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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9207873" data-attributes="member: 6790260">While I certainly agree that Warcraft-style orcs have grown in popularity to eclipse the Tolkien-style, they really exist only as a reaction to Tolkien orcs, and in essence just a rehabilitation of them to make them playable characters. The Night Elves are basically just Wood Elves with a slightly different coat of paint, so I don't really see them as meaningfully different from Tolkien's--they're beautiful, long-lived relics of a better time who protect the natural world and pine for an age when their power was far greater while struggling to deal with the rise of shorter-lived, vivacious newcomers. All Warcraft did was flip the color scheme; Night Elves are standard elves colored kinda-sorta like Drow, while Blood Elves are much closer to Drow...just white. And Warcraft dwarves are literally straight-up Tolkien dwarves with the serial numbers filed off.Statistics on played races belie the claim about tieflings. Yes, they've grown enormously in popularity since their introduction, but all the data from D&D Beyond indicates they remain below both elves and half-elves. The much bigger surprise is the rise of dragonborn, who vie with tieflings for third place non-human race, behind (as noted) elves and half-elves, and the relative fall of dwarves and halflings, who have lost a lot of ground over time."Tolkien and [his] derivatives" is basically all of fantasy roleplaying right now in the video game sphere, and certainly fantasy MMOs east and west. WoW and FFXIV are the two biggest MMOs at present, and they're both still heavily influenced by Tolkien, even if they're also distinct from his work. Further, the LOTR films concluded only 20 years ago (ugh, it hurts to say that), and they were an absolute phenomenon on a par with things like Harry Potter and, as you say, manga and anime (which are also heavily influenced by Tolkien, often via D&D!)I certainly haven't seen anywhere near as much influence from Lovecraft on fiction as I have from Tolkien. Existential horror kind of lost its sting after the rise of postmodernism and the general pop-psychology/pop-philosophy understanding of existentialism. More often, I see Cthulhu parodied or defied, not played straight--meaning in some ways, Lovecraft skipped straight over the "wide influence" phase and fell straight into the "dead horse trope" phase. Over in Japan, I would certainly grant a greater interest in cosmic-horror-type stuff, but usually things are instead replaced with ennui rather than dread. Things like Ghost in the Shell.Plus? Look at things like Divinity: Original Sin. Their orcs...are pretty much Tolkien orcs, with a bit more nuance. Their elves are mostly the "sylvan" type of elf, with a grittier edge (cannibalism). Their dwarves are still very much Tolkien-esque, just with a slight reduction in being specifically tied to mining and mountains, while still being the kind of being crafted by Aulë, the Smith of the Valar, hard and durable and gruff etc., etc. The only really new development (for a certain definition of "new") is the lizards, who tap into the same zeitgeist as dragonborn, coming from a mighty and haughty empire that looks down on mammalian beings.All of which is to say: Yes, you're right that "just imitate Tolkien" is no longer in vogue. But Tolkien still looms large because LOTS of people do still imitate him, and those who don't, almost always instead respond to him. Dragon Age elves are short-lived and either enslaved or wildlings with warped recollections of their ancient culture, because that is just about diametrically opposite what Tolkien elves were....but they're still elegant relics of a better time when magic was everywhere etc.I mean...that's all anyone has really claimed? That he's still a huge influence. I haven't seen anyone claiming that he's the ONLY game in town. Just that the vast majority of works are either still copying him (IMO, that's still the plurality), or intentionally reacting against him (which means he's still having an influence, just a contradictory one.)</blockquote>

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