BF2S Forums Blizzard and WoW...

MEC, the point is people thought Warcraft had been raped back when WoW came out.

They were wrong, the original WoW was like being groped on a bus by a horny 13 year old compared to what they are doing to it now.

Vanilla wow was the best, raids on Tarren Mill and Southshore was where the pros were born, the second TBC was announced it went down hill.

I don´t understand a fucking word. What is this about?

Yeah, even though Blizzard have farted around with the lore and made a few cheeky decisions, you have to remember that they're trying to create a dynamic MMO that will keep a fucking huge playerbase entertained- they cannot always do that within the contextual lore of Warcraft. For example, the need for 2 new races at the launch of TBC- many people thought it was criminal the way they gave Horde Belf Pallies and vice versa... a bad move lore-wise, but a necessary move to even keep a basic rudimentary game balance.

As for the motorbikes, I'm a bit ehh about them. I haven't played WotLK since the week it was released (i.e. when everyone was actually leveling) so I cannot say I've actually seen one in-game. Gnomes/goblin engineering has always created quirky stuff though, no one complained their beautiful little fantasy immersion was being ruined by a robotic mind-control device pre-TBC, now you complain because they're... well, thinking of new machines? And, as unamednewbie13 said above- Warcraft has never been a dead-serious fantasy game, it has always begged borrowed and stolen elements from everywhere... tanks, flying machines and other quirky shit is nothing new.

Also as for the people talking about pre-TBC with their rose-tinted nostalgia sunglasses on... lolwtf @ "Tarren Mill raids were where the pros were born". Haha, you're totally right. Back when my guild and others were wiping on C'Thun and busting our asses painfully through Naxx, you guys ganking level 28's in an easymode zone were redefining the Warcraft 'pro'. Hell even on release you could still challenge yourself with some LBRS/UBRS... Tarren Mill/Southshore? The fuck?

Last edited by Uzique (2009-01-02 13:52:22)

Flecco wrote:

Uzi... Didn't play pre-TBC. Never had an end-game character.

And it doesn't really beg, borrow and steal from everywhere... Just Warhammer/40k.

Err, play WotLK? Half the zones are basically Lord of the Rings ripoffs; there's a 'Black Gate' in Dragonblight, and the Icecrown zone or whatever it's called is basically taking a leaf straight out of Mordor. Warhammer itself is basically an intellectual-clone of the Lord of the Rings... so there's a 'drip-down' effect on that area of lore also . Most fantasy games/worlds are all derivative of a few sole franchises, J.R.R Tolkien's being one of them. WoW begs, borrows and steals lore and game-features from everywhere... it's a constantly-evolving chameleon that always takes the good ideas and sells them to the playerbase. Siege mechanics and city-wide raids in WoTLK? Announced about 2 weeks after Warhammer Online advertised the 'unique' features .

Well obviously Tolkien did... he was an Anglo-Saxon professor at Oxford and expert in mythology/old Norse theologies. The fact is that he used these influences and mythologies to create something fictional and entertaining- that's where the fantasy genre derives from. There's no unwritten rule that states all fantasy writing and magical universes must take a leaf from Tolkien's book -- I mean, just look at Harry Potter! . Yet, Warhammer/Warcraft are both basically carbon-copies of the Lord of the Rings lore, shamelessly.

I mean, let's look at orcs. Orcs are the ultimate 'badguy' in Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, Warcraft. Orcs were completely invented by Tolkien... Orc is the embodiment of everything that Tolkien hates: Oxford Rugby Club (it's not actually called that though, but I digress). It's hilarious that all of these fantasy authors and writers have these archetypal 'orc' character, when they are basically just the humanoid personification of Tolkien's own pet-hates, his local rugby club. Of course the word itself has a longer mythical etymology but Tolkien himself stated that he chose the word chiefly because of the phonetic qualities (supposedly sounding 'demonic') and because of the sly reference . I find things like this hilarious, but it doesn't surprise me when franchises such as Warcraft make the changes we're discussing here in this thread.

And, random trivia, I'm actually studying under Tolkien's own protégé myself when I read old/middle-English Tolkien was a mentor to a top academic named J.A. Burrow, who (as far as I'm told) was the personal tutor in the same Middle-English studies of my current professor whilst at Bristol University. For me, who spent many an hour reading the Lord of the Rings books, this is the equivalent of a literal orgasm. Yes, I'm sad.

Last edited by Uzique (2009-01-02 22:55:13)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Warhammer itself is basically an intellectual-clone of the Lord of the Rings...

Warhammer did borrow a lot of stuff from Lord of the Rings, but not everything. Plus it evolved into 40k, which was anything but LotR. Warhammer fans just get pissed off when someone says that Warhammer ripped an idea from Warcraft.

If you want to get technical, you can say that Lord of the Rings (by Tolkien's own admission), borrowed a lot of stuff from older stories.

Haha read the whole of my last post... I already countered that "Tolkien borrowed from older stories" stuff.

Technically, Lord of the Rings is an allegorical tale expressing his fears and sentiments of the 21st century, fascism/totalitarianism/politics and mass-scale industrialisation. Tolkien drew upon his own education/profession and classical/mythological knowledge to stage this allegory in the fantasy world we all know as 'Middle Earth'. The fact is that he effectively defined the fantasy genre with his approach and style; no one holds it against the guy or accuses him of plagiarism because he takes language/terms or concepts from Nordic/Anglo-Saxon mythology (e.g. King Orfeo, Gawain, Beowulf etc.) It does however become a little more lulzy when a modern tabletop games company comes along and 'invents' a fantasy universe that pretty much exactly mirrors and copies the hard-work synthesized and created by Tolkien himself. I know Warhammer created a lot of their own tales and have really gone off on one creatively with 40K... and, well, good for them. If they didn't I'm sure Christopher Tolkien and the rest of the Tolkien estate would have sued their asses into the ground.

The Warcraft v Warhammer lore argument comes from the fact that Blizzard dev team/Games Workshop were in talks to create games based off the intellectual property, until Blizzard did their own thing and then semi-adapted the copycat story again to form the Warcraft universe (which has then over the years evolved in its own way into quite a diverse backstory that is less apparently copying Warhammer/LotR).

By the way I believe 'ork' in the etymological sense derives from a demon-creature described in the early Nordic manuscripts of Beowulf... I'm pretty sure anyway. I've been reading through the translations over the last few weeks (including Seamus Heaney's verse version) and think that's where you can trace the word to.

Last edited by Uzique (2009-01-02 23:08:36)

Uzique wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Warhammer itself is basically an intellectual-clone of the Lord of the Rings...

Warhammer did borrow a lot of stuff from Lord of the Rings, but not everything. Plus it evolved into 40k, which was anything but LotR. Warhammer fans just get pissed off when someone says that Warhammer ripped an idea from Warcraft.

If you want to get technical, you can say that Lord of the Rings (by Tolkien's own admission), borrowed a lot of stuff from older stories.

Haha read the whole of my last post... I already countered that "Tolkien borrowed from older stories" stuff.

Technically, Lord of the Rings is an allegorical tale expressing his fears and sentiments of the 21st century, fascism/totalitarianism/politics and mass-scale industrialisation. Tolkien drew upon his own education/profession and classical/mythological knowledge to stage this allegory in the fantasy world we all know as 'Middle Earth'. The fact is that he effectively defined the fantasy genre with his approach and style; no one holds it against the guy or accuses him of plagiarism because he takes language/terms or concepts from Nordic/Anglo-Saxon mythology (e.g. King Orfeo, Gawain, Beowulf etc.) It does however become a little more lulzy when a modern tabletop games company comes along and 'invents' a fantasy universe that pretty much exactly mirrors and copies the hard-work synthesized and created by Tolkien himself. I know Warhammer created a lot of their own tales and have really gone off on one creatively with 40K... and, well, good for them. If they didn't I'm sure Christopher Tolkien and the rest of the Tolkien estate would have sued their asses into the ground.

The Warcraft v Warhammer lore argument comes from the fact that Blizzard dev team/Games Workshop were in talks to create games based off the intellectual property, until Blizzard did their own thing and then semi-adapted the copycat story again to form the Warcraft universe (which has then over the years evolved in its own way into quite a diverse backstory that is less apparently copying Warhammer/LotR).

By the way I believe 'ork' in the etymological sense derives from a demon-creature described in the early Nordic manuscripts of Beowulf... I'm pretty sure anyway. I've been reading through the translations over the last few weeks (including Seamus Heaney's verse version) and think that's where you can trace the word to.

* I think you edited that post while I was typing; they're only two minutes off, and I didn't bother re-reading yours when I went and edited mine.

* Lord of the Rings is also an expression of unified mythology, and is a lot less laborious to read when approached from that angle.

* As for Warhammer, it turned the theme (with enough subtle differences to matter) into a massively successful game. The lore was similar, but the gameplay superseded it. Also, you can't exactly toss all the blame on GW's shoulders, since so many games and books adapt creatures and themes from LotR also. It's almost impossible to do fantasy without being accused of ripping something off.

* To clear the fog: WC(c)->WH(b)->LotR(a). Proponents of c don't have the right to complain that b copies c, proponents of b don't have the right to complain that c copies b, and proponents of a aren't really competing with b or c (and there's still that admission that Tolkien did cobble it together out of lore), so they have no right to complain that b and/or c is a ripoff. Stuffed in between a, b and c are a ton of games, movies and books with striking similarities to one or all of a, b or c's aspects, creating a nice little buffer. I like all three, but I can't help but put down nasty unfounded remarks.

I don't think Tolkien would have minded that there are so many spinoffs from his work, since he was the one that brought it into the light for so many people. Also, irrelevant to the post, I'm still waiting for whatever Chris Tolkien will toss out after Children of Húrin.


Not really sticking to Tolkien...

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2009-01-03 03:14:57)

Uzique wrote:

Yet, Warhammer/Warcraft are both basically carbon-copies of the Lord of the Rings lore, shamelessly.

I mean, let's look at orcs. Orcs are the ultimate 'badguy' in Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, Warcraft. Orcs were completely invented by Tolkien.

Orks are not the 'ultimate bad guy' in Warhammer [worse than chaos? (and more competing bad guy armies in 40k)], nor are orcs ultimate bad guys in Warcraft (undead? demons?).

When I read Lord of the Clans, I didn't have a single Hobbit flashback, and Ciaphas Cain does not remind me of Aragorn. You can go behind the scenes and call all fantasy essentially the same, but L/WH/WC have enough differences to make each entertaining in their own right (and apparently not enough similarities for ginormous lawsuits).

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2009-01-03 05:05:34)

Vilham wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Yet, Warhammer/Warcraft are both basically carbon-copies of the Lord of the Rings lore, shamelessly.

I mean, let's look at orcs. Orcs are the ultimate 'badguy' in Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, Warcraft. Orcs were completely invented by Tolkien.

Orks are not the 'ultimate bad guy' in Warhammer [worse than chaos? (and more competing bad guy armies in 40k)], nor are orcs ultimate bad guys in Warcraft (undead? demons?).

When I read Lord of the Clans, I didn't have a single Hobbit flashback, and Ciaphas Cain does not remind me of Aragorn. You can go behind the scenes and call all fantasy essentially the same, but L/WH/WC have enough differences to make each entertaining in their own right (and apparently not enough similarities for ginormous lawsuits).

lol orcs arent the "bad" guy at all in warcraft, they merely drunk the blood of magtheradon which turned them berserk. The bad guys in warcraft are the burning legion.

in response to uzique there not u unnamed.

"To a lesser extent" basically meant that they're aligned with Horde, with a force and faction generally attributed to being evul, dark, anti-heroic. They're an antithetical construct to the opposite Alliance races, although of course in the Warcraft lore it's adapted more to Blizzard's own ends (i.e. the 'greater' of the evils that both Alliance and Horde must paradoxically unite together to defeat- The Burning Legion, The Scourge, The Qiraji, The Black Dragonflight etc.)

Orcs are bad guys, all Horde races are technically 'bad' and anti-heroic in their lore. The fact is that Warcraft often pits both sides against an even bigger force that threatens what are, by comparison, the petty squabbles and minor wars between Alliance and Horde. Orcs are badass enough and have an evil-enough past for the Alliance races to war against them and try to eradicate them, so if I'm incorrect in my rough-statement- which side of the good/evil dichotomy exactly do they fall on?

The Horde = united by a common goal of survival. Since Warcraft 3 (if we are going by published game plots) the Horde have been... Well not the good guys, but they had/have the moral high ground.

Tauren were running out of food and their war with the centaur were killing off Cairne's tribe.

The Forsaken... Well, the Alliance and Scourge both want them dead so they were pretty much fucked until they negotiated the truce with Cairne.

The Orcs are rebuilding their civilization from the ground up, having previously lost a war and then spent years in concentration camps.

The Trolls of the tribe that joined Thrall were also in deep shit and needed help (was covered in the Warcraft 3 singleplayer demo, which has missions not in the main game).

The Blood Elves are just crackwhores after their next fix that find an alliance with the Horde convenient.

Uzique wrote:

Ok, you're kinda taking my use of the term "to a lesser extent" a little too far...

It was clear that I meant orcs are being used not in the context of angelic heroes and fine upstanding characters in the Warcraft universe. Yes there are different 'sides' to each race and different scenarios throughout the history of Warcraft lore that sometimes shows 'x' race in a different light... but orcs are Horde. On the fundamental good guy / bad guy division, they fall into bad guys. That was my point. It wasn't really meant to be a debate, it was completely ancillary .

That's clear enough, and nobody disputes it, but the line between the Alliance and Horde is a bit blurred. The Alliance was 'baddened-up' to follow some fairly fascist tenants, while the Horde was pulled out of its demonic state into a more notably barbaric, yet nobler state. Even in WC1/2 they were puppets of demons, but WC3 broke their reputation as the 'bad guys' by splitting the orcs from the Burning Legion, loading them with minotaurs, and pitting everyone against the threats of the Scourge and the Burning Legion alike. If I had to summarize Warcraft society, I'd say that everyone's pretty much in it for themselves.

Taking WH40K into consideration, their orks have a more brutal reputation than WC's latest variants, but they are still outdone in gruesomeness by factions such as Chaos, Dark Eldar and the straightforward evils of the Necrons and the all-consuming Tyranids. It even casts the various factions of humans in a bad light (totalitarian dictatorship of religion and bureaucracy), putting the 'communist' Tau on top as far as morality is concerned.

Even in Lord of the Rings, orcs were vile enough, but weren't the greatest threat. While mankind warred with them, a much more important battle was being waged against the puppet masters.

Random book: http://www.amazon.com/Grunts-Mary-Gentl … amp;sr=1-1