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<blockquote data-quote="awesomeocalypse" data-source="post: 5101200" data-attributes="member: 85641">I wonder if the shift away from generic, to the point names to strangely-specific portmanteaus and orginal names has anything to do with trademarking, specifically, it would be very difficult to trademark &quot;fireball&quot; or &quot;fighter&quot; or &quot;dwarf&quot;, but names like &quot;tide of iron&quot; or &quot;swordmage&quot; or &quot;shardmind&quot; might be easier to trademark.&nbsp;Of course, if that is the reason, then I think its a bit silly--what makes 4e cool, distinctive and popular are the mechanics, which are awesome, not the names, which are stupid. Another game could have a &quot;battlemind&quot; class as well, but if it didn't have nifty 4e mechanics, I doubt anyone would want to play it. And if it *did* mimic those mechanics, but named the class something different like &quot;Precog&quot; or something, that strikes me as a far more serious breach of copyright--the fact that it wasn't actually called something as stupid as &quot;Battlemind&quot; is hardly a mitigating factor.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="awesomeocalypse, post: 5101200, member: 85641"] I wonder if the shift away from generic, to the point names to strangely-specific portmanteaus and orginal names has anything to do with trademarking, specifically, it would be very difficult to trademark "fireball" or "fighter" or "dwarf", but names like "tide of iron" or "swordmage" or "shardmind" might be easier to trademark. Of course, if that is the reason, then I think its a bit silly--what makes 4e cool, distinctive and popular are the mechanics, which are awesome, not the names, which are stupid. Another game could have a "battlemind" class as well, but if it didn't have nifty 4e mechanics, I doubt anyone would want to play it. And if it *did* mimic those mechanics, but named the class something different like "Precog" or something, that strikes me as a far more serious breach of copyright--the fact that it wasn't actually called something as stupid as "Battlemind" is hardly a mitigating factor. [/QUOTE]

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