It’s Mine! NO It’s Mine! I Saw It Fiiiiiiirst!
That’s all I’ve been hearing for the past few days. I hear it from WoW fans and general haters alike. What are they saying?
The Shaterer looks like Deathwing. ArenaNet copies Blizzard!
Never mind that Blizzard’s looking for group feature was adapted from the ones in place with Guild Wars Classic and Warhammer Online. Never mind that Blizzard’s in-game voice chat (while admittedly a complete failure) was ripped off of Dungeons & Dragons Online. Never mind a hundred other things that Blizzard aggregated from other sources and implemented into their game.
Nope, because when someone else does it that’s when we’ll throw a fit. Yep.
I liked WoW. I liked it a lot. But I’m not going to sit here and rave about how it was an innovator in the genre. What it did was take a lot of tried and tested elements and put them together in such a way that a fun and addicting game was created. That’s why WoW is so popular and that’s why GW2 isn’t going to kill it. (GW2 + SWToR might, but that’s another blog post)
What is going to happen (by the grace of Dwayna) is that GW2 will be a fun engaging game that gives people a completely unique experience. Not everybody is going to enjoy that experience. Some people enjoy playing a spreadsheet (my husband), some people enjoy long, elaborate, and scripted boss fights (myself, so long as I’m not in charge). My hope is that there will be enough variety in GW2 that a majority of people will find something they enjoy, if not necessarily what they had expected.
But let’s take a look at those dragons why don’t we?
Shatterer is obnoxious to type, he shall henceforth be known as 'The Shatner'
Comparing the in-game Shatner and the concept art of Deathwing I can say “Ok, I know where you’re coming from”. I would point out that The Shatner has crystal shards for wings and no actual wingsails, is surrounded in lightning, and is purple. While Deathwing is red, has magma for innards and definitely has traditional dragon wings.
I don’t want to debate trifles though. Looking at silhouettes (which is what any good artist should do) I can say that yes, they look similar.
… Until I look at the in-game model. Honestly, I don’t know how they dropped that ball. Granted, the model looks fine. It’s typical WoW stylization which is also fine, but there was definitely something lost in translation between concept art and 3D rendering.
So if we want to compare apples to apples (please, let’s). Here’s concept art:
Those look like very different dragons to me. One is molten lava, the other is metal electricity. So they’ve both got a nice strong chin. That same logic doesn’t make Rytlock look like Christopher Reeve.
Now let’s compare in-game images:
Still, completely different. There’s the stylistic differences (because I’m a fangirl I would compare it to Monet vs Tex Avery), but we still have elemental differences. The Shatner is metal and electricity, Deathwing is stone and magma.
He put the DRAGON in the D&D
They both have horns, they both have wings. They share a similar silhouette. By that logic I would say they’re both ripping off of this guy.
So come on folks. It’s a dragon. There’s only so many ways to make a dragon look unique. So both games have them. Dragons for the ultimate bad-guy in GW2 have been in the planning stages at least since Eye of the North. I’m sure Blizzard has been keeping Deathwing under their hat for just as long.
Great minds think alike and hey… looks like we all (no matter what game we play) enjoy beating up on some dragons.
