Warcraft and Warhammer

[snyggejygge]

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[/I]"

Both the term orc & goblin can be found in much earlier stuff than Tolkien, he gets a lot of credit he doesn't deserve tbh, he created a fantastic & wonderful world, but not many new races, he borrowed, just like most fantasy creators do.

[sigur]

...because most "original" things fantasy world designers come up with sucks and is outlandish and impossible to relate to. This of course is my opinion and there are exceptions which are great.

Anyhow, glad that this one is finally settled. Now can we please have a similar thing on how StarCraft was made and we can close the book on this whole story.

[Charistoph]

Both the term orc & goblin can be found in much earlier stuff than Tolkien, he gets a lot of credit he doesn't deserve tbh, he created a fantastic & wonderful world, but not many new races, he borrowed, just like most fantasy creators do.

And just like Tolkien, they change how they are represented.

Let's face it, a WC Troll would likely get eaten by a WH Troll (while a WoW Troll will just rage quit and whine on the forums about how OP WH Trolls are and their vomit attack should be nerfed).

[Nymie_the_Pooh]

And just like Tolkien, they change how they are represented.

Let's face it, a WC Troll would likely get eaten by a WH Troll (while a WoW Troll will just rage quit and whine on the forums about how OP WH Trolls are and their vomit attack should be nerfed).

It's sickening.

[hawo0313]

And just like Tolkien, they change how they are represented.

Let's face it, a WC Troll would likely get eaten by a WH Troll (while a WoW Troll will just rage quit and whine on the forums about how OP WH Trolls are and their vomit attack should be nerfed).

yes luckily warhammer players know how to deal with trolls... flame them so that thier posts cant regenerate

[theJ]

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!

hm? oh no, not quite.

There's been some "going back to the roots", sure. Sadly, their roots are all the way back in WC1, where it was holier-than-thou Humans fighting evulz-for-the-sake-of-it Orcs with nobody else involved... works for a campaign, I guess, works considerably less for a setting...
Perhaps it's just me, but the "great war" was never actually interesting. I liked WC2 for the intra-faction stuff, not because I got to bash 'umies 24/7. That bit got boring almost instantly. I LOVED WC3 because it had the Horde follow suit - making them morally grey as well, as opposed to the generic bad guys they had been previously.

Yes, those points have all been abandoned, save possibly Sargeras who merely hasn't been mentioned for the past... um... three expansions? I suppose you could scratch him from the list...

The Night Elves, previously caracterized for their ancient, martial, matriarchal society have now been degraded to "standard elves". By this I don't mean the ones you see in Warhammer or Middle-earth - I mean the ones who exist solely to make the humans look good by comparison, and occasionally provide bedmates for them. I'm not saying lore can't be developed, but when you completely remove the character of a given race, it's kind of a slap in the face to all those who play and love them (obvious comparison to 40K Necrons is obvious).

The Blood Elves, created around the idea of a fallen Elf kingdom who refused to "go quietly into the night" as elven nations are wont to do, and instead pulled out every dirty trick in the book and drew upon all the ancient forbidden knowledge they had locked away to see their beloved kingdom rise again from the ashes... no matter the cost. Know what happened to them? They were "redeemed". The holy spacesquidgoat leader told them to leave their twisted path, and they obeyed without a single question.

Both of the above had strong similarities to Dark Elves in the past... Now? They're holier than the High Elves...

The Orcs... in their prime(WC3 era), they had a fairly standard "warrior race" culture. An Orc was judged by physical strength and skill, but was also expected to follow a strict code of honour. Failure to follow said code made you less than your fellow Orc, no matter how strong you were. Admittedly, this has not strictly speaking been retconned. Rather, it's been twisted to the point where it might as well no longer be there. The modern version has Orcish honour be basically the opposite of what it used to be - an Orc is expected to slay the defenseless, they are expected to use underhanded tricks in battle, and when their comrades break what little bits of honour they actually recognise, they are supposed to just stand idly by and let it happen. It may help the story move forwards, but it sure makes playing an Orc boring as hell...

The seven Human kingdoms were based around... um... there being seven Human kingdoms . Each of these had their own distinct character and culture, and most importantly of all, they were all opposed to one another. The whole point of the Alliance of the past was that it was former enemies(or at least rivals) coming together to fight a greater threat. The flavour of the Alliance of the past came from an almost complete lack of trust between the various factions, an inability to truly work together, and the splintered war effort that resulted from it. As an Alliance player, you fought just as much to keep the Alliance together and pointing in roughly the same direction as you did actually fighting other factions. In the current version, everyone's bent the knee to Stormwind and follow their command without question or hesitation... which is quite a slap in the face for all the other factions, who have suddenly lost all of their former pride. I suppose those precious few who actually like Stormwind fluff might be happy... but it's terrible for everyone else.

[Urgat]

hm? oh no, not quite.

Yes, quite. let me expand:

There's been some "going back to the roots", sure. Sadly, their roots are all the way back in WC1, where it was holier-than-thou Humans fighting evulz-for-the-sake-of-it Orcs with nobody else involved... works for a campaign, I guess, works considerably less for a setting...

Sure it went back to some WC1 fluff like with Medhiv and Karazhan (which is great, for me). Orcs have brutally evolved since then though, they've grown into a shamanistic society. The most "peaceful" character in Warcraft is an orc (Thrall).

Perhaps it's just me, but the "great war" was never actually interesting. I liked WC2 for the intra-faction stuff, not because I got to bash 'umies 24/7. That bit got boring almost instantly. I LOVED WC3 because it had the Horde follow suit - making them morally grey as well, as opposed to the generic bad guys they had been previously.

See above. Myst of Pandaria seems to be basically about a civil war in the Horde between Thrall and Morgash followers.

Yes, those points have all been abandoned, save possibly Sargeras who merely hasn't been mentioned for the past... um... three expansions? I suppose you could scratch him from the list...

Sargeras was the focal point of a WoW addon last year or the year before...

The Night Elves, previously caracterized for their ancient, martial, matriarchal society have now been degraded to "standard elves". By this I don't mean the ones you see in Warhammer or Middle-earth - I mean the ones who exist solely to make the humans look good by comparison, and occasionally provide bedmates for them. I'm not saying lore can't be developed, but when you completely remove the character of a given race, it's kind of a slap in the face to all those who play and love them (obvious comparison to 40K Necrons is obvious).

I just can't see why you say that. Cataclysm in particular, put a huge importance on them, with the whole Hyjal deal and the war against the fire elementals.

The Blood Elves, created around the idea of a fallen Elf kingdom who refused to "go quietly into the night" as elven nations are wont to do, and instead pulled out every dirty trick in the book and drew upon all the ancient forbidden knowledge they had locked away to see their beloved kingdom rise again from the ashes... no matter the cost. Know what happened to them? They were "redeemed". The holy spacesquidgoat leader told them to leave their twisted path, and they obeyed without a single question.

What? They're still as intoxicated with magic as ever. Granted, since the Sunwell addon (the one with Sargeras), there hasn't been much focus on them.

Both of the above had strong similarities to Dark Elves in the past... Now? They're holier than the High Elves...

The Night Elves have always been like that, I mean, Stormrage and whatshername have been the sage, open character stereotypes from day one. Blood elves are still a band of rascals.

The Orcs... in their prime(WC3 era), they had a fairly standard "warrior race" culture. An Orc was judged by physical strength and skill, but was also expected to follow a strict code of honour. Failure to follow said code made you less than your fellow Orc, no matter how strong you were. Admittedly, this has not strictly speaking been retconned. Rather, it's been twisted to the point where it might as well no longer be there. The modern version has Orcish honour be basically the opposite of what it used to be - an Orc is expected to slay the defenseless, they are expected to use underhanded tricks in battle, and when their comrades break what little bits of honour they actually recognise, they are supposed to just stand idly by and let it happen. It may help the story move forwards, but it sure makes playing an Orc boring as hell...

We haven't played the same games. WC1 & 2, orcs were just like warhammer orcs, bloodthirsty monsters. WC3 has changed that with Thrall, while explaining why orcs were like that before with the demon blood's curse. The d/l-able orc campaign for Frozen Throne brought major prejudice towards the humans, so it was expected that the horde would go aggressive again, but up until Thrall gave up his role as leader of the Horde, it's been limited. Full war has been brought back with Wrath of the Lich King and Morgash's rise as the new leader. It's just not at all like you say it is.

The seven Human kingdoms were based around... um... there being seven Human kingdoms . Each of these had their own distinct character and culture, and most importantly of all, they were all opposed to one another. The whole point of the Alliance of the past was that it was former enemies(or at least rivals) coming together to fight a greater threat. The flavour of the Alliance of the past came from an almost complete lack of trust between the various factions, an inability to truly work together, and the splintered war effort that resulted from it. As an Alliance player, you fought just as much to keep the Alliance together and pointing in roughly the same direction as you did actually fighting other factions. In the current version, everyone's bent the knee to Stormwind and follow their command without question or hesitation... which is quite a slap in the face for all the other factions, who have suddenly lost all of their former pride. I suppose those precious few who actually like Stormwind fluff might be happy... but it's terrible for everyone else.

Please. Little was ever known about the human kingdoms besides Azeroth and Lordaeron. WC1 blasted Azeroth to pieces, and WC3 did the same with Lordaeron. There wasn't much trust or distrust left to be had. As for the others, they were merely add ons to explain units in WC2 (Kul Tiras provided the ships, Dalaran the wizards, etc), and by the end of WC2, even though the Alliance won, they were pretty much all destroyed. If they survived (Dalaran), they went down in WC3 (because of the Scourge or the Burning Legion). There was the deal with Alterac and that was it. Gilneas was an non entity for the three WC games, and is only fully explained in Cataclysm. What you describe didn't really ever exist at all, and whatever changes made were done before WoW.

Well anyway we're OT, if you want we can continue that by PM.

[theJ]

Sure it went back to some WC1 fluff like with Medhiv and Karazhan (which is great, for me). Orcs have brutally evolved since then though, they've grown into a shamanistic society. The most "peaceful" character in Warcraft is an orc (Thrall).

Karazahn was back in the Buring Crusade, in 2007. Yes, Thrall is a peaceful Orc, but he's not really representative of his race as a whole...

See above. Myst of Pandaria seems to be basically about a civil war in the Horde between Thrall and Morgash followers.

I'm assuming you mean "Garrosh", not "Morgash", right? I can't recall a "Morgash" character... although if you're playing on a non-english client, I suppose there could be some translation issues...
And no, there's been precious little talk of a "civil war". Thrall will rebel a few months before the end of the expansion, and will "win" in the course of a single raid. That's not much of a "civil war", at least not if you ask me.

Sargeras was the focal point of a WoW addon last year or the year before...

The Burning Legion was the focal point of the Burning Crusade expansion back in 2007, but made basically no mention of Sargeras, instead focusing on Kil'jaeden as the Legion big-guy.
That said, the Burning Crusade was clearly the best of the expansions, and actually worthy of the Warcraft name, unlike what came after...

I just can't see why you say that. Cataclysm in particular, put a huge importance on them, with the whole Hyjal deal and the war against the fire elementals.

Being a part of the content, and staying true to their character are two very different things. Yes, they got a fair bit of content in Cataclysm, but throughout that content there were only three characters who actually acted like Night Elves(Fandral, Leyara and Thisalee, respectively), two of those were enemies, and the third was an unimportant quest giver.

What? They're still as intoxicated with magic as ever. Granted, since the Sunwell addon (the one with Sargeras), there hasn't been much focus on them.

I take it you never saw the Sunwell to its end? (or watched it of youtube) The whole thing ended with the Sunwell purified, ending their addiction. There hasn't been any focus on them since because there's nothing left to focus on.

The Night Elves have always been like that, I mean, Stormrage and whatshername have been the sage, open character stereotypes from day one. Blood elves are still a band of rascals.

Stormrage has always been a "peaceful" character, yes, but until recently, he was the exception rather than the rule. Sure, they're "sage", that comes from being thousands of years old... although I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "open"...

We haven't played the same games. WC1 & 2, orcs were just like warhammer orcs, bloodthirsty monsters. WC3 has changed that with Thrall, while explaining why orcs were like that before with the demon blood's curse. The d/l-able orc campaign for Frozen Throne brought major prejudice towards the humans, so it was expected that the horde would go aggressive again, but up until Thrall gave up his role as leader of the Horde, it's been limited. Full war has been brought back with Wrath of the Lich King and Morgash's rise as the new leader. It's just not at all like you say it is.

I ain't bashing on the war itself, I'm bashing on how it pictures the Orcs. The days of WC Orcs being "evulz jus' because" are over, and I'm VERY hesitant about going back to them.

Please. Little was ever known about the human kingdoms besides Azeroth and Lordaeron. WC1 blasted Azeroth to pieces, and WC3 did the same with Lordaeron. There wasn't much trust or distrust left to be had. As for the others, they were merely add ons to explain units in WC2 (Kul Tiras provided the ships, Dalaran the wizards, etc), and by the end of WC2, even though the Alliance won, they were pretty much all destroyed. If they survived (Dalaran), they went down in WC3 (because of the Scourge or the Burning Legion). There was the deal with Alterac and that was it. Gilneas was an non entity for the three WC games, and is only fully explained in Cataclysm. What you describe didn't really ever exist at all, and whatever changes made were done before WoW.

They were a lot more than "addons" for those of us who read the novels and other background. Many of the kingdoms have been razed throughout history, sure, but most of them have risen back up.
Azeroth has been reborn as Stormwind(previously just the name of their capital).
Dalaran has been rebuilt to the point that they were able to lead a war against the Blue Dragonflight(and as such are the only kingdom to get some independant action).
Lordaeron still exists, although in a much smaller scale in the form of the Hillsbrad province and the Scarlet Crusade(which was a big shot back in vanilla(when the game was still good), but has largely been scrathed since then).
Gilneas got their shot in Cataclysm, and missed it by a mile, quickly becoming just another name which mindlessly obeys every last word given by the self styled "high king".
There is a newcomer, the city state of Theramore which started out great back in Frozen Throne where they both held back the full might of the Horde and rebelled against Kul'tiras, gaining independance from them and the Alliance as a whole. This has effectively been retconned however, with the independance of Theramore removed, their neutral state ignored entirely, and their leader reduced to a whiny advisor for Wrynn.
This leaves Arathor, Kul'tiras and Alterac. Alterac recieved a tiny smidge of lovin' back in vanilla(once again, when the game was good) in the form of the Syndicate, but still effectively counts as destroyed and have been ignored since. Kul'tiras hasn't recieved any updates since back when admiral Proudmoore died back in Frozen Throne(pre-WoW), but remains a major player, what with having the grandest fleet in the world an' all... Arathor are still alive, and currently fighting a massive war against the Syndicate(the remainder of Alterac) and an Ogre tribe which I can't recall the name of, which they have been doing since vanilla when they last recieved an update. While hardly confirmed, quests would imply they are currently mindless servants of Stormwind, just like everyone else...

Well anyway we're OT, if you want we can continue that by PM.

Are we? Perhaps a little... but if anything, this discussion clearly demonstrates the MASSIVE differences between Warcraft and Warhammer, which does help prod the topic along. Not that it wasn't a discussion that was pretty much dead anyway...

[Urgat]

Yeah, Garrosh, I don't know why i said Morgash (Morgash is a poster on Warseer lol). As for the rest, well, as I said, we're ot (well yes, the OP didn't ask for an history of WC xD), so I'll leave it at that. I do agree that it shows there's nothing much in common anymore between WC and WFB tjhough, and i'll concede I didn't run the Sunwell raid till the end because of too many wipes

[Sir_Turalyon]

Funny thing is, Warcraft 1 and 2 is what got me into WFB. Probably fact that early incarnations of Warcraft were doing free advertising for GW was the reason why GW tolerated Blizzard back when they could sue them.

yes luckily warhammer players know how to deal with trolls... flame them so that thier posts cant regenerate

That remark made my day.

[Urgat]

Excepted that in my experience, flames actually feed warseer trolls.

[Ultimate Life Form]

Funny thing is, Warcraft 1 and 2 is what got me into WFB.

Same here. No way I'm ever going back though.

Excepted that in my experience, flames actually feed warseer trolls.

Sounds pretty first-hand to me. Maybe you're an undercover troll?

[Urgat]

Sounds pretty first-hand to me. Maybe you're an undercover troll?

Mmmmmh. Don't know how to take that... You don't like me anymore?

[Ultimate Life Form]

Mmmmmh. Don't know how to take that... You don't like me anymore?

Aaaawww, now now, don't cry; come here you little cuddly-wuddly Goblin, let's be friends again!

[soonerfreak]

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

The story I had heard, you know typical game store talk, was that they had started to go after each other and then Tolkien Estate lawyers showed up and said they wanted to get involved if it didn't go away. A fun story to tell but one I doubt is true.

[Lord Dan]

Aaaawww, now now, don't cry; come here you little cuddly-wuddly Goblin, let's be friends again!

On a related note, I should mention that our continued friendship is now based on the contingency that you never call me a cuddly-wuddly Goblin.

The story I had heard, you know typical game store talk, was that they had started to go after each other and then Tolkien Estate lawyers showed up and said they wanted to get involved if it didn't go away. A fun story to tell but one I doubt is true.

While amusing, it doesn't make any sense.

-Why would lawyers for the Tolkein estate warn two other companies that they would sue them if they didn't stop suing each other?
-If they had a case, why not pursue it regardless of whether or not Blizzard and GW were at each other's throats?
-What possible case would they have had? "You used the word "orc", which, as it stands, we don't hold any rights to"?

[Urgat]

Aaaawww, now now, don't cry; come here you little cuddly-wuddly Goblin, let's be friends again!

Of course! Some day I'll definitively have to buy you a laxative-laced beer!

[Sir_Turalyon]

-What possible case would they have had? "You used the word "orc", which, as it stands, we don't hold any rights to"?

More like "You seem to be arguing which one of you holds the rights to the word orc; well, we will sooner claim it ourselves than let any of you hold it".

[The bearded one]

Excepted that in my experience, flames actually feed warseer trolls.

warseer trolls are smarter, they use mass-produced dragonbane gems