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I have heard many times across multiple sites that is GW had made better decisions, World of Warcraft would be about Warhammer Fantasy and Starcraft would be about 40k. However, I have yet to see any proof/evidence, or sources cited. Can anyone show me these, or is this just a very old internet rumor, made believable through wikiality?

No its true google et.

I think there is some chatter in the internets (if you look for it) that says that starcraft was originally ment to be a 40k game and GW backed out, causeing blizz to become a billion dollar company and GW to become... well GW

CajunMan550 wrote:No its true google et.

I just did, and most of the links are either people debating it much like I am now, or people proclaiming that this is a false rumor. Sources, please?

SOURCES????

Well, I can't remember the date that the original Starcraft/Warcraft games came out, but at UK GD '92/93 (?) GW were showing off a VERY similar game that was never mentioned beyond the stall on the day. Dunno if that had anything to do with it

Edit - Yeah, it was '93 that I saw it. Same year that they teased us with the first live-action 40K movie plug...

micahaphone wrote:

CajunMan550 wrote:No its true google et.

I just did, and most of the links are either people debating it much like I am now, or people proclaiming that this is a false rumor. Sources, please?

SOURCES????

I doubt you will find any official GW sources stating on the record that this was the case. Admitting a business mistake of such proportions would be akin to that chap who admitted he turned down signing The Beatles.

Either way, the most you will find is rumour and hearsay.

I would start with a search of this site first. This topic has come up many many times, and each time it comes up, the general consensus is that no one cares.

Seriously though, all scifi and all fantasy borrow from one anohter. Orks, Elves, Dwarves, and there space fareing cousins are not unique to anything.

An interesting point to consider no doubt. I'm afraid I've never heard of such rumours, nor a source.

IMO, up until Starcraft, most RTS's were only of two factions, with one normally being dominate in multiplayer aspects.
Starcraft was (and still is) rather unique as it brought what most people would consider to be close to a near perfect balance of its three factions : Terran, Protoss and Zerg. (Space Marines, Eldar and Tyranids for those of you who are not SC literate - these are their equivalent)

A 40k game *could* have been made with those three races...but to be honest I think it may have suffered from pressure to include more and more armies - until it would not have been balanced and would have crumbled. Today's Dawn of War series is seen as quite a sucessful RTS series from 40k, but I think a game like Dawn of War wouldnt have achieved its sucess if it hadn't been for the legacy of previous RTS games (C&C, Star/Warcraft etc).

Its quite clear that Blizzard was inspired by Warhammer, especially when you look at its roots - Warcraft 1 and 2. The Horde bare a striking similarity to the fluff around our beloved Orks and Gobbos - love explosions, fighting and running amok (and who in their right mind doesn't?)

Blizzard has adapted this image again - the 'new' Horde is now more of a 'noble savage' image in the post-Warcraft 2 universe. Now I'm not about to scream in outrage at the 'theft' of Blizzard - virtually every idea has been concieved of in fantasty/sci-fi - its the creative spin and new interpretation of old ideas in a new manner which win over the crowd.

No, and they have denied it. Blame Tolkien for the similarities.

Good. I would actually like the two companies to combine in a partnership to form a super company! That basically gives the finger.

You could say that World of Warcraft (and the whole Warcraft feel as well) along with Starcraft was derived from prior works of fiction.

Everything builds from the past, no matter how original the idea.

J.R.R. Tolkein's works for instance form the crux of alot of today's successful fantasy franchises (DnD, WoW, WHFB, ect.) and his success was derived from the prior works of earlier writers such as George MacDonald and going even further back to pull some of the original material from the various stories, legends, and myths from across the spectrum of Europe.

Each built upon the other to make their material. The success for DnD inspired Games Workshop and Blizzard, and in turn DnD today has been reworked to look like WoW.

*whistles innocently*

H.B.M.C. wrote:*whistles innocently*

Seriously? With a quick google search its clear they had that appearance back in 2nd.

No they didn't.

The Tyranid line was completely replaced when they made the transition from 2nd to 3rd. For 1st and 2nd Ed 40K, Tyranids looked like the picture on the left. The current look only came about in 3rd (2001 I believe).

The way I always heard this "legend" was that Blizzard made a very "alpha" version of the game and pitched it to GW. That GW turned them down because the percieved video games as being their direct competition. Blizzard like what they had done, so much, they decided to move forward with the project as an independent IP.

Simply, neither GW or Blizzard would want to admit any past cooperation. Blizzard wants their fans to believe everything was completely their idea and Gw would like us to believe they aren't incompetent.

I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft. The simple fact is 40k existed before Starcraft, thus the greater tendency is that 40k had a larger impact on Starcraft than the other way around.

H.B.M.C. wrote:No they didn't.

The Tyranid line was completely replaced when they made the transition from 2nd to 3rd. For 1st and 2nd Ed 40K, Tyranids looked like the picture on the left. The current look only came about in 3rd (2001 I believe).

http://album.warpshadow.com/v/ShadowsInTheWarp/Tyranid-Archive/Warhammer-40K/2ndEdNids/

Doesn't look like a huge leap to me.

What are you talking about?

This is a 2nd Ed Tyranid army:



Compare that with 3rd Ed Tyranids. The Gaunts changed in style. H-Gaunts changed. Gargoyles Changed. Carnifexes, Tyranid Warriors, Rippers and Hive Tyrants changed completely. Zoanthropes look nothing alike.

There's virtually nothing similar between 2nd and 3rd Ed armies aside from the one model that didn't change - the Genestealer. Even the Spore Mines changed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

aka_mythos wrote:I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft.

I agree with this.

Starcraft came about because of 40K, but since then 40K has taken its fair share of concepts directly from Starcraft (and then SCII took stuff from 40K). It's a cycle really, a bit chicken vs egg-ish.

aka_mythos wrote:The way I always heard this "legend" was that Blizzard made a very "alpha" version of the game and pitched it to GW. That GW turned them down because the percieved video games as being their direct competition. Blizzard like what they had done, so much, they decided to move forward with the project as an independent IP.

Simply, neither GW or Blizzard would want to admit any past cooperation. Blizzard wants their fans to believe everything was completely their idea and Gw would like us to believe they aren't incompetent.

I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft. The simple fact is 40k existed before Starcraft, thus the greater tendency is that 40k had a larger impact on Starcraft than the other way around.

And yet, this story doesn;t make a huge amount of sense. So GW turn down Starcraft, causing Blizzard to merely change a couple of names, then release it? BUt that would lead to a lawsuit surely, probably stacked in GW's favour?

Except it obviously wasn't just them "changing a few names". If that'd been the case, then the Zerg would look like those pictures I posted.

Earliest Tyranids copied Giger's Aliens , so does the necromunda reaper jacks copied face hugger.
And the Bio Titan Dominatrix copied the Space Jocky.

Then Starcraft came out

Then Tyranid shifted into having the Hydralisk look.

(PS , im not talking about the concept , im talking about the artistic design of the models , concept wise they came from starship troopers )

H.B.M.C. wrote:What are you talking about?

This is a 2nd Ed Tyranid army:



Compare that with 3rd Ed Tyranids. The Gaunts changed in style. H-Gaunts changed. Gargoyles Changed. Carnifexes, Tyranid Warriors, Rippers and Hive Tyrants changed completely. Zoanthropes look nothing alike.

There's virtually nothing similar between 2nd and 3rd Ed armies aside from the one model that didn't change - the Genestealer. Even the Spore Mines changed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

aka_mythos wrote:I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft.

I agree with this.

Starcraft came about because of 40K, but since then 40K has taken its fair share of concepts directly from Starcraft (and then SCII took stuff from 40K). It's a cycle really, a bit chicken vs egg-ish.

Yea, still not seeing the 'complete redesign' you're talking about. Now if you made the argument that the original nids were based on the movie Aliens, I would agree completely. But to say that the nids of 2nd look completely different from how they do now is just absurd. The layered carapace is still there. I'm sure there are a few features they took from SC, but most of the overall physical features of the nids was there prior to SC.

BioRebel wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:What are you talking about?

This is a 2nd Ed Tyranid army:



Compare that with 3rd Ed Tyranids. The Gaunts changed in style. H-Gaunts changed. Gargoyles Changed. Carnifexes, Tyranid Warriors, Rippers and Hive Tyrants changed completely. Zoanthropes look nothing alike.

There's virtually nothing similar between 2nd and 3rd Ed armies aside from the one model that didn't change - the Genestealer. Even the Spore Mines changed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

aka_mythos wrote:I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft.

I agree with this.

Starcraft came about because of 40K, but since then 40K has taken its fair share of concepts directly from Starcraft (and then SCII took stuff from 40K). It's a cycle really, a bit chicken vs egg-ish.

Yea, still not seeing the 'complete redesign' you're talking about.

You must be the only person reading this thread who can't then, to be honest. 2nd ED Tyranid warrior:



Current Tyranid warrior:



They're completely different.

Orki wrote:Well, I can't remember the date that the original Starcraft/Warcraft games came out, but at UK GD '92/93 (?) GW were showing off a VERY similar game that was never mentioned beyond the stall on the day. Dunno if that had anything to do with it

Edit - Yeah, it was '93 that I saw it. Same year that they teased us with the first live-action 40K movie plug...

That could have been "Shadow of the Horned rat", the original warhammer fantasy pc/ps1 game?

There was a serious article about this on IGN 6months to a year ago. I can't find it at the moment, but at one point the two properties were related, and GW pulled out.

Mr Mystery wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:The way I always heard this "legend" was that Blizzard made a very "alpha" version of the game and pitched it to GW. That GW turned them down because the percieved video games as being their direct competition. Blizzard like what they had done, so much, they decided to move forward with the project as an independent IP.

Simply, neither GW or Blizzard would want to admit any past cooperation. Blizzard wants their fans to believe everything was completely their idea and Gw would like us to believe they aren't incompetent.

I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft. The simple fact is 40k existed before Starcraft, thus the greater tendency is that 40k had a larger impact on Starcraft than the other way around.

And yet, this story doesn't make a huge amount of sense. So GW turn down Starcraft, causing Blizzard to merely change a couple of names, then release it? But that would lead to a lawsuit surely, probably stacked in GW's favour?

That was a different time, when Blizzard was a virtually no-name company and GW wasn't a publicly traded company.

To put it bluntly: They didn't give a crap about Blizzard. Nobody did, because nobody had really heard of them. Add to it the fact that GW wasn't in the habit of sending C&Ds related to their intellectual properties(mostly because of the fact that unlike today, GW themselves were the only ones with anything tied up in their IPs meaning they had no responsibility to their licensees to protect certain mediums) et voila. You get knockoff 40k for Starcraft, and knockoff WHFB for Warcraft.

Herohammernostalgia wrote:

Orki wrote:Well, I can't remember the date that the original Starcraft/Warcraft games came out, but at UK GD '92/93 (?) GW were showing off a VERY similar game that was never mentioned beyond the stall on the day. Dunno if that had anything to do with it

Edit - Yeah, it was '93 that I saw it. Same year that they teased us with the first live-action 40K movie plug...

That could have been "Shadow of the Horned rat", the original warhammer fantasy pc/ps1 game?

Nope. Had that, rinsed it regularly.

There were two tactical isometric rts style games, one fantasy and the other 40K, each only running on 1 comp (pc's) and very specifically announced as 'in development'. They were more zoomed-in, and looked much more like the 'craft games than the early GW comp games like SOTHR.

Mr Mystery wrote:And yet, this story doesn;t make a huge amount of sense. So GW turn down Starcraft, causing Blizzard to merely change a couple of names, then release it? BUt that would lead to a lawsuit surely, probably stacked in GW's favour?

My understanding is that they figured they'd go broke with the costs.

A British company suing an American company in the US courts?

Consider Apple (records) vs. Apple (computers). Back in the day Apple (records) were the much bigger company and they could defend their own trademark.

You probably cant find it because it was back when Blizzard wasnt blizzard and long before the internet.

Im talking before the rock and roll racing days of 1993 when blizzard was called Silicon & Synapse.

GW went to them to make an game much like the horrible GW computer games of old and then pulled out for whatever reason (most likely money). This left Silicon and Synapse a bucket of ideas work already done for a Fantasy RTS and dungeon crawler (was made to be warhammer quest) and the beginings of starcraft.

Then in 1994 the now Blizzard makes Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

I never think Blizzard ripped GW off, GW screwed themselves by giving an new company tons of ideas and making them developing it then bailing on them. GW, as usual, shot themselves in the foot and gave blizzard millions of dollars and millions of followers because on their hindsight.

Go figure though, all the best ideas these days are borrowed or stolen anyway i.e facebook, microsoft etc.

I'm sure blizzard became a whole lot similar to GW after Andy Chambers became their Creative Director. That must be at least 8 years ago, so it's no wonder they're so similar really.

Edit. 4 years

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/17/interview-andy-chambers-on-writing-starcraft-2/

filbert wrote:

BioRebel wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:What are you talking about?

This is a 2nd Ed Tyranid army:



Compare that with 3rd Ed Tyranids. The Gaunts changed in style. H-Gaunts changed. Gargoyles Changed. Carnifexes, Tyranid Warriors, Rippers and Hive Tyrants changed completely. Zoanthropes look nothing alike.

There's virtually nothing similar between 2nd and 3rd Ed armies aside from the one model that didn't change - the Genestealer. Even the Spore Mines changed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

aka_mythos wrote:I think the fact is Starcraft was influenced to some degree by 40k and since its creation so has 40k been influenced by Starcraft.

I agree with this.

Starcraft came about because of 40K, but since then 40K has taken its fair share of concepts directly from Starcraft (and then SCII took stuff from 40K). It's a cycle really, a bit chicken vs egg-ish.

Yea, still not seeing the 'complete redesign' you're talking about.

You must be the only person reading this thread who can't then, to be honest. 2nd ED Tyranid warrior:



Current Tyranid warrior:



They're completely different.

http://album.warpshadow.com/v/ShadowsInTheWarp/Tyranid-Archive/Warhammer-40K/2ndEdNids/warrior_Metal_2nd.jpg.html
If the site is correct then those guys came in between.
Also 1st edition anything looks almost nothing like 5th edition models. Case in point dreadnoughts.