Warhammer Online? Online as in on the Internet? Man, what a rip-off. Other games have been using the Internet for years.

@Magnett

In Warhammer Online's case it is used to differentiate itself from the non-online game that it is based off of: Warhammer. Warhammer has been around since 1983 and many people think of that game when they hear Warhammer. It's a means to identify that there is an online version of that game. Without Warhammer, Warcraft probably wouldn't have started the way it started and without Warhammer 40,000 StarCraft most certainly wouldn't exist as it currently does.

I, for one, am glad Games Workshop didn't partner up with Blizzard for a game. If so we probably would have never had Warcraft or Starcraft.

@ CyberNigma: rumor has it that Blizzard initially was in a contractual relationship with GamesWorkshop to produce a RTS. The deal fell through, the halfway finished game received some changes and saw the light of day as the first Warcraft game.

@Ashwraith: This tired old canard about Blizzard and Games Workshop really needs to stop being spread as fact. No one has ever been able to produce any evidence of this rumor. Every time it gets trotted out, the "proof" boils down to "I heard/read it somewhere/some dude told me once/omg WC is so much like Warhammer, it's obvious" and no one can provide any citations for this supposedly well-known fact. Which is odd, because in other cases of well-known failed deals involving gaming developers, we do have proof. ie: Sony's failed deal with Nintendo to develop an SNES CD peripheral, which led to the original Playstation.

This is one of those urban legends that people have been repeating for so long, it's taken as the gospel truth. The original Warcraft owes at least as much to TSR as it does Games Workshop, anyway. There's as much D&D influence there as Warhammer, if not more.

This sounds like fanboys at work. The reason Warhammer Online is named as such is to differentiate it from the tabletop and RPG versions of Warhammer. That's really a fact, so being downrated for stating that fact is pretty much either spite or ignorance of the history of Warhammer.

As far as the read/heard comment above. That definitely sounds like someone that is not familiar with Warhammer 40k. Admittedly Warhammer Fantasy/Warcraft can all draw from Tolkien. Warhammer 40k and Starcraft do not.. Now I imagine we'll see the typical "I've been playing warhammer 40k since launch blah blah blah". Thats ok because we probably won't believe you anyhow.

I'll even point people to Wikipedia, which has some decent informaiton on how long Warhammer has been around and how small the online version is compared to the tabletop version.

BTW, neither I nor the other poster stated anything about Blizzard/GW deal/non-deal being fact. I said Warcraft and Starcraft would not be the same which I stand by. It's pretty obvious Warcraft and Starcraft was influenced heavily by Warhammer and Warhammer 40k regardless as to whether there was an actual deal being worked or not. If there had been and it had followed through we would not have the extra lore that Warcraft and Starcraft bring with them. In fact the posted commenting to me (yes I knew about the rumor but did not state the details purposely) stated specifically it was only a rumor. That leads me to believe the follow-up to that was either just trolling, venting, or being a fanboy of some sort.

I also realize Magnett may have been using sarcasm. I normally assume people posting on the internet are stupid until proven otherwise (it works) so I chose to respond as though he had no clue. That may or may not be the case, which isn't really relevant to the answer. The fourth reply of course proved me correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_%28setting%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000

There's the facts about Warhammer. You can come to your own conclusions I suppose as to why their online version is called Warhammer Online. I'm sure someone will revise wiki to state that Warhammer Fantasy was somehow influenced greatly by Warhammer and that Warhammer 40k (since it never existed before Dawn of War for many people) will take heavy influence from Starcraft.

@Magnett

I'm sorry dude, but you left off your sarcasm tag there, and apparently without one...


@CyberNigma

Please get your sarcasm detectors fixed. It'll just spare you being downrated in the future.

Actually, I'd say that WH40K while it may be divergent from the Tolkien/D&D paradigm in some ways, does rely on it for the basic foundation. It just adds a pseduo-technological twist to the setting. This is further demonstrated by how many of the armies in each setting are mirrored in the other.

Of course, there are other influences besides Tolkien in WHFB and WH40K, such as real world history, various movies and TV shows, and the same in WC and SC. And those influences themselves often have their own influences. I'm not sure why the fanbase gets so riled up over it, but they do.

Me, I just wish they'd spend half their time coming up with something new and interesting.