World of Warcraft®

Hello mates, hello Blizz'
Why isn’t Blizzard suing Trion for what is it clearly a copy of WOW?
It is unanimous that RIFT is a copy of WOW, I am offended as a potential customer that Trion didn’t had the wits to something original that I could enjoy.

Everything is a copy of something.

Unique ideas in a world as old as ours are a rare occurrence. Wow has major influences from past mmo's and all future mmos will have influences from wow.

There's very little variation you can have within an mmorpg in terms of playability. Its mostly graphical and story elements which are changed.

I think there's a specific set of rules in this area :)

I think maybe names, or places or storylines aren't alowed to be copy'ed

Like in medicin, you can't take patent for an ingrediens, that is the mainingrediens, but is a common item in every household :)

Unique ideas in a world as old as ours are a rare occurrence. Wow has major influences from past mmo's and all future mmos will have influences from wow.

This. One of the most startling example of this is the very game that began the franchise: Warcraft was Dune II with human and orcs instead of Atreids and Harkonnens.

Blizzard's founders even admitted in an interview that it's what they were going for.

So then should EQ and DAoC be able to sue for the elements Blizzard took from those games? Or the original MUD's for the elements EQ and such took from them? or D&D for...like...the whole genre?

If they sued Trion, would the makers of EQ have to sue Blizz?

I tell you a secret. Commando is clearly a copy of Rambo. Now let the suing start.

Blizzard have taken alot of ideas / stolen from other games to put into wow as well. Think it´s something you should be glad they do and don´t sue one another about. This way a good ide can be used more then once and they can be polished, the result is hopefully a better product.

Hello mates, hello Blizz'
Why isn’t Blizzard suing Trion for what is it clearly a copy of WOW?
It is unanimous that RIFT is a copy of WOW, I am offended as a potential customer that Trion didn’t had the wits to something original that I could enjoy.

Why isn't Games Workshop suing Blizzard for their obvious Warhammer (Warcraft) and Warhammer 40.000 (Starcraft) copied universe ?

If such cases had a chance in a court, Blizzard would pay up till the end of time. Loooool.

MMO's are a concept. And you can't hold copyright over a concept.. Would be like the first musician claiming he invented music, and no one but him were allowed to use it.

So as long as Trion coded their own game engine (or bought one), and made everything on their own without directly incorporationg Blizzard code into their game, then Blizzard wouldn't have a case.

12/05/2011 10:51Posted by Delithra

Think it´s something you should be glad they do and don´t sue one another about. This way a good ide can be used more then once and they can be polished, the result is hopefully a better product.

Not exactly. I like to have new products. Every project by definition is unique and without new ideas and play stile we won’t evolve. We will end up playing the same game but with better graphics, which i don’t care that much.

Hello mates, hello Blizz'
Why isn’t Blizzard suing Trion for what is it clearly a copy of WOW?
It is unanimous that RIFT is a copy of WOW, I am offended as a potential customer that Trion didn’t had the wits to something original that I could enjoy.

F.Y.I: World of Warcraft .aka Blizzard is having a challenge with RIFT .aka Trion.

Or, rather the other way around, Trion announced in their trailer videos that they were challenging Blizzard, and that they would soon have a large number of World of Warcraft's player base.

Of which Blizzard accepted the challenge, cause they "know" that they would never loose anyone to RIFT.

Well, just now they released that they had lost 600thousand players compared to the same date last year, and i wouldn't be shocked if most of them left World of Warcraft for RIFT.

The problem here is the word "copy".

The MMORPG is a genre, and each genre has its standards. The biggest and most important thing that can differentiate an MMORPG is its setting. Anything that is not setting-related is likely going to be tuned to what everyone is used to. It just happens that every MMORPG player expects his characters face to be in the top right corner, the action bar in the center and either down or up, the chat to be on the bottom and right, the buffs on the top right, and so on. Many people have merely glanced at the interface layout of RIFT and immediately judged that it is a copy of WoW, without any further research. Is this judgement justified? The interface definitely looks similar... but has WoW been the first game to use this interface structure? Didn't WoW just as well abide to the standard expectations of the MMORPG gaming community when it was released?

To illustrate further, if you disregard the setting, you could say that Counter Strike is the same game as Call of Duty, because you hold your gun, it is roughly in the center of the screen, you have your health displayed somewhere, and there is a crosshair in the middle. Heck, in both games you shoot a lot, they are clearly direct copies and one producing company should sue the other. We could also look at the interface of Warcraft 3 and compare it to the interface of, lets say, Dune 2000.

tl;dr: Saying that Rift copied WoW only shows that you do not know how genres and market work, and have a very small overview of mmorpg games.

Did you ever get to experience rifts and large scale invasions? Could you talk about those for a bit, OP? I would like to know why you did not find those original and new over WoW, since nothing like those is present in WoW, and they are a major mechanic in RIFT.

Tbf WoW copied a nice amount from Everquest, and no legal action was pursued by the makers of Everquest.

Hello mates, hello Blizz'
Why isn’t Blizzard suing Trion for what is it clearly a copy of WOW?
It is unanimous that RIFT is a copy of WOW, I am offended as a potential customer that Trion didn’t had the wits to something original that I could enjoy.

Do you really think WoW didn't rip off many elements of game which existed?
And also, copyrights are extremely shady and hard to enforce in the videogame industry. If anything they're useless.

12/05/2011 10:42Posted by Eleris

Unique ideas in a world as old as ours are a rare occurrence. Wow has major influences from past mmo's and all future mmos will have influences from wow.

This. One of the most startling example of this is the very game that began the franchise: Warcraft was Dune II with human and orcs instead of Atreids and Harkonnens.

Blizzard's founders even admitted in an interview that it's what they were going for.

There is a HUGE difference between Warcraft and dune 2 in terms of how the game is handled.
Sure it's derived from Dune 2, command and conquer, Z, and a bunch of other RTS games that have been done since then...

But some of the recent WoW clones, just like WoW is derived from everquest, and everquest is derived from ultima online,,... Most MMOS nowadays are way closer to actual clones with just different graphics than Derivations of games in terms of taking a good idea and building on that. They simply copy and try to make money off a duplicate of an existing game.. It's bad.

WoW is bring ripped off... omg someone call J. R. R. Tolkien

15/05/2011 20:10Posted by Nagrenol

WoW is bring ripped off... omg someone call J. R. R. Tolkien

It's kind of sad you think JJR is the inventory of adventure stories,
When JJR tolkien has admitted he's got his inspiration from others as well.

Just because the LOTR was big, doesn't mean it was the first by any means. ;)

At what point in my post did i say he was first or the person who invented fantasy/adventure. My point was pretty much what Leonara said : Everything is a copy of something.

The op wonders why Blizz havent sued Trion and im saying then Tolkiens people might as well sure blizzard.. pretty sure there's a large eye above a tower in ice crown if i remember correctly.

But it is kind of sad you would think that i though that ;)