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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsChinese MMO accused of stealing art from World of Warcraft, others
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 2nd 2008 at 4:20PM
They give no indication, however, who is responsible for the artwork of the game, and there's nothing on the page or in the FAQ that gives a company name out either. Granted, Aurora Blade is hardly competition for World of Warcraft, but at this point it appears to be up to Blizzard whether they'll bother taking further action to get to the bottom of this.
Of course, there is a flaw in their plan. If they really wanted to rip off some cool Rogue armor, wouldn't it be Bloodfang? Why bother with Shadowcraft?
Filed under: Rogue, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Schadow Dec 2nd 2008 5:36PM
Ok, the skeptic in me was cutting a little slack - how many shoulder designs are there in the world that are truly unique? heck even WoW recycles its own designs because it's too much work to come up with new ones.
And I am sorry, a cowl is going to look suspiciously like a cowl. With very cowl-like overtones as well.
As far as icons go, again there are tons of icons in WoW that look similar to one another when they should be more distinct, so if WoW can't make em look different how can others be expected to come up with new and exciting icons that look nothing like any other icon anywhere?
But the gifs are the real evidence of ripoff, even down to the candle on the head of the kobold. And that's clearly a murloc, and clearly an owl/boom/whatever-kin.
badjoke Dec 2nd 2008 5:47PM
The Chinese seem to love stealing intellectual property and not thinking twice. It's like all those vendors in Mexico selling fake Rolexes, Nikes, and Pokemon shirts.
darthginger Dec 2nd 2008 5:53PM
am i the only one who during the wrathgate scene thought the way the lich king walked down to face the alliance/horde army was a little "sauron-esq" didnt stop it being a cool sequence but i defiantly got a feeling of deja vu... /salute fordragon..
the whole high fantasy genre treads on each others toes constantly, what with orcs, elves and the like.
comparing those pictures side by side yh you can see the resembalance in the rogue and the soldier. but without seeing the rogue how many would have thought of it as warcraft plagerism? i dont think id have noticed. (altho if itd been valor or a warrior set i mite have picked up on it)
Antidamage Dec 2nd 2008 6:37PM
That's a pretty damn good point. Icecrown == Mordor, through and through.
PMSLizard Dec 2nd 2008 5:58PM
Since no one else has pointed it out yet, if you go to the class page and if you have ever played a mmo called ragnarok online, you will see they obviously stole many RO class sprites and gave them very small sprite and palette edits. There warrior sprite is RO's knight sprite, there mage sprite is RO's wizard sprite, there Knight sprite is RO's sniper sprite, and there priest sprite is exactly RO's priest sprite.
BladeeR Dec 2nd 2008 6:12PM
I guess none have pointed that out, because Classes in MMO are Free to copy material pretty much. I mean, just look at classes wow uses, such as Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest, Hunter (Only unique thing is pet).. almost every RPG before it had them, so it is pretty common MMO have similar classes to other MMO's
PMSLizard Dec 2nd 2008 8:45PM
If you had read my full post, you would relies i wasn't talking about the classes in general, i was speaking of the graphics used for that particular class.
Please know what your talking about before trying to argue against a point.
BladeeR Dec 3rd 2008 1:38AM
And where do you mention graphics? Learn to post so non RO users understand.
PMSLizard Dec 3rd 2008 2:25AM
Uh lets see... I say sprites 8 times in my post, joined by pallets, which is a graphical term used in more than just RO, and used in more than just games.. not to mention this WoWinsider post is about graphics, my whole point in commenting. I repeat, please know what your talking about before you try to argue, I have nothing more to say after this.
Ravenice Dec 2nd 2008 6:02PM
Almost everyone here doesn't understand what constitutes intellectual property and what is artistic fair use. It isn't necessarily about similarities in the art, or which ever company came up with the idea first, nor even which game stole the idea. There's already been plenty of legal precedence that you can *NOT* patent an idea, only a specific process, design, or body of work. So while you can patent your particular system of siege battle, having the idea of siege battles in an MMO is not protected by any type of patent or copyright. What would get a game company in trouble is if it can be demonstrated that they are attempting to mislead or create the illusion of association with a more established or trademarked product. For example, if I made a game with italian plumbers named Nario and Luiji who jumps on turtles and eats mushrooms, I'd probably be guilty of trademark infringement.
The big kicker here, however, is that this is a game sold in China, where trademarks, copyright, and patent law enforcement have been traditionally very lax or non-existent. As anyone who's ever been in China can probably attest, trademark infringement almost happens as a matter of course (you can find Nike, Starbucks, Disney knock-off brands everywhere, and pirated versions of movies & music if you know where to look). It's pretty much the wild wild west out there as far as Intellectual Property is concerned (as any software company that's ever done business there). It's highly doubtful that Blizzard would make any head-way, if they tried, to shut a company like that down. To me, it's not worth the effort. The game is clearly either made for very very old systems (16-bit graphics apparently) or hand-helds, and isn't likely to compete with WoW. If anything, it's free advertisement for them.
Lucid Dec 2nd 2008 6:09PM
Mexican Chicken Burrito
Use: Recovers 22 HP points at most for 4320 seconds, can’t be used in battle.
That's a hell of a long time to eat a chicken burrito for just 22 HP.
from : http://ab.igg.com/gameinfo/info.php?acid=73
thebvp Dec 2nd 2008 6:19PM
I think it should be mentioned that China doesn't recognize international copyright or patent law and this is relatively small potatoes compared to what goes on every day over there. I'm not even sure its newsworthy, except to maybe be mildly amusing to us WoW players.
And to be honest, given the success of WoW, I'm very surprised this sort of thing didn't happen years ago.
Luke Dec 2nd 2008 6:51PM
http://ab.igg.com/gameinfo/info.php?acid=60
Abdul-Jabbar for the win.
Eternauta Dec 2nd 2008 7:28PM
OMG! THEY EVEN COPIED WYVERNS!!!
They must be real crazy to copy even the single most ugly creature in the entire World of Warcraft. And they called'em "Wind Dragon"
Go Blizz! Sue'em! Sue'em all!
Taytayflan Dec 2nd 2008 7:32PM
Speaking as the kid who dressed up in Bloodfang, I think it'd be funny to see a "Chibi" version.
phox Dec 2nd 2008 8:23PM
As some people probably already mentioned, the whole Warcraft franchise is basically a knock-off of the Warhammer franchise.
Steve the Steve Dec 3rd 2008 5:21AM
As some people probably already mentioned, the whole Warhammer franchise is basically a knock-off of the Lord of the Rings franchise.
See what I did there?
As it has been explained before - it would be very difficult to find any element of a modern game which has not been seen before. Tolkien's works also borrowed concepts from other sources.
The question should not be who got there first but who implemented the idea better. And this is not the correct forum for that discussion tyvm.
Sae Dec 2nd 2008 9:09PM
http://img1.igg.com/11/news/2008/11/16/193777789.gif
Wow... it's even named 'Kolkar'. Most petty 14 year old art thieves looking for an ego boost are at least smart enough to change the bloody name.
Beleth Dec 2nd 2008 9:27PM
Nobody is contending that this random MMO is stealing from Blizzard because they're vaguely fantasy inspired with things like Rogues. They're complaining because the art and design is a near straight lift.
It's pretty blatantly obvious when something has been inspired by another work and when something actively sets out to rip it off.
syberghost Dec 2nd 2008 10:10PM
Siege weapons predate ur mom. By thousands of years.
Well, dozens, in the case of your mom.