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So there I was, reading, gathering up inspiration for my new inquisitor entourage and what do I stumble upon? well yes, an Image.
Now most of us know who Andy Chambers is, he's one of the lifers that got out from under Nottinghams thumb, he's one of the chosen few who developed games for Games Workshop back in the day, just google the guy and read his wikipedia.

Ah I digress, where was I? Ah yes, images. yes I did find an image, and well, considering both games depicted come from Andy's chambers of horror, well. I'll just let you lot judge on yer own.



Ah yes, similarities aye?

It's not a hidden piece of knowledge that Starcraft and 40k were similar. I believe that Blizzard and GW had a deal to develop a game based on 40k, and GW backed out (this may have been something similar with WHFB and Warcraft), but yes they do look similar.

Hey look! It is this thread... again...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I expected MUCH more out of this thread title. Maybe, you know, an actual retrospective view of Andy Chambers as a game designer and not an over-used comparison of Starcraft and WH40k.

 pretre wrote:
Hey look! It is this thread... again...

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I expected MUCH more out of this thread title. Maybe, you know, an actual retrospective view of Andy Chambers as a game designer and not an over-used comparison of Starcraft and WH40k.

Thanks for the epic comic. Sums ups reaaaaaally well my feelings about this thread

Thank Penny Arcade, not me. I just trot it out when necessary.

Games Workshop ripped off Starship Troopers!

Everything is derivative of something.

Would you like to know more?

 pretre wrote:
Everything is derivative of something.

Would you like to know more?

I get the feeling it was a joke.

If I wasn't bludgeoned to death with its joky-ness then it wasn't a good one!!!!!

oh come on, it was a jest, i'll fill in more fun stuff as it goes more of a retrospective on lord andy

Not really ha ha fun though is it. More Ha ahem seen it.

It would be more interesting if you posted about the Squats dying of gayitis. (True GD story).

I was expecting a book review of an apparently non-exiatant biography/treatise on games design by Andy C.

It's almost as if the creators of starcraft were nerds, and would have drawn inspiration from other nerd things they liked. Including, but not limited to Warhammer 40k.

Good god I loved Andy Chambers. Like I loved Phil Anselmo and James Hetfield. He took away the scary, confusing chaos of teenage life and replaced it with the cool, cool chaos of 40K and heavy metal.

I never get tired of that comic. I love how Gabe is crying in the last box.

 Alfndrate wrote:
It's not a hidden piece of knowledge that Starcraft and 40k were similar. I believe that Blizzard and GW had a deal to develop a game based on 40k, and GW backed out (this may have been something similar with WHFB and Warcraft), but yes they do look similar.

It was actually the first Warcraft game, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. It was supposed to be a Warhammer title but Games Workshop pulled out and it was re-branded as Warcraft.

I don't get the purpose of this thread...what does this have to do with Andy Chambers? Are you implying that he knocked off Starcraft?

Do you think that if GW didn't pull out and Warcraft was Warhammer that it still would have gone on to the same levels of success?

WoW and Starcraft are some of the biggest games ever. Imagine what GW could have done with that revenue. They wouldn't have had to price gouge!

I do wish his Starship Troopers mini game would have taken off. I loved the models.

Ahem.
Everything is a ripoff of something else.
You cant find an original idea anymore.

 pretre wrote:
Hey look! It is this thread... again...

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I expected MUCH more out of this thread title. Maybe, you know, an actual retrospective view of Andy Chambers as a game designer and not an over-used comparison of Starcraft and WH40k.

I've never got Penny Arcade. Do those guys just not try to be funny or what?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ahem.
Everything is a ripoff of something else.
You cant find an original idea anymore.

I would argue that you can. Whether or not its good, however, is a completely different story.


To me, an original work is defined by the whole and not by what it takes inspiration from.
Wh40k takes inspiration from numerous sources, but in the end they make a unique and interesting setting that has its own identity.
Same with Starcraft.
YMMV

That's a good point. *Everything* in 40k is essentially a staple of western fiction, but it fits together seemlessly and it seems to work. The only area it really falls down, imo, is in things that were NOT stolen directly from existing fiction. Like the necron - robots...but also skeletons? And tau - aliens, but also fish...and with amazing technology. Also communists.

Actually, skeleton death robots isn't out of sci-fi; it does pop up now and again (see: Terminator). Egypt being visited by aliens is a common theory, and fish aliens also present in Sci-Fi (See: The mon calamari)

The Tau don't really come across as communist to me...feudal, progressive and oligarchical sure, but not really commy.
They have more in common with the US than with Soviet Russia.

Really? The Necronytr are some of my favorite hunks of 40k fluff. The old school especially. Almost high tech zombies, and endless tide of death and destruction.

But yeah I mean Space Marines are the big trope from 40k and are actually a trope originator for much of the modern concept, they themselves are straight from Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and if you watch the film of the same title you can take the amusing inference that Verhoven may have taken some of his impressions of the Imperial Guard and given it to the Mobile Infantry.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ahem.
Everything is a ripoff of something else.
You cant find an original idea anymore.

There's a difference between ripoff and inspiration.

 Testify wrote:
And tau - aliens, but also fish...and with amazing technology. Also communists.

Communism in its various iterations has always been a runing trend in sci-fi, actually. From early 20th century utopians to Roddenberry's Federation or Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" to the recent works of Kim Stanley Robinson or Iain M. Banks, a stream of authors have imagined societies based on the principles of socialism, usually made possible by means of advanced technology.

Some of those very same authors have also written extensively about the dilemmas a superior, enlightened and seemingly benevolent society has to face when meeting less advanced civilizations or ideological/cultural deviants (Iain M. Banks in his "The Culture" series of novels, "Left Hand of Darkness" by ms. Le Guin or the Federation in Star Trek. It was also a running theme in soviet authors, i.e. "Hard to be a God" by the brothers Strugatsky).

The Tau borrow influences from all of the above.

 pretre wrote:
Hey look! It is this thread... again...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I expected MUCH more out of this thread title. Maybe, you know, an actual retrospective view of Andy Chambers as a game designer and not an over-used comparison of Starcraft and WH40k.

Bolded Quoted for truth.
Incidently that comic is TERRIBLY written. It reads like it has not been proof read at all (middle panel in particular).

I think it is supposed to be like that. As if the words are spewing forth from a diseased mind.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 Testify wrote:
And tau - aliens, but also fish...and with amazing technology. Also communists.

Communism in its various iterations has always been a runing trend in sci-fi, actually. From early 20th century utopians to Roddenberry's Federation or Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" to the recent works of Kim Stanley Robinson or Iain M. Banks, a stream of authors have imagined societies based on the principles of socialism, usually made possible by means of advanced technology.

Some of those very same authors have also written extensively about the dilemmas a superior, enlightened and seemingly benevolent society has to face when meeting less advanced civilizations or ideological/cultural deviants (Iain M. Banks in his "The Culture" series of novels, "Left Hand of Darkness" by ms. Le Guin or the Federation in Star Trek. It was also a running theme in soviet authors, i.e. "Hard to be a God" by the brothers Strugatsky).

The Tau borrow influences from all of the above.

I have heard of literally none of them and i would consider myself a sci fi/fantasy nerd.

Never heard of the Roddenberry or LeGuin?

Umm scifi nerd card revoked.