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Starcraft's "Harvest" of WH40k
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They're still pretty much stuck using their dead as soldiers now, though.
Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: WaffleMous#1483
For those playing at home, Echo's talking about the "Dread Empire's Fall" trilogy by Walter Jon Williams. Those of you who've expressed a wish to see stories where humans aren't the boring average members of the galaxy (or its rulers) could do a lot worse than to check these books out - they're intelligent, literate, and fun modern space operas.
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
But the thing with IP and trademark law is, you have to be able to show that you've vigorously enforced your claim or it weakens your position later on. Marvel and DC had to sue the makers of City of Heroes on grounds that pretty much everyone knew from the get-go were spurious, not because they expected to win but because otherwise it would make actual infringment of their properties that much easier down the road. With regards to the thread topic, I think GW could easily have sued Blizzard back in the day - maybe not won, but they probably could have kept the game off shelves for months or even years. But they'd have no chance now, since any complaint they brought up could be dismissed with "well, you've tolerated this for over a decade, you must not be very serious."
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
I see the aliens but... predator?
SoogaGames Blog
You mean scrupulously honor-bound people who are constantly cloaking themselves and wear their "hair" in oddly non-human dreadlocks don't remind you of anything?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
I can see how someone could make the connection if they hadn't been exposed to anything more similar to the Protoss, but with that exposure, it seems like a very, very tenuous connection.
I'd always thought, with my extremely limited knowledge of IP law, that the biggest threat (especially in the comics space) was having to spend money to defend yourself.
There's not a whole lot of information out there, but I don't think I've ever seen a successful cross-media gaming lawsuit, while GW has killed or extracted funds from many a small company with miniatures, artwork, or game-related stuff too close to theirs. In any case, I agree that GW may have been able to make things difficult for Blizzard, especially around the original Warcraft. Later releases have strayed quite a bit. Whether through ignorance, appreciation of homage, or whatever else, they never did a thing.
Though not my speed, I think everyone's better off they didn't delay things, then.
Also, I stumbled across this absurdly fascinating article from a former GW author, describing the genesis of GW and GW novels/background. Apparently Terry Pratchet wanted to get on board for the first round of books during the late 80's.
The humor's pretty similar though. I could see him doing a short story about halflings stealing each other's cocks or orcs playing football with a baby.
Really you could take just about any popular universe and say that it harvested off of another, or vice versa. You could say that every fantasy book made since Tolkein started publishing his work harvested off of LotR. And it might be true to a degree since most fantasy is heavily influenced by Tolkein but it wouldn't really be fair. I think the originality of something doesnt necisarily come from the universe, but from the story it's self, the story and the characters. Not from the art style or the races involved or the places where they wage their wars.
I'm going to do something tottaly geeky here and quote a character from a fantasy book, Septon Maribald from A Feast for Crows:
There are many types of outlaws as there are many types of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings but they are not the same.
So if it works for outlaws I'm going to take a bit of a jump here and say that it works for fictional universes too. If you understand me. Although I admit I never managed to get involved in the Warhammer universe or any universe Blizzard has created. So forgive me for that.
Felt like I was playing DnD for a while in fact.
sure.
predators are tough, with highly advanced technology and a tribalistic society. dts cloak like the predators. zealots have arm blades like the predators. mounted shoulder cannons remind me of the way a dragoon attacks. the way they look even kind of reminds me of predators (with their masks) on.
the similarities arent perfect, but neither do the zerg really resemble the aliens when you think about it. but the themes are definitely there.
again, ive never played warhammer so i dont know what the eldar look like or fight like or whatever. but the first time i ever played starcraft, i thought, shit, this is like aliens vs predator vs humans. awesome!
They need a proper, modern RTS that actually is Humans vs. Predators vs. Aliens.
Yeah, but Tau came after starcraft and was more directly based off of anime (so I hear).
However, Protoss being a mixture of a bit of eldar and a bit of predator makes a decent amount of sense. They do look a bit like predators with their masks still on, and some of the weapons are very similar.
Just for that I'll scream "Stealthsuits ready!" for every dark templar my brother trains.
"The Tau infantry models, according to sculptor Jes Goodwin, were designed to have subtle influences taken from Chinese foot soldiers, while the Battlesuits and vehicles drew from mecha anime."
So yeah. Even their accents in DC seem to be based on what we think Japanese people sound like.
i own this but have not yet played it. i blind bought it just because it, well, because it's an rts with aliens, predators and humans.
im sure it probably sucks though. most reviews say just that.
Yeah except the Tau came out after Starcraft
HAH, So Warhammer did rip off Starcraft.
goadgoadgoadgoadgoadgoad
And kind of lack psychic powers.
say now, wasn't there a 40K unit made after starcraft that was a ripoff or something? or at least thats what i hear on the urban legend grape vine.
SoogaGames Blog
It'd be tough without much of a warp-signature. I'd say that's a theory that can be grouped in with "Sigmar is a Primarch" or "Human technology was made by the C'tan". As in internets BS not even hinted at by GW.
It doesn't give a source, but Wikipedia does say