D and D also allows a player to make up his or her own spells, on table play that is.. If Blizzard were to allow that in their game...
Besides, it could be that the way D&D presented the spells that Bliz adapted for Diablo were the best.
It's also done to show up the computer game D&D franchise, namely that except for Baldur's Gate and Torment, they generally suck. D&D don't even allow the make-up your own spell online. That sucks.|||Quote:
Anyway, I'm through with my one-man crusade on this issue. I made thread about this not too long ago, and literally not a single person agrees with me. When you copy something word for word, it's plagerism/stealing.
Let's try this again, because your definition of plagiarism and homage seems to revolve entirely around your like/dislike of the idea being present in the game:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism
Hmmm... Sorry, nope, don't see it.
According to your definition or plagiarism, any and every work of fiction that uses the word "fireball" to describe a spell that makes things go boom is plagiarizing. However, if they change the name to "flameball" it immediately and almost magically stops being plagiarizing.
Ok...?
Look, I would agree that you had a case there if Blizzard literally took the DnD wizard, directly copied its spell list and class features such as a Familiar, introduced Vancian spellcasting, and nabbed a couple pages of concept art for good measure to describe their Wizard. But they didn't. They named the a spellcasting class Wizard, threw in a few spells somewhat similar to their DnD counterparts, and then gave them names that most sane people would describe as homage or referencing.|||I covered this a bit earlier (page 3) by saying:
"See, firewall is a word found in the dictionary; therefore it's not copying from D&D."
So this goes for fireball too. Fireball is in the dictionary, and it's OK to take things out of the dictionary. But alas, 'stoneskin' is a pure creation of D&D and I think it's wrong to just take the whole thing.
From the site you posted:
"plagiarism
Literary theft. Plagiarism occurs when a writer duplicates another writer's language or ideas and then calls the work his or her own."
I'm considering the 'duplicates' part...and 'ideas' I suppose.
I'm probably wrong to use the term plagiarism, as I guess video games aren't purely works of writing, but I brought it up before based on prinicple (principles which apparently only I have).
I find it a bit wierd that on a forum where cheating is not condoned so many people are OK with (and even support) other kinds of cheating.
To others: I don't think some people should say things like '...so in d3 you get to chose classes and D&D let's you chose classes so that's stealing to? They both have swords, so that's copying?' No, I'm only talking about word for word terms that are VERY clearly D&D derived, and are very famous (as I pointed out earlier, stoneskin and magic missile are among D&D's most famous spells).|||People aren't "Ok" with plagiarism. The point is, you are the first person I have met who actually views something that is widely acknowledged as super-obvious referencing as plagiarism.
Read the definition you posted again:
and then calls the work his or her own.
At what point did Blizzard come out and directly claimed "yeah, we invented this Wizard thing and spells, totally original?" You are looking at a company that has a long history of putting cultural references all over their games...
Or is having a Terran Dropship quote Aliens "plagiarism" too?|||Magic Missile is not a duplicate of the DnD spell.
Magic Missile in Diabo III may silence; the spreading missiles do not attack one target; the spell seems to be automatic rather than targeting. Magic Missile is Teeth in disguise + auto-targeting. It has little relation with the DnD counterpart, which progressively grows in power to destroy one target that was indicated.
Stone Skin is a direct resemblance of DnD Stone Skin, hence it's a reference, not plagiarism.
Taking Magic Missile in its entirety and renaming it to Arcane Arrow would be plagiarism.|||I'm pretty sure Heroes of Might and Magic use a spell called Stone Skin... seriously, what's the problem? As long as it sounds cool and nobody minds Blizzard using the names, then it's good.
It's similiar to saying Warcraft should rename their Orcs because Warhammer used the name first (and plenty of authors used it before that, like Tolkien).|||Heroes does use the spell stone skin as well as the spell magic missile (might be magic arrow cant remember).
The point is spells like fireball, fireblot (ice, lighting...), stone skin, magic arrow/missile and such are widely used and accepted spells. It's more like the staple of every mage/wizard magic-user's arsenal. It's the higher level skills or the passives that truly differentiate these classes.
I mean if someone started complaining about the spell meteor what would you want it renamed to? falling rock? wrath of the stars, Stone That Falls From High Above. Even if you came up with a good name, whats the point? You know its meteor I know it's meteor, so why not call it meteor?|||First off, the only way you can plagiarize (maybe) D&D is by copying the game system or the various settings in almost their entirety... because none of it it's in any way original. The only thing i can recall they can actually stop people from using is the name Ilithid (which is trademarked i think), because D&D came up with it, but not the creature concept (Chtulhu anyone?!).
And changing the names is even worse in case of a suit because it shows they knew that they shouldn't have taken those concepts.
Second, D&D has so many spells that you can really make new ones that the don't have somewhere.
Sorry, but the only good argument that i can think of in your favour is that it sounds too much like D&D, which can be annoying for obvious reasons (just ask marketing people).|||I am now dumber after reading this thread.|||hmm if I have skin...and I decide to harden it and make it like stone...
I dunno what else to call that
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