Does WoW Influence Warhammer Online?

OGX writes "While old school geeks & gamers know that Warhammer predated Warcraft, there are many MMORPG fanatics these days that don't know the history of both franchises, and comment that Warhammer Online resembles World of Warcraft. OGX has an article about this very question with some input from Mark Jacobs (Studio GM EA Mythic, VP EA)." From the article: "This history factors heavily in the present situation wherein the Warhammer Online game looks, to many, to be a descendant of the success of World of Warcraft in a market filled with many games trying to be just that. It's easy to see how this confusion would arise, and I asked Mark Jacobs, Studio GM EA Mythic, VP Electronic Arts, to share his thoughts about the situation." Warhammer may have influenced WoW, but WHO's interface still looks like a WoW rip-off to me.

Comments

Only because I was just reading it....

[cjb909]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10 So no, I didn't RTA, and I don't know much about either WoW or Warhammer. But the comic fits!

Missing Link?

[bateleur]

Interesting that the timeline in the article doesn't mention Dungeons and Dragons.

Given that Games Workshop was at one time the sole importer of D&D into the UK (prior to the design of Warhammer) I think I'd be quite confident in alleging they were influenced by it.

Re:Missing Link?

[Shaper_pmp]

More than that, GW are widely reknowned by their own employees and fans as serial IP-copiers.

Many races have been blatantly ripped off from film or TV, with the original Genestealers (confirmed repeatedly by insiders as "borrowed" from Alien) being only the most egregious. Throughout the 80s and early 90s they ripped off ideas from all and sundry, then slowly modified and retconned them over time to hide their origins somewhat.

However, the worst case has simply has to be Space Marine "power armour" - the original idea for power armour was taken more or less verbatim from the Robert A. Heinlein novel "Starship Troopers" - design, function, the lot.

In ST (the book) the mobile infantry wear strength-enhancing "powered armour" suits, giving them a fighting chance against enemy combatants. In the film, the mobile infantry are essentially cannon fodder, diving headlong into combat wearing little more than a glorified bodywarmer.

The reason for this (I have had on good authority, from several ex-staff members) is because during the preliminary work on the film Starship Troopers, GW got wind of the development. They decided that the idea of "powered armour" was a little too close to their "power armour", and threatened to sue the film-makers unless they removed all reference to powered armour from the film.

Yep - that's right. They copied the idea almost verbatim from the book, then asserted ownership and threatened legal action when someone tried to use the source material in the (licenced) film.

This last point is directly from an ex-staff member, who was on socialising terms with the GW high-ups at the time and afterwards.

GW are many things, but original they ain't.

Of course.

[Wind_Walker]

Yes. Next question?

At this point, the MMORPG market is basically WoW with a few outliers. I'm sure I'll get some EVE Online heat for that comment, but it's true. For much of the population, "MMORPG" is defined to be "World of Warcraft" the same way RTSes were defined by Starcraft. Blizzard has a knack for taking what's great in all its competition, putting it in one spot, and polishing it to a mirror shine. It's what they do.

Game developers aren't stupid. They see the phenomenal success of WoW and know that if they want to compete they have to provide at least the same level of play as their competitor (to get the former WoWers like me) and hopefully surpass their competitor (to get current WoWers). So, WAR takes the UI from WoW and probably steals a few of its other features to ease the transition until they get you hooked.

WAR is hoping provide a PvP alternative to WoW, which primarily focuses on PvE. Even low-level WAR quests involve some form of competition with the opposing faction. One preview I read had a Giant who you would either (a) get drunk to help fight for you against the other faction, or (b) destroy the first faction's alcohol to prevent the giant from getting drunk and thus fighting against you. And that was a newbie quest.

I'm hoping that the WAR team (BTW, that's their preferred acronym, for "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning") delivers on its promises. Give me WoW with a heavy focus on PvP and Realm-vs-Realm and they'll get my money for a few months.

Blizzard is ripper-offer, but so what

[Wylfing]

All three major Blizzard properties are rip-offs of someone else's ideas. Diablo was a rip of Rogue (and all Rogue-alikes everywhere); Warcarft was a rip of Warhammer; and Starcraft was a rip of Warhammer 40,000.

Big deal, I say. It's not like Games Workshop didn't draw on others' ideas too -- Moorcock and Herbert being prime examples. A messianic god emporer? Gosh, where could that have come from? This is the way it's supposed to work. Inspiration breeds inspiration. It's not so much "your" idea as it is your little twist on all the ideas you've absorbed from other people. You don't "own" it, because the person you got your ideas from didn't "own" theirs either. This stuff's not supposed to be locked down and inaccessible. If it was, we'd never have got Warhammer or WoW or any of the rest of it.

It all started as...

[Fallen Kell]

Ok guys for those that do not know. What became the "Warcraft" and "Starcraft" series both started as "concepts" and "demo" versions that they sent to Games Workstop for a computerized version of the Warhammer and Warhammer40000 game systems. GW said no because they felt that they could do either a better job or for some other reason (possibly the whole, we didn't make it thus don't like it mentality). Blizard felt that they had a good thing going, so they changed some things around slightly and still continued creating/developing the games under the new name of "Warcraft" and "Starcraft". And so you have it, the reason they seem similar is because the whole idea of the warcraft and starcraft games to begin with was to be the computer versions of Warhammer and Warhammer40000.