WoW didn't invent mechanically-minded gnomes. Those were prominent in the early Forgotten Realms.
They stole it from dragonlance and they weren't even shy about it.
Seriously, the name of their homein exile is TINKER TOWN.
Real subtle there guys...
WoW didn't invent mechanically-minded gnomes. Those were prominent in the early Forgotten Realms.
But WoW added fun. When MMOs weren't actually fun for more than .001% of the population, they weren't actually a threat.
MMOs are actually the red herring, in any case.
4e has more in common with turn based tactics games (Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, etc) than it does with any MMO.
But "4e has a combat engine that is vaguely reminiscent of a bunch of small audience games none of us have played or heard of!" is a terrible rallying cry. It might actually make some of the iconoclasts here go try those games. On the other hand, "4e is just like WoW!" taps into the right sort of media hysteria.
I feel rage when someone looks at a 2e/3e style tiefling and says something to the effect of "They totally stole that design from the drenai in WoW!"
Yes. But it is a carefully selected generic for maximum scare power and minimum applicability.I agree. I just wanted to point out that WoW is being used in a generic sense.
As for class mirrors, the issue there is that, while theoretically both factions have similar classes, the unique abilities in the classes can make a world of a difference. Or in other words, lol bright wizards warrior priests.
I'm not saying it's a bad or un-fun game, but it's made some astronomically bad design choices that's lead to it hemorrhaging money.
I flip out ninja-style whenever someone says, "Man, [other game] tottally ripped off Zerg!" I berate them on Tyranids, and Borg, and all the other alien-themed stuff that Blizzard copied the idea from.
Off-topic, but just to give you some feedback on other experiences.And here I thought the problem was it just couldn't pull the users away from World of Warcraft long enough to get behind it. That was my experience anecdotally. Everyone I know that TRIED Warhammer prefers it to WoW(Except that none of their friends will play). In other words, if WH:O did not pull the whole guild along, they ended up failing to keep the players.
Maybe my experience is unique in that aspect, but I actually prefer WH:O's model for class design than WoW.
Squeezing out the last fraction of damage, AC or utility, no matter what the impact to the concept of the character appears to be more and more the "norm" these days.
WARs biggest problem is at it's core, it is a PVP game.