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EDIT: The reasons are in spoilers because they might give away campaign
WarCraft III and its expansion are both very popular games. I play both, well mostly for DotA but I do campaign and 1v1's as well. My point being, the campaign and some units and special abilities are a bit to StarCrafty, IMO. I mean, yeah, they're similar games, and SC was partially ripping off WC2, but when you put all 34 of the reasons together...
+ Show Spoiler +1. The first campaign is human.
2. The second campaign is the evil side.
3. The third campaign is the race with the strongest people.
4. The last vanilla campaign ends with a large sacrifice involving lots of power (Tassadar’s channeling of Dark Templar energies, Night Elf spirits joining to kill Archimonde and losing their immortality)
5. The first campaign of the expansion is the same race as the last vanilla campaign (Protoss, Night Elf)
6. The first expansion campaign also begins by saying “The nasty evil dude is beaten, but the new bad dude is still threatening and the Protoss/Elves still have a bunch of problems to deal with”
7. Arthas and Kerrigan both start as human and then fall to the Zerg/Scourge, similar in many respects, and both play approximately the same role.
8. Both of the two win in the end of the expansion.
9. Both have a trace of royalty in their names (Lich King, Queen of Blades)
10. The second campaign of the expansion goes back to the humans, but not the same ones, instead a new force introduced in the expansion (Blood Elves, UED)
11. The third and final campaign of the expansion features our evil race that relies on massing units, and wins.
12. In the last campaign of the expansion, you start in a strong position (Dominion, Raynor and the Protoss are helping Kerrigan/Level 10 Arthas with allied Sylvanas) and finish in a much weaker position (UED, Dominion and Protoss team up against Kerrigan/Level 2 Arthas)
13. The humans start out mostly fighting the Scourge/Zerg in the first vanilla campaign.
14. The Culling.
15. WC3 has Zerglings, Marines, and Hydralisks in it.
16. The fifth mission of the last expansion of both games has a certain time limit before the other team (which in both cases consists of 2 players) wakes up, so to speak.
17. There is a mission in both expansions where you have one central base, and several outlying bases, and Zerg/Scourge spawn and overrun the outer bases and it is impossible to stop them unless you use godmode.
18. The last mission in vanilla involves having a base for each non-Zerg/Scourge race (Humans, Orcs, Elves, Terrans, and Protoss) and pitted against a large force of Zerg/Scourge. The object of interest (Overmind, World Tree) is in the center.
19. In the very first campaign there is a holdout mission somewhere against Zerg/Scourge.
20. The second campaign in vanilla ends with the main antagonist coming to his destination (Archimonde into Azeroth, Overmind onto Aiur)
21. The middle expansion campaign ends with the protagonists’ hard-earned victory and great accomplishments (Illidan has a foothold and about to assault the Frozen Throne, UED has the new Overmind under their control and a Psi Disrupter) and the final campaign negates those accomplishments.
22. Archimonde and the Overmind die in the end of vanilla, and then Arthas and Kerrigan see their chance and take it.
23. The last campaign in expansion always has a lot of betrayal.
24. The first mission of the middle campaign in the expansion has the forces starting with a lack of certain resources, and only gets a proper base in the middle of the mission.
25. The first mission of both expansions has no friendly base.
26. Somewhere in the first expansion campaign the evil dude and the good dudes are allied.
27. The eighth mission of the third vanilla campaigns resolves a conflict between the Orc/Protoss, similar in many respects.
28. The fourth mission of the middle expansion campaign involves first arrival on a tileset, Outlands/Korhal, which are similar in color and texture.
29. Both the Outlands and Korhal have a troubled event with a cataclysmic event leading to their current state.
30. The Orc/Protoss both move to a desert place (Kalimdor/Shakuras) after their home is destroyed by the Zerg/Undead.
31. The Burning Legion is the Overmind and its Cerebrates.
32. The Burning Legion could also be the Xel’Naga because they created Orcs/Protoss but considered them a failure so made the Zerg/Scourge.
33. Feedback, Recall, Consume, Cloak, Scanner and other spells have been mostly cosmetically changed and still work the same way in WC3.
34. Shade is Observer.
Convinced?
 
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Calgary25977 Posts
I'm sure you can find 34 glancing similarities between anything.
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So, are you implying that two games from the same genre made by the same company share many similarities?
Madness!
To be honest, i really liked WarCraft III, mostly for the campaing, but i have no idea how could you even be concerned about originality in a game filled from the start with every fantasy cliche you could posibly imagine.
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You're aware that the entire Warcraft series has basically nothing that wasn't written in the fantasy genre decades earlier?
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On January 12 2010 02:29 Ingenol wrote:
You're aware that the entire Warcraft series has basically nothing that wasn't written in the fantasy genre decades earlier?
First game to have the hero system though, right?
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Story similarities aren't surpring at all. The guy who does most of that stuff for Blizzard (whatever his name is) once confessed that he is a one trick pony.
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On January 12 2010 02:30 spinesheath wrote:
Story similarities aren't surpring at all. The guy who does most of that stuff for Blizzard (whatever his name is) once confessed that he is a one trick pony.
So the Diablo II story is like that too?
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...
Really, you are just now realizing this? Also, since when has the WC series (or Blizzard as a whole) ever been concerned about originality?
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On January 12 2010 02:33 Draconizard wrote:
...since when has the WC series (or Blizzard as a whole) ever been concerned about originality?
1. When they made races with different capabilities in 1998.
2. When they made the hero system in 2003.
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No game is made 100% by new, fresh ideas. Same goes for movies/books.
Why? That's how our imagination works, even if you "invent" something new it still contains scratches of other ideas in it. It just happens unwillingly. That's why there's nothing outrageous in something sharing some things, unless it's total ripoff
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On January 12 2010 02:36 Kaniol wrote:
No game is made 100% by new, fresh ideas. Same goes for movies/books.
Why? That's how our imagination works, even if you "invent" something new it still contains scratches of other ideas in it. It just happens unwillingly. That's why there's nothing outrageous in something sharing some things, unless it's total ripoff
Halo + SC only had 23. Other links had even less. I've seen ripoffs of different things (the movies Surrogate and Avatar), but never like 34.
Yes, they're both Blizz games, but:
Let's take Bungie. How many ways has Halo ripped off Marathon unintentionally (not those Marathon symbols everywhere or the Terminals)?
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I noticed most of your reasons are campaign related. A lot of companies have similar story lines in their games. Look at Bioware games, if you strip all the stories down to a basic level they have the same structure.
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Another question...
If Scourge ripped off of Zerg, and Zerg off of Alien, then what did Alien rip off of?
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Heh. TL is so harsh. Obviously you put alot of effort into this and you are right, there are many similarities, but the reality is, it is quite obvious the games are similar. Also, blizzard has made war1 war2 war 3 sc bw tft all with campaigns, they can't keep reinventing themselves.
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If Scourge ripped off of Zerg, and Zerg off of Alien, then what did Alien rip off of?
The inflatable alien scene from Dark Star (1974, John Carpenter directed, low-budget cult stoner space comedy.). Both films have the same writer (Dan o' Bannon, who died recently, and played Sgt Pinback in Dark Star), so it might not technically be a rip-off, but then again, you can say much the same about Warcraft 3 and Starcraft.
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No, it's not about ripoffs, it's about you imagination working in a way that makes everything you think of inspired by previous experiences or ideas.
People in the past thought of submarines because they were inspired by fishes, about flying because of the birds, of Alien because they heard stories about some terrifying beast that only lives with killer instinct and relies on it's senses (other than sight) very heavily.
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On January 12 2010 02:42 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
Another question...
If Scourge ripped off of Zerg, and Zerg off of Alien, then what did Alien rip off of?
Any other movie/book ever that had killer aliens in it previous to it coming out. At this point in history there will hardly ever be an original plot. Your analysis of the similarities? I bet you all the money in the world someone has done this exact same thing before.
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Note this was done in about the time it took me to type the reasons +30 seconds for thinking. If I tried I could do 50, 60, or maybe even 100.
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On January 12 2010 03:01 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
Note this was done in about the time it took me to type the reasons +30 seconds for thinking. If I tried I could do 50, 60, or maybe even 100.
And what would that prove? What are you trying to prove besides the storyline and race design for wc3 is unoriginal. It is almost a pointless criticism for anything unless the presentation is bland. Almost everything has already been done. Why can't it just be "did I find the game fun or not?"
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kinda pointless imo. So what if they are similar? They are both made by Blizzard, and that's the reason that marines, zerglings and hydras are in the editor ( remember the april 1st tauren marines?)
Anyway, Warcraft has a huuuge story, and it's amazing, from Wc1 to WoW...and not to mention the movie (2011). To say that Warcraft is unoriginal is waaaaaay off.
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@jaeden
Lol the warcraft world is one of the more unoriginal and uninspiring ones.
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United States3824 Posts
If it ain't broke, as they say.
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United States2822 Posts
Because I have absolutely nothing to do right now, I'm going to go through your argument one by one.
1. The first campaign is human.
So War3 also ripped off of CnC and pretty much every other game ever because almost every video game has humans?
2. The second campaign is the evil side.
3. The third campaign is the race with the strongest people.
These two don't even have to do with anything except serve as a logical continuation of the storyline. Technically, the first campaign is the tutorial campaign where you play as the Orc anyway.
4. The last vanilla campaign ends with a large sacrifice involving lots of power (Tassadar’s channeling of Dark Templar energies, Night Elf spirits joining to kill Archimonde and losing their immortality)
Tassadar didn't sacrifice a lot of power at all. Learning how to unite a race and use their powers with synergy does not seem like a lot of sacrifice. This would have been better if say, Malfurion killed himself to kill Archimonde.
5. The first campaign of the expansion is the same race as the last vanilla campaign (Protoss, Night Elf)
Again, logical continuation of the storyline.
6. The first expansion campaign also begins by saying “The nasty evil dude is beaten, but the new bad dude is still threatening and the Protoss/Elves still have a bunch of problems to deal with”
So you're saying that the storylines are similar? Huge shocker there.
7. Arthas and Kerrigan both start as human and then fall to the Zerg/Scourge, similar in many respects, and both play approximately the same role.
Kerrigan was forced into the Zerg completely unwillingly and had her birth manipulated by the Overmind whereas Arthas turned to the Scourge naturally because of his power-hungriness and illogical concepts of honor and righteousness.
8. Both of the two win in the end of the expansion.
Well having the evil race win in the end is a convenient way to segue into a sequel.
9. Both have a trace of royalty in their names (Lich King, Queen of Blades)
People at positions of power will usually have a title reflecting such! This has nothing to do with the games.
10. The second campaign of the expansion goes back to the humans, but not the same ones, instead a new force introduced in the expansion (Blood Elves, UED)
Too bad the storylines are not similar in the slightest and the Blood Elves pretty much say fuck all to the humans and join the evil side and the UED is just there to keep track and investigate the evil threat.
11. The third and final campaign of the expansion features our evil race that relies on massing units, and wins.
The third and final campaign of the Warcraft 3 expansion features the race that's least dependent on taking expansions whereas the third and final campaign of the Starcraft expansion features the race that's most dependent on taking expansions. See what I did?
12. In the last campaign of the expansion, you start in a strong position (Dominion, Raynor and the Protoss are helping Kerrigan/Level 10 Arthas with allied Sylvanas) and finish in a much weaker position (UED, Dominion and Protoss team up against Kerrigan/Level 2 Arthas)
And then in the end the bad guy wins because see point 8!
13. The humans start out mostly fighting the Scourge/Zerg in the first vanilla campaign.
Good guys fight against bad guys! Holy shit!
14. The Culling.
Not sure what this has to do with anything. Maybe similar mission names? Too bad neither of the missions have the slightest things in similarity.
15. WC3 has Zerglings, Marines, and Hydralisks in it.
You're using a cameo appearance in two video games made by the same company as a similarity?
16. The fifth mission of the last expansion of both games has a certain time limit before the other team (which in both cases consists of 2 players) wakes up, so to speak.
Concede, but you're really pulling at straws with delving this deeply.
17. There is a mission in both expansions where you have one central base, and several outlying bases, and Zerg/Scourge spawn and overrun the outer bases and it is impossible to stop them unless you use godmode.
So you're saying that RTSes have missions where you need to defend? Okay.
18. The last mission in vanilla involves having a base for each non-Zerg/Scourge race (Humans, Orcs, Elves, Terrans, and Protoss) and pitted against a large force of Zerg/Scourge. The object of interest (Overmind, World Tree) is in the center.
But in one case you're trying to destroy the center and in the other case you're trying to defend it. Similar in concept but not in execution.
19. In the very first campaign there is a holdout mission somewhere against Zerg/Scourge.
See 17.
20. The second campaign in vanilla ends with the main antagonist coming to his destination (Archimonde into Azeroth, Overmind onto Aiur)
Well it wouldn't be fun if the bad guy never got anywhere because then there wouldn't even be a 3rd campaign.
21. The middle expansion campaign ends with the protagonists’ hard-earned victory and great accomplishments (Illidan has a foothold and about to assault the Frozen Throne, UED has the new Overmind under their control and a Psi Disrupter) and the final campaign negates those accomplishments.
See 8.
22. Archimonde and the Overmind die in the end of vanilla, and then Arthas and Kerrigan see their chance and take it.
Arthas doesn't actually become part of the Scourge at the end of Reign of Chaos. He's forced into it shortly into the Frozen Throne by the Dreadlords.
23. The last campaign in expansion always has a lot of betrayal.
Bad guys will often do that.
24. The first mission of the middle campaign in the expansion has the forces starting with a lack of certain resources, and only gets a proper base in the middle of the mission.
I was hoping this would be less of a campaign mission-design related nitpicking and more of an overall storyline or mechanic nitpicking but I guess not.
25. The first mission of both expansions has no friendly base.
See above.
26. Somewhere in the first expansion campaign the evil dude and the good dudes are allied.
Treachery and deceit - also very "bad guy" things to do.
27. The eighth mission of the third vanilla campaigns resolves a conflict between the Orc/Protoss, similar in many respects.
Except the Terran and Protoss didn't have a couple-centuries long history of constant warfare like the Humans and Orcs did. Also the Humans and Orcs are still at war whereas the Terran and Protoss aren't.
28. The fourth mission of the middle expansion campaign involves first arrival on a tileset, Outlands/Korhal, which are similar in color and texture.
You are citing using RED GROUND as a similarity between the two?
29. Both the Outlands and Korhal have a troubled event with a cataclysmic event leading to their current state.
Outlands is the ancestral home of the Orcs but Korhal isn't the ancestral home of the Protoss!?!?
30. The Orc/Protoss both move to a desert place (Kalimdor/Shakuras) after their home is destroyed by the Zerg/Undead.
Only the Barrens and Durotar in Kalimdor is desert. The rest is lush forests or plains - see Ashenvale.
31. The Burning Legion is the Overmind and its Cerebrates.
No, the Burning Legion is the Burning Legion. Sargeras doesn't have complete control over every minion of the Burning Legion like the Overmind does over the Zerg. He controls his army through pure charisma.
32. The Burning Legion could also be the Xel’Naga because they created Orcs/Protoss but considered them a failure so made the Zerg/Scourge.
The Burning Legion did not create the Orcs. They corrupted them through delusions of grandeur.
33. Feedback, Recall, Consume, Cloak, Scanner and other spells have been mostly cosmetically changed and still work the same way in WC3.
Feedback is a passive orb skill, not a casted one. Mass Teleport requires the casting unit to be with the army to be teleported, not at the point of teleportation. Dark Ritual/Death Pact take into account the remaining HP of the sacrificed units. Wind Walk breaks on attack and doesn't drain mana while used. Reveal costs resources, not mana, and continues to play its graphic throughout its duration.
34. Shade is Observer.
Shades don't fly.
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You're going to be a sad little person when you finally realize that every single thing is some kind of borrow/rip/stealing of an idea
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you know zerg is "ripped" off the tyranids in Warhammer 40000 right?
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On January 12 2010 03:57 arb wrote:you know zerg is "ripped" off the tyranids in Warhammer 40000 right?
Not really, although Tyranids were very likely one of the influences as well. However, Blizzard has always stated that their primary sources of influence were the Alien movies and Starship Troopers.
Infact, one could argue that Games Workshop ripped off Blizzard more then vice-versa. Prior to StarCraft`s release, Tyranids were mostly nothing like the Zerg. It was only with the editions that came after StarCraft did they become more....Zerg-like. The Ravener (Tyranid version of the Hydralisk), for example, did not appear until 2004....well after StarCraft was released.
It`s a common misconception that Zerg are a "ripoff" of Tyranids, since the Warhammer 40k franchise has existed well before StarCraft. But just beacuse the franchise existed before does not mean that the Tyranids as they exist today were the same before StarCraft. There is nothing stopping older franchises from being influenced by newer work. Heck, StarCraft II is influenced by Firefly, which in turn was probably influenced by the original StarCraft.
The biggest irony of the relationship between Blizzard and Games Workshop is that Andy Chambers, arguably one of the most important creators of modern Tyranids, now works for Blizzard as a creative director for StarCraft II. 
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United States3824 Posts
Remember the level after you mine 10k lumber in the original Orc campaign where you have to drink from that well to kill Cenarius? That one starts off with you losing a bunch of bases, the same as Zerg X5.
Good times!
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United States47024 Posts
On January 12 2010 02:34 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
1. When they made races with different capabilities in 1998.
2. When they made the hero system in 2003.
1) The concept of unique-but-balanced races was not original. Arguably, it's a core goal in RTS design. Blizzard just happened to actually pull it off well.
2) Hero system was not unique. See: Warlords Battlecry series.
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On January 12 2010 02:26 Chill wrote:
I'm sure you can find 34 glancing similarities between anything.
Let's try.
1) Both are fruit
2) Both are round
3) Both are eaten by humans and many other species
4) Both have different varieties
5) Both can be sour
6) Both can be sweet
7) Both are being used in accusations of being compared against each other quite often
8) Both have a stem
9) Both grow on trees
10) Both will fall down due to gravity if not attached to anything, grabbed by anything or stationary on top of something. (ask Newton)
11) Both have seeds contained in them
12) Both can be used in culinary activities
13) Both can be processed into juice
14) Both can function as a very primitive wheel when connected to an axle
15) Both float
16) Both can suffer from various diseases
17) Both contain vitamins
18) Both have a skin
19) Both can have traces of pesticides
20) Neither are purple
21) Both can be thrown
22) Both can be eaten during a lunch break
23) They have similar size
24) They have similar weight
25) Both are organic
26) Both can be used in microwave experiments
27) Both are not likely to (initially) fall far away from their tree
28) Both are though, typically plucked before they get their chance to fall
29) Both are sold in grocery stores
30) Both are said to be healthy
31) Both can be used in teenage war simulations serving as fake grenades
32) Both have been advertised as being a compound in shampoos
33) Both rot over time
34) Both are being heavily abused in this post
Guess what is compared I guess for some of them you could discuss the amount of glance. Minor issue.
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I played wc3 only for the lore (campaign). I wasn't interested in multiplayer.
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There is being original and being Fresh
it's harder and harder to be "original" when the market is mature and there are alot of things already there.
now being fresh is something you argue do they do the things, they do right.
and i'd say playing though the wc3 campaign it's pretty good and the multiplayer, i'm not a aggressive must have rank kind of person, is for the most part fun and doesn't give me a sense of "fuck this" when i play it. Along with it's custom maps WC3 may not be so "original" as the op put it cuz he can draw random similarities but it's a good game none the less.
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On January 12 2010 02:30 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2010 02:29 Ingenol wrote:
You're aware that the entire Warcraft series has basically nothing that wasn't written in the fantasy genre decades earlier? First game to have the hero system though, right?
Sorry, but no
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On January 12 2010 04:31 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2010 02:34 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
1. When they made races with different capabilities in 1998.
2. When they made the hero system in 2003. 1) The concept of unique-but-balanced races was not original. Arguably, it's a core goal in RTS design. Blizzard just happened to actually pull it off well. 2) Hero system was not unique. See: Warlords Battlecry series.
The hero system was however the first that was viable for multiplayer and to date I think it still is the only one.
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On January 12 2010 03:48 scintilliaSD wrote:
Reveal costs resources, not mana, and continues to play its graphic throughout its duration.
I actually meant Thrall's Far Sight, that costs mana.
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United States47024 Posts
On January 12 2010 07:49 Klockan3 wrote:
The hero system was however the first that was viable for multiplayer and to date I think it still is the only one.
That's an issue of balance and implementation. It's still not an original idea.
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United States2822 Posts
On January 12 2010 10:19 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2010 03:48 scintilliaSD wrote:
Reveal costs resources, not mana, and continues to play its graphic throughout its duration.
I actually meant Thrall's Far Sight, that costs mana.
In that case - People actually use Scans. No one actually uses Far Sight because of the existence of Reveal.
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Some of you aren't doing the OP justice. What he cited were very similar, distinct and obvious reasons, many of which were obviously not coincidences.
Of course, this still begs the question Who the fuck cares?
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I remember reading a post on TL saying how one of the Blizzard writers confessed that he reused the same storyline/concepts throughout the games, so it doesn't surprise me.
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On January 12 2010 03:30 freelander wrote:
@jaeden
Lol the warcraft world is one of the more unoriginal and uninspiring ones.
I beg to differ, I was always more fond of the warcraft storyline than the starcraft one. But maybe that's because I've always played bw for the gameplay and warcraft for the story.
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On January 12 2010 03:54 Hawk wrote:
You're going to be a sad little person when you finally realize that every single thing is some kind of borrow/rip/stealing of an idea he knows that. heck, everyone knows that, at least to some point.
what he was pointing out though is that the campaigns in both games are so much alike, despite the differences in overall lore and setting of both universes that at times you feel as though you are playing the same game just with green goggles on instead of blue.
of course you can find similarities between anything if that is all you are looking for. but thats not what he wanted to show.
its indeed a little sad (from a gamers pov) that this amazingly successful company does so little original, creative work. they make good games, but after starcraft the stories have become worse and worse. this isnt just true for warcraft 3 and tft, but also for world of warcraft. the implementation of lore into the actual game is really lacking and you often get the feeling that they spin it just to be able to implement certain features or in case of wc3 to enable a 3+3 campaign system without putting so much effort into it.
you cant honestly tell me that after knowing "the original" (starcraft) and these similarities that you found the wc3 campaign to be genuinely captivating.
really, its like driving that one car all these years and then when it doesnt sell anymore the company markets it as a new one just by painting it in a different colour, and expects all people to go "woaaaaa such a great, fresh car, really amazing". there is a lack of originality observed in blizzards creations despite their success and beyond what we see with other examples brought up in this thread. of course there are also more grave cases as ripping something off requires so little effort, but that doesnt change anything.
tl;dr version: youd expect originality/effort associated with it to grow proportionally to the success of the creator. with blizzard it feels as though we are seeing a decline, not growth.
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The Hero system from Warlords Battlecry was only an embryonic version of what Blizzard eventually did with Warcraft III.
The hero was gained levels and power in WBC, but he didn't have a combination of unique abilities to put points into, so I think Blizzard definitely brought more roleplaying element into the game (though the core idewa was not unique)
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EPT
