Durkon in warhammer

[Gidion]

You guys think someone in Warhammer online is a fan?
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/choc113/GidionM_121.jpg

[Assassin89]

Only the name is similar. The equipment... not so much.

[mockingbyrd7]

Nice find. I wonder if there are other characters in there. :smalltongue:

[Shadic]

Only the name is similar. The equipment... not so much.

Full plate and a round shield.

If he had a hammer, it's be pretty close.

[Vizen]

*Looks at the picture*

*Looks at Gidion's avatar*

I think I see a connection.

[Revanmal]

Full plate and a round shield.

If he had a hammer, it's be pretty close.

Except he has a helmet, and Durkon's beard isn't braided.

[Gidion]

Full plate and a round shield.

If he had a hammer, it's be pretty close.

He looks like an "Ironbreaker" a tanking class and they cant use hammers for some reason.

[Warlord JK]

Firstly, ALL dwarves tend to look almost exactly alike except for beard differences and weapon choices. Other helmet, armor, and shields are almost exactly alike as well as body type and hairstyle. Second, this guy looks almost exactly like Durkon but for the beard and weapons (example of what I said above)

[Warlord JK]

Anybody else see a resemblance between the set up of Warhammer and World of Warcraft? Did the designers of Warhammer come from Blizzard?

[Gao]

Forget WAR (As awesome as it is), how about some Durkon in Dwarf Fortress? What kind of Dorf would he be?

[An Enemy Spy]

Anybody else see a resemblance between the set up of Warhammer and World of Warcraft? Did the designers of Warhammer come from Blizzard?

Warhammer is decades older than Warcraft

[Gundato]

Anybody else see a resemblance between the set up of Warhammer and World of Warcraft? Did the designers of Warhammer come from Blizzard?

...

Warhammer came first. While the story varies from telling to telling, there are two general theories:

The Warhammer fan theory: Blizzard made a Warhammer Fantasy Battle game, but didn't get the IP (either it was rescinded, or they just never bothered). Thus was born Warcraft. They then just said "Holy crap, people love this. Let's rip off 40k and call it Starcraft". And thus was born one of the most entertaining (yet painful) games ever made.

The Blizzard fan theory: All orcs are the same, Games Workshop didn't create the concept of the Swarm-style alien race (or the elder race that protects humanity by kicking its ass, or the idea of big guys in armor, or the idea of an ancient race of protectors), and that Blizzard can do no wrong.

Carry on, but please never accuse Games Workshop of stealing their world from Blizzard. But if you just mean the GUI: Dude, there are maybe two HUDs for FPSs in existence these days, copying a GUI is not anything new :p

[Fri]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10/

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OlderThanTheyThink

[evileeyore]

Warhammer is decades older than Warcraft



...

Both of you are morons. Correct, but still morons.


[/B]Carry on, but please never accuse Games Workshop of stealing their world from Blizzard. But if you just mean the GUI: Dude, there are maybe two HUDs for FPSs in existence these days, copying a GUI is not anything new :p

As this is the correct answer.

Seriously, Warlord JK, how many ways can one do a UI that is functional without serious overlap/

Besies, Warcraft stole the UI from Everquest. who stole it from Ultima, who stole from someone, who stole it from someone...

It has been refined, but the essentials are the same.

[Nerd-o-rama]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10/Beat me to it.

[Dalenthas]

I can buy Warcraft being ripped off of Warhammer (maybe), but Starcraft from 40k? More likely came from Starship Troopers... Which W40k also ripped off.
Of course, the Warcraft/Warhammer connection could just as easily be explained by the common root of Tolkien...

[Warlord JK]

Tolkien is the basis for all fantasy stories/games/movies/etc...
Without Tolkien, you don't have modern day fantasy adventures.

[FujinAkari]

I can buy Warcraft being ripped off of Warhammer (maybe), but Starcraft from 40k? More likely came from Starship Troopers... Which W40k also ripped off.

Its actually pretty unlikely that Starcraft had anything to do with Starship Troopers. Starcraft was released April 1st, 2008, which means Starship Troopers hit the stage a mere 5 months before it was out, which means it would have been in late beta stages at that time.

As to the "who stole from who..." well, there is a great line about literature: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."

I actually think I remember an interview with Metzen where he lent credence to the "Warcraft was originally meant to be Warhammer" theory, though he didn't outright validate it. As I recall, they were discussing the character of Garona, and how she ultimately doesn't work within the Warcraft storyline (since Orcs and Humans didn't meet until the invasion, so having a Half-Orc already having reached maturity at the time of the invasion is, simply put, impossible.)

Metzen's response, as I recall, was something like "Yeah... technically speaking Garona really shouldn't exist. Warcraft 1's storyline went through a lot of abrupt changes very late into production, and she was an element that obviously wasn't fully fleshed out!"

For my own two cents: I think Blizzard had a wonderful idea: make a multiplayer game set in the Warhammer Universe. Trouble is... they didn't know if it was possible. Recall that this was the late 80's... multiplayer typically meant "Share a keyboard." Networking was pretty rare, and modems even moreso... so Blizzard was really breaking new ground as far as games went.

Thus, I think they wanted to ensure they could MAKE the game before they went and signed a partnership with Games Workshop... and of course once they got the multiplayer aspect up and running, they went to GW and were promptly turned down. Thus, with a fully functional game except some single-player missions, Metzen very quickly writes a new backstory and the game is released, with flawed Garona and all.

I think its pretty unfair to say Blizzard "stole" Games Workshop's idea... they were inspired... as Games Workshop was inspired by Tolkein, who was inspired by Spencer. I will say the original Warcraft was exceedingly similar to Warhammer, but has since done a good job of differentiating itself.

As for Starcraft "ripping off" 40k... thats just silly :P

[Shott]

I always thought Starcraft was based on the Alien and Predator series.

[Revlid]

As to the "who stole from who..." well, there is a great line about literature: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."

Absolutely, in that something borrowed still belongs to someone else - something stolen is yours.

Most Fantasy, I will grant you, contains extremely similar concepts, and in many cases Games Workshop is a popularizer/combiner of concepts, rather than a creator, but in doing so they have, over a period of years, created an IP that is recognizably unique. Their dwarfs have less in common with Tolkein's Dwarfs than most, and those things that they do have in common (stubbornness, axes, shortness and beards) are exaggerated to the level of Refuge in Audacity. Games Workshop Elves, although very obviously 'inspired' by Tolkein's, possess a unique flavour all their own, albeit one largely formed from the cast-off themes of Atlantean myths, Greek history and legend, and other (far too numerous to count) sources.

So, then, we can assume there are varying degrees of 'theft' when it comes to other peoples ideas. Tolkein, for example, is credited with being the father of the genre - most ideas that are skimmed from his are taken part and parcel with the Fantasy Genre. No-one bats an eyelid at the idea that Elves are an immortal, pointy-eared dying race, for example. It would be considered fine (although cliche) to use these concepts to base a more original race of Elves around.

Elves who worship something called the Valar, with an incredibly similar pantheon, creation story, accepted visual style, and language, on the other hand, would not. Even Eragon didn't stoop that low, and it's a fairly blatant plunderer of older, better books in a genre filled with imitation.

In Warhammer, any one piece of 'intellectual theft' about a race can be immediately countered by at least one way in which that idea has been differently skewed from its original source (if there is one), as well as ten different ideas, whether original or from other sources, that further separate the two. This is why, for all that the more obvious points of inspiration can be easily identified, references and off-beat influences and twisted (or just over-the-top GRIMDARK) versions of original concepts (or simply black humour) pop up with such frequency that the Warhammer Universe can be considered a work of its own merit, and a rather popular one at that.

What I'm trying to get across is that there's a difference between spending years putting together a collage that combines themes and ideas from hundreds of sources into one grand picture, tied together by original work and time into something new, and someone photocopying that same collage and claiming it as their own because "the thing I photocopied wasn't original, either".

This is why, for all it spawns flame wars in its wake, I don't (much, anyway) mind the 'similarities' between Warcraft and Warhammer. They have points of obvious 'inspiration', sure, but also points of entirely new material, and provide an entirely different feel (hope vs GRIMDARK, high fantasy vs low fantasy, slapstick and punny vs black humour and punny), despite their similarities.

There was also a stew metaphor I came up with, where Tolkein, Moorcock, etc were the meat, but original work and bizarre/historical/pop/mythological/humourous references were the flavouring - without them the stew would just be boiled meat, and vastly less popular.


As for Starcraft "ripping off" 40k... thats just silly :P

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l111/Revlid/WTFBlizzard1.gif
Note: Tongue in cheek. The same sentiment I applied to Warcraft applies here, albeit less so.

[Zeb The Troll]

Funny, I thought that Warlord JK was just talking about the MMO's and not the preceding stuff. As in...


Did the [developers] of Warhammer [Online: Age of Reckoning] come from Blizzard?
To which the answer would be "No, they came from Mythic, makers of Dark Ages of Camelot, and they were working on it for at least a year before EA bought them out."

[evileeyore]

Its actually pretty unlikely that Starcraft had anything to do with Starship Troopers. Starcraft was released April 1st, 2008, which means Starship Troopers hit the stage a mere 5 months before it was out, which means it would have been in late beta stages at that time.

Starship Troopers has been around since 1959... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers)

I mean come on don't you people read books anymore? :smallwink:

Also the overarching theme of the Human controlled United Earth Directorate is very similiar to the style of the United Citizen Federation



Also both Starcraft and Starship troopers end up as a 3 way war: Starcraft's Terrans, Zerg, Protoss and Starship troopers Terrans, Arachnids, and Skinnys.




To which the answer would be "No, they came from Mythic, makers of Dark Ages of Camelot, and they were working on it for at least a year before EA bought them out."


Funny thing though... the WAR UI looks more like the WoW UI than it does the DAC UI...


Hmmmm. Nothing more than that. Just hmmm.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Starcraft and Warhammer 40k both took a lot of ideas from Starship Troopers and the Alien film series, and WH40k took a lot of Warhammer elements and set them IN SPAAAAAAAAACE, just like SC did with Warcraft. The real question, and it's a completely pointless semantic question that doesn't need answering, is whether SC stole from the earlier works directly or via the also-unoriginal 40k.

The same applies to Warhammer, Warcraft, and Tolkien, really, though the games' departures from the source material are all in similar directions.

[evileeyore]

Starcraft and Warhammer 40k both took a lot of ideas from Starship Troopers and the Alien film series, and WH40k took a lot of Warhammer elements and set them IN SPAAAAAAAAACE, just like SC did with Warcraft. The real question, and it's a completely pointless semantic question that doesn't need answering, is whether SC stole from the earlier works directly or via the also-unoriginal 40k.

The same applies to Warhammer, Warcraft, and Tolkien, really, though the games' departures from the source material are all in similar directions.

Honestly, the differences between SC and WH40K are tremendous. Beyond having humans in space, marines in power armor, and a few aliens to fight, their are almost no similiarities.

The old school Genestealer and Tyranids looked more in line with the Alien movie (no suprise, the movie was the basis for the original idea of the Genestealer) but over time the nature of the Tyranid force has been changed to be more in line with the bugs of the Starship Trooper series. But beyiond that, WH40k really hasn't that much in common with either SC or Starship Troopers.

I mean, where would the Waaaaaaaagh fit in SC or ST?

[Samurai Jill]

It's nonsense to say the Zerg and Tyranids don't have much in common. They have everything in common. They have an overarching psychic hivemind with occasional sentient components that lay waste to entire worlds and convert their organic matter to more of themselves. They are predatory bugs/aliens that constantly mutate new breeds of themselves and live only to consume all known life. What more do you need?

I mean, where would the Waaaaaaaagh fit in SC or ST?
Absence of Orks =/= presence of originality.

[Querzis]

Funny, I thought that Warlord JK was just talking about the MMO's and not the preceding stuff. As in...


To which the answer would be "No, they came from Mythic, makers of Dark Ages of Camelot, and they were working on it for at least a year before EA bought them out."

Beat me to it but honestly when someone talk about designers, you guys should really realize hes talking about the graphic of the two games being similar! Geez it aint that freaking complicated too but I guess some Warhammer fans automatically become crazy when they see Warcraft and Warhammer in the same sentence.

Either way, good find. And yes, I'm sure it was intentional. After all, there is more then enough people working on Warhammer online to have at least one OOTS fans. I bet you can find lots of reference if you search a bit.

[hamishspence]

yes- Nids have very organic weapons, even when separate from the Nid's body. Bugs carry guns in the original book (movie made them a little more Tyranidish)

[Teron]

There are a lot of similarities between WH40K and Starcraft. Besides the obvious space marines, Eldar and Tyranids Protoss and Zerg, dragoons are dreadnoughts/wraith constructs, ghosts are Officio Assassinorum agents (with psyker conditioning), the Xel'naga are the Old Ones, there's a "dark" offshoot of the ancient, high-and-mighty, super-disciplined psychic species created by the aforementioned predecessors, Zerg broods - like tyranid hive fleets - are named after mythological monsters, and so on.

Blizzard made pretty good settings out of ideas that Games Workshop certainly didn't invent - but you're kidding yourself if you don't think that's where they got a lot of them.

[Kcalehc]

Stole or stole not its hard to prove. As the ideas arent that complicated; if you have the idea in isolation and find later that others have also had the idea in isolation but presented it first, doesn't mean you stole it.

I mean, 'armoured humans, in space, with guns' is not a terribly difficult concept for a writer/designer to come up with. Theres also probably not that many ways to portray it without them being similar. And 'insects with biological weapons, with a psychic overmind' is not that hard to think of either, its simply the complete opposite of humanity, and therefore a fitting arch enemy. As is 'ancient machine intelligences, with technology thats extremely advanced.'

Most of the current sci-fi stuff is inspired by older stuff; its nigh on impossible to live in isolation from anyone elses ideas, enough to be wholly original anyways.

[Dalenthas]

To throw another source of bugs with a hivemind into the mix: Ender's Game, anyone?

And thank you to Evil Eyore for noticing I was talking about the book Starship Troopers and not the movie based on it. The book was at least original if not very good (seriously, it reads like propaganda. Heinlan spends an entire chapter explaining in detail why you should beat your kids).

[Linkavitch]

Yeah. I see. I believe his name is *uses awesome psychic powers* "Gidion"

[Kranden]

I think whats more important is the fact that the Warcraft and Starcraft were far more played around the wrold than warhammer ever was. I mean Starcraft is the national sport in Korea, I have never met a single Korean my age who does not play Starcraft seriously.

Then WOW gets more money than you can even imagine.

Warhammer is cute tho I hear it has 600,000 subscribers or so.

I mean blizz only has like 15million

[Zeb The Troll]

Warcraft also has been live for something like 4 years. Warhammer has been live for two months. Give it time. New people are starting up all the time. I know, I keep inviting them to mah guild. :smallcool:

*And WAR is decidedly NOT cute*

[BrainFreeze]

Blizz also had one of the worst MMO launches i've even seen, whereas I was able to play Warhammer on launch day. On top of that WoW by the end of it's first 3 months had 800k subscribers, we will see where Warhammer is at that time. Though they are close to that number at this time.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Wasn't the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, going to be a Bretonia vs Greenskin game?


@OP, SMASH DA STUNTIES 'N TAKE DER STUFF! WAAAAGGHH!!

[Sinewmire]

I had a massive point-by-point argument about why Blizzard had nicked stuff from GW and why it didn't really matter. Sadly this got eaten because I wrote it when the boards were down this morning for admin. Blast!

Basically what Blizard took was what differentiated Warhammer from Lord of the Rings, ie, specifically the greenskinned bigchinned stompy-type Orcs rather than the snivelling bullies of LoTR fame and the Zerg, Tyranids who predated the Starship Troopers movie and didn't really resemble the Bugs of the ST novel to name but two.

That said, Blizzard did it with a cheeky wink and never really said HAY GUIZ WE MADE DIS ALL UP. I point to you the Dwarven gryphon rider in Warcraft 3 - click on him often enough and he says "This Warhammer cost me 40k! hehe!".

I also mentioned Blizzard's moment of crowning irony, the Warcraft Miniature game. I've never been so uproariously furiously murderously amused.

I said a lot more, too, but I cannot be bothered retyping it. It was hugely off topic anyway.

YES! A Dwarf npc in Warhammer Online named Durkon! Obviously a cool shout-out to Order of the Stick. Cool!

[Wikimaster]

*looks around nervously*

Durkon is an obvious name for a Dwarf, so we cannot be certain that it's a shout out. But if it is, I applaud the makers for their taste in Webcomics.