gaming world had looked today if the Tolkien estate had held on to their IP back in the 70's, like companies do today...

The Orc concept is of course clearly taken from it, and because of them not challenging the early fantasy games like DnD and such, it ended up non-protected. Look at how they later moved to protect things like the Balrog, ca 1990, and how a lot of companies (including GW) ceased to use them in their games, first by renaming it to something like "Balgorg" and "Balrukh", and then removing them entirely (though of course everyone still have big demonic beasties, eg. Bloodthirster). A guess would be that there was some judical goings-on behind the scene, with CnD-letters of "Balgorg is still obviously a Balrog, smartypants. Quit it."

[T10]

Had it not been for the fact that Warhammer and WH40k rips off so many other IP's, I am sure there would be lawsuits ahoy! from the moment Blizard earned its first million bucks on WoW.

[Arnizipal]

I love Warcraft III too, although I have very nostalgic feelings about II, can you get it for a modern PC?

I think it will still install using the regular disk.
You may need something like vdm sound to get the music to work though.

[Scalebug]

Had it not been for the fact that Warhammer and WH40k rips off so many other IP's, I am sure there would be lawsuits ahoy! from the moment Blizard earned its first million bucks on WoW.

That is not the reason... By the time WoW came around, Blizzard had already established their IP. For GW to have had a case they would have had to have filed a suit back when Warcraft first came out.

[Urgat]

It is interesting to think of how the fantasy gaming world had looked today if the Tolkien estate had held on to their IP back in the 70's, like companies do today...

The Orc concept is of course clearly taken from it,

No, it's a fairly old term, nobody could claim ownership of that one.

[theJ]

TBH, I'm quite thankful they made their own IP. Now I get two kickass universes to play around in rather than just the one.
...
In theory, anyway. In practice, the Warcraft IP has slipped so far from the glory of the past that trying to get back into it usually ends in tears.

Makes me sad, really. I got into Warcraft long before I got into Warhammer, and I still think a lot of their(largely abandoned) ideas blow Warhammer completely out of the water(the concepts behind Blood Elves and Night Elves being amongst my favourites, the honour-based culture of the Orcs also fitted them really really well, the backstory for Sargeras was pure gold, the seven kingdoms were the best incarnation of humanity I've seen in any fantasy universe ever...).

[Lord Dan]

It reads like fuel for GW's inevitable lawsuit.

[Urgat]

It reads like fuel for GW's inevitable lawsuit.

Heh? On your right hand, you have a mosquito. This is Games Workshop. On your left hand, you have a mammoth. This is Blizzard. The mosquito, if it ever managed to get past the thick fur and the hide, would get swatted away absentmindedly by the mammoth. Why do you think GW picks on pretty unknown companies like Raging Heroes for making a pretty anecdotal lammasu (which wouldn't hold before a court if RH could afford to take up the suit in the first place), while they leave alone "in your face" giant ones like Blizzard with their world-known green orcs?

Makes me sad, really. I got into Warcraft long before I got into Warhammer, and I still think a lot of their(largely abandoned) ideas blow Warhammer completely out of the water(the concepts behind Blood Elves and Night Elves being amongst my favourites, the honour-based culture of the Orcs also fitted them really really well, the backstory for Sargeras was pure gold, the seven kingdoms were the best incarnation of humanity I've seen in any fantasy universe ever...).

Why do you think it's been abandoned? It's still all here, and lately WoW has been going back to the roots, which is a good thing imho. When you read about Mists of Pandaria, the new continent and all seem kinda secondary, the whole deal seems to focus back on the Alliance/Horde war, the end game content appears to be around the siege of Orgrimmar. Nothing to do with kungfu pandas and chinese dragons, Pandaria's just a new playground to play around with it seems.
Besides... my g/f wants to play wow again (and therefore, so shall I...), so I have to picture it in a positive light!

[Soundwave]

Blizzard and GW Orcs still look incredibly similar to me but I guess even GW laywers wouldn't dare to take on Blizzard

I do hope they thought of this when they were dubbing Pokémon

Its pronounced Packman "Packman"!