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Originally posted by Airspell
The similarities, looks wise, are just a tad too close don't you think ? I am not hater of WoW, but I am a huge hater of Blizzards inability to do anything remotly original. Anyone agree ? Anyone at all ? :P Could also say it looks like the Witch King Witch Lich :P

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Every fantasy game has derivatives of Tolkien's world; this isn't anything new.

Blizzard doesn't try to cover-up any elements they've borrowed from other games, books, movies, etc. Some of these pieces are introduced in a fun way, for example the 'spooky kids' in the house next to Goldshire's Crystal Lake (ala 'Friday the 13th'). In the least Blizzard successfully implemented these ideas with few bugs or flaws.

If it really resembles, graphically, the Witch King of Angmar (sp?), then Blizzard has set themselves up to being sued for copyright/trademark infringement (unless permission has been given i.e. Age of Conan).  I also agree that making a character that definitely resembles other copyrighted work is lame, and shows lack of creativity in WoW at this point.  All in all, I am ready to have a sex buff!  heh heh.  (In case you didnt know, AoC apparently has a sex buff in game).

Later.

    Okay, i couldent resist so just for laughs i decided to Compair images...

I knew Tolkien ripped off Blizzard. LOTR is a Warcraft clone...

Seriously, everyone borrows from Tolkien. An undead bad guy in armor... how different can you make them?

Sauron was one of the biggest bad guys in fantasy.

I actually thought this was a closer rip-off of the Witchking of Agmar with a Cylon helmet more so than Sauron.

Who cares you either like the game or not. No one can honestly say blizzard hasnt borrowed content from other companies. Its not like they created the fantasy world to begin with.

Well Warcraft is mostly based on Warhammer, but the comparison is indeed quite similar. But everyone really borrows from Tolkien. Essentially both Warcraft and Warhammer borrrow from the same source, who in turn borrowed from old world mythologies. No biggie. But the Lich King and Sauron do look very similar.

meh everything looks similar in life, there arnt many original things left in life >_>

Actually, the Warcraft lore has been in mind for years now, way before any MMORPG....

Man complain about how WoW is a Warhammer ONLINE clone. Warcraft is from the old Warhammer, but not from the MMORPG, be careful.

Ummm? please tell me the OP is a troll (and if so he scores about a 7 out of 10)

The basic look of Arthas as the Lich King comes from Warcraft III.

Whereas Tolkien never actually described Sauron as a physical entity.  No description whatsoever. Zip, nada. The actual physical appearence of Sauron as the giant figure in spiky armor came from Peter Jackson for the movies... and he created it several years AFTER Warcraft III.

Originally posted by faefrost

Ummm? please tell me the OP is a troll (and if so he scores about a 7 out of 10)

The basic look of Arthas as the Lich King comes from Warcraft III.

Whereas Tolkien never actually described Sauron as a physical entity.  No description whatsoever. Zip, nada. The actual physical appearence of Sauron as the giant figure in spiky armor came from Peter Jackson for the movies... and he created it several years AFTER Warcraft III.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/

the first lord of the rings movie, featuring the sauron in spiky armor, was released 2001.

Warcraft 3 was released 2002

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/warcraft3reignofchaos/index.html?tag=result;title;1

Now you can start debating who had the concept idea first, but considering Peter Jackson was making 3 movies in one (as there is no way you can make a big movie like two towers or return of the kings in one year) while blizzard was making just one game, I have a good bet it was still Jackson's baby originally.

Of course... if we should check all spiky armor baddies we would never finish.

I think the proper term here is not copied, it just seems to standard, a copy is an exact copy of something, a good term to use here would be "inspiration"

Everyone gets inspired by something, even George Lucas, he got inspired by the old Flash Gordon comics, that he created Star Wars, which did have original elements, and it was damn successful, for over 30 years+

Blizzard is no exception, I have played Warcraft III, I loved it, and I can, tell that the story was really something I never heard of, inspired by the old Warhammer board game.

The creators of Warhammer, this time got really inspired by Warhammer, and decided to make an MMORPG for it, Warcraft shares the same base, but not the same peak.

So, it may have elements of other games, did those other games invent those things? Did Mythic invent Warhammer? Did SOE invent Star Wars when making SWG? Did Tolkien invent fantasy? NO

This is just mere hate, from people who aperentely have nothing to do but troll the forums. WoW may not be your cup of tea, of course, everyone understands that, but that doesn't mean no-one should enjoy it.

Don't hate a game just because it's popular

AWARD: Most pointless arguement I've read all day

ok the lich king is not a copie of the witch king because the lk has been around for way longer than lotro and secondly tolkien didnt copie wow because obviously tolkien died years before blizzard was formed and for people who think the lich king is a copie of saurumon not sure about that one the thing is before the lich king was just some floating badass armour and  nobody saw any simularitys until ner,zuhl fused with arthas and sudeny people saw a simularity and for those people who think blizzard cant come up with any original ideas think about the dreanie and the eredar and the whole burning legion and outland THATS ABOUT AS ORIGINAL AS IT GETS

Originally posted by apothas185

ok the lich king is not a copie of the witch king because the lk has been around for way longer than lotro and secondly tolkien didnt copie wow because obviously tolkien died years before blizzard was formed and for people who think the lich king is a copie of saurumon not sure about that one the thing is before the lich king was just some floating badass armour and  nobody saw any simularitys until ner,zuhl fused with arthas and sudeny people saw a simularity and for those people who think blizzard cant come up with any original ideas think about the dreanie and the eredar and the whole burning legion and outland THATS ABOUT AS ORIGINAL AS IT GETS

Let me start off by saying the Witch-King is not an original creation of LotRO. He was in the books.

I don't really recall any  mention of an Undead Paladin merging with the trapped spirit of an Orc Shaman in any of the LotR lore I have read. The only concept similarities I see between the Movie Sauron and the CGI Lich King is the black armor and somewhat-similar helmet.

And if you ask me.. the Draenai look like a cross between Humans and Mind-Flayers. As far as the Eredar are concerned.

Powerful magical beings seduced by a higher power promising eternal life and power. Sounds like Morgoth seducing the Maia into becoming Balrogs, or perhaps Sauron seducing the powerful to become his Ring-Wraiths.

Burning Legion are a bunch of demons. Satyrs, succubi are not original. Nor are demons.

Stretches, I know, but you can see how similarities can be drawn from anything

My point is the one that has been reiterated many times. There are very very few "unique" ideas out there. Though Wheel of Time universe comes close.

Discuss.

OMG LIEK NO.... LOTR STOEL ITS IDEA"Z FROM WOW, GOD I HATE N0EWBZ.

I dont' know if anyone's mentoned this yet, but Sauron is the top dog, the driving force.  The Lich King is a servant of an even more powerful entity, and not necessarily a willing one.  From the perspective of Joe Yokel  on Azeroth, he appears to be the top dog, but he's not.

And yes, WoW is highly derivative of Tolkien.  Much of contemporary fantasy, particularly fantasy gaming, is.  Hence the derisive term "elf game"...even though the elves played a supporting role in LOTR.

D and D is very much Tolkien inspired.  Tolkien was big stuff on campus back in the 60's...another thing we can blame the 60's for.

Originally posted by Zerocool032

If there is one thing blizzard has done.. Its stolen ideas from other major titles..

Look at blackrock depths, remember the part before the final boss, in the room with hundreds of dwarves?  Thats the EXACT setting in LOTR mines of moria..  Even blackrock itself resembles mordor.

Bloodelf mount?  That has to be obvious for everyone

Various quests resembling greek mythology.... Including odysseus landing.

 

I use to know alot more, that just the ones off the top of my head.  Stopped playing WoW awhile ago.

The Blizz guys are fantatically deriviative of popular culture.  I mean, you've got The Kessel Run in Draeni land.  You've got countless Star Trek references. They're having fun with all of this.  They have literary references all over the place.

This sort of thing shows as a labor of love, not just a job, and players pick up on it.

WoW is the ultimate 2nd Gen MMO.  They observed what others were doing, took ideas they liked and ran with them.  They avoided the mistakes of other development teams.  They distilled down combat concepts.  They deliberately avoided highly customizable avatars in order to improve game performance, especially in large player settings like raids. You can have a lot of players in an area in WoW doing graphics intensive things like fighting that would lag out SWG to unplayablity.  They polished their game and made the gameplay fluid and it seems to have worked for them.

Blizz stole ideas from others and improved on them.