D&D 4E My compiled list of 4E's WoWisms

[RigaMortus2]

Given that you're unwilling to anchor yourself to the fact that these supposed "WOWisms" are good or bad, why should we care?

Well, really I don't care if you care or not. If you don't care, then this post is not for you. I'd like to keep a record of what I think are a lot of imports from WoW, as they seem to keep piling up as more and more info is released IMHO.

For some people who are not familiar with WoW or MMOs, this is a point of referrence for them when people say "they stole X from WoW!!!".

 

[RigaMortus2]

I'll start!

• 
  WoW has classes
  WoW classes often fall into roles established in the earliest days of D&D (fighting guy = tank; artillery = dps, crowd control; sneaky guy = dps; medic = healer)
  WoW has levels
  WoW has a variety of races, some of which come directly from D&D: elves, dwarves, orcs, humans, and gnomes
  WoW gnomes are pretty much tinker gnomes from Dragonlance
  WoW involves going into dungeons, killing monsters, and taking their stuff
  WoW often requires characters to party up for maximum effectiveness

If there are any more, I'll add them to the list.

May I respectfully ask that if you are serious about this, you start your own thread on it and do no thread hijack or threadcrap this one?

 

[DonTadow]

What's a quest card?

 

[Grymar]

WotC's Sample Dragon Fight is very similiar to the Onyxia Fight in WoW

A stretch. Aside from it being a party versus a dragon, how is it similar?

[*]Quest cards - resemble WoW's quest log

Or like the quest log in Neverwinter Nights, or Bauldur's Gate, or Everquest, or City of Heroes, or...any quest log in any game, written or computer.

[*]Level limits on magic items, rings specifically - WoW has items that require a certain level to equip

Like many other games that have had level limits...City of Heroes for instance.

[*]Playable "demon" race Tiefling, is a Core race, playable right from the get go with no level adjustment - WoW has the Draenei, also a playable "demon" race
[*]In the Gnome & Tiefling interview, the Tiefling ("demon" race) has a sort of Romanian (think Ernest Borgnine version of Dracula) accent - The demon race for WoW, the Draenei, have a very similiar accent.

meh, it seems to me to be no stretch that there is a demonic race (tieflings have been in D&D for a long time, although not core). And having evil'ish races associated with Dracula/Eastern Europe is a standard fantasy trope.

[*]4E classes are now sub-divided into character roles (Defender, Controller, Healer, Striker) - WoW has similiar roles (Tank, Crowd Control, Healer, DPS aka damge-per-second)

In City of Heros, the classes were literally Tank, Blaster, Controler, Healer and Scrapper. This pre-dates WoW. The concept of those roles far pre-dates CoH too, although we called Tanks meat-shields when we were growing up and blasters would be glass cannons. This is not a WoW'ism.

[*]Certain creatures in 4E will be designated as "elite" creatures, meant for a whole party to take on one of these creatures; see the Eilte Bulette - WoW also has elite creatures

Which has also been done in many other MMO's, again like City of Heroes. The concept has also, I think, been in D&D for a while, just not clarified and codified as obviously as it will be in 4e.

I disagree with your list. Each of these has roots older than World of Warcraft, some of them in D&D itself. They build on common fantasy tropes (Eastern European accents), common game techniques (quest logs), or on making popular game choices (tieflings) core.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Given that you're unwilling to anchor yourself to the fact that these supposed "WOWisms" are good or bad...

And I will anchor myself, since you asked and seem interested in knowing my opinion...

I think "borrowing" ideas from WoW or other MMOs or even other PnP RPGs is fine, as long as it helps the game/makes it better. What kinda "gets" me is denying that you are "borrowing" these ideas. And no, I haven't seen WotC come out and deny they are borrowing ideas from WoW, but I also have not seen WotC admit to it either when it appears to me it is blatantly obvious. They have admitted to being big WoW fans FWIW.

 

[Glyfair]

meh, it seems to me to be no stretch that there is a demonic race (tieflings have been in D&D for a long time, although not core). And having evil'ish races associated with Dracula/Eastern Europe is a standard fantasy trope. .

While a "demonic" race has never been D&D core (half-orc is as close as you get), the concept of a "demonic" D&D race goes back to at least Arduin Grimoire (the unofficial D&D supplement version) and the Deodanth.

 

[Fifth Element]

[*]In the Gnome & Tiefling interview, the Tiefling ("demon" race) has a sort of Romanian (think Bela Lugosi version of Dracula) accent - The demon race for WoW, the Draenei, have a very similiar accent.

You should remove this one. The interview was intended to be humorous, not part of the core game. They likely gave the tiefling that accent because of the Draenei accent. It was all in good fun. It has nothing to do with the actual game itself.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Or like the quest log in Neverwinter Nights, or Bauldur's Gate, or Everquest, or City of Heroes, or...any quest log in any game, written or computer.

Hence my 4E designers seem to be "borrowing" from WoW (or other MMOs, but mostly WoW). comment which you must have ignored/missed.

I just use WoW as the main point of referrence since that is the most popular MMO atm.

 

[Fifth Element]

What kinda "gets" me is denying that you are "borrowing" these ideas. And no, I haven't seen WotC come out and deny they are borrowing ideas from WoW, but I also have not seen WotC admit to it either when it appears to me it is blatantly obvious. They have admitted to being big WoW fans FWIW.

1. Are you complaining that they haven't answered a question they haven't been asked?

2. Didn't Mearls have a blog post or somesuch where he discussed borrowing ideas from other media (ie, we didn't refuse to consider something just because it came from a MMOG)?

 

[RigaMortus2]

You should remove this one. The interview was intended to be humorous, not part of the core game. They likely gave the tiefling that accent because of the Draenei accent. It was all in good fun. It has nothing to do with the actual game itself.

Yeah, I realize that. But that is why I am not reserving my list to just 4E mechanics alone. I am trying to compare the resemblances to all factors. I doubt in the PHB that it will say "Tieflings speak with a Romanian accent", but that's not the point. The fact that the accent seems to be influenced from the Draenai is more to the point, even if it was just in gest.