Two NPCs, two MMO games.

[Ahael]

I wonder what's up with the following NPCs:

In Hz, NPC named Rabine Saturna is in Tazoon, near Jynasix the Capacity Trainer. In WoW, Rabine Saturna is a Night Elf NPC in Moonglade.

We all know Steward Pratt McGrubben, located in New Trismus. In Wow, Pratt McGrubben is a human vendor located in Feathermoon Stronghold in Feralas.

It seems somebody has worked for Artifact as well as for Blizzard? One coincidence I could buy, but not two.

[Fratricide]

Or Perhaps one Blizzard employee has played HZ in the past...

[AmonGwareth]

Shawn Carnes who was a senior designer on WoW was a lead designer on HZ. There's also a Tarbash (or very similarly named). And you'll find quite a few other similarities if you look, especially among the gnomes. Curious that the Gnomish homeland is "blighted", isn't it?

[Ahael]

Heh, yes... Gnomes. Quite similar in both games. Tech-crazy little people, eternal tinkerers. Rachival and Gnomeregan, both capitals in ruins. Both gnomish races try to (slowly) rebuild their strength to retake their homes. Etc.

[Takora Drakan]

Hehe Interesting, maybe someone from Vanguard also played Horizons, because there are also Blighted Lands with nasty undeads, hehe.

Also there is a big portal, tried several times to go through it, maybe it would port me back to Istaria...

[gopher65]

Hehe Interesting, maybe someone from Vanguard also played Horizons, because there are also Blighted Lands with nasty undeads, hehe.

Also there is a big portal, tried several times to go through it, maybe it would port me back to Istaria...

If I recall correctly there was at least one employee of Sigil that use to work on HZ. And at least one that works on SG: W, and at least one that works on... well, suffice to say that the MMOG industry isn't *all* that big, and Artifact employed a fair number of people prior to the launch of HZ. So there are bound to be people who worked on HZ working on many other games.

[LaughingOtter]

Kristen DeMeza, known to HZ vets as WM Shetani (or "the EVIL WM Shetani" ), is another former AE employee who went on to work at Blizzard on the Community Management team. There's a gnome NPC named after her at Nesingwary's Expedition in Nagrand. She also appears in the WOW trading card game as "Hierophant Caydiem" - a Horde card, of course...

[Takora Drakan]

Did you know that there is also a "The Sleeper" in other games too?

That was The Sleeper, and the only server to actually kill him was the Rallos Zek server. He death touched people non-stop, so they had a force of hundreds of people there fighting him.
For the youngsters in the audience (aka the WoW fans who never got the chance to play Everquest 1), I will explain the event.
First off, The Sleeper was a raid mob that could only be awakened ONCE per server. Once he was awakened, he would kill everybody, and run out of the zone. Then he would go zone by zone killing everybody he came across until he finally despawned. That was it. He would NEVER EVER be in the game on that server EVER AGAIN. No instances. No nuthin. Just wam bam thank ya mam.
He had this nasty habbit of death touching anybody he fought. This was a game mechanic built in to some rare raid boss mobs in Everquest 1 where they could literally just say "you're dead" and your character would fall over dead. There were some encounters in the early days of Everquest 1, where you literally had a list of tanks setup that were going to take the death touch for the fight. And, this is in a game where not only did you LOSE experience for dieing (and a LOT of it), but you could actually lose levels as well. Numerous people lost a lot of levels in The Sleeper fight on Rallos Zek.

I was also told that "The Sleeper" was a giant Dragon who sleeps until you well, wake him up and he goes grumpy then... hehe, through he was a Ghost like Dragon.

I hope noone wakes up our Sleeper

[Steele]

I don't see any harm in it... I mean, there's a ton of NPCs out there over all MMOs - who cares if one or two share the same name? If all the names and concepts were copied, ok maybe we have an originality issue...

Heck if you want to say "OMG WoW has flying dragons now!" (drake mounts) you could probably stretch that too. If anything, it's an industry-wide problem that, even though the MMO industry is still "young" by comparison to others, the same medieval conceptual basis is used for many of them.

It comes down to interpretation really:
How do we interpret Elves (Forest, High/Erudite/Light, Night/Dark)? Dwarves? Gnomes/Hobbits? Barbarians/Half-Giants? I've personally seen massive differences in the interpretation of Dwarves by gaming companies; I've played a Dwarf in EQ1, DAoC, HZ, EQ2, Vanguard, and dabbled a little with one in WoW (couldn't do it for long - I hate Alliance so much).
What kind of melee system do we use? Aren't all melee-ability hotkeys really rehashes of each other?
What kind of spell system do we use? What's the difference, really, between a Mage in WoW and someone who multiclasses Mage/Wizard/Sorc? Aren't all damage-shield spells basically the same (call one thorns, call another spiked scales, and another bramblecoat)? What's the difference between HoT spells between games, versus direct heals of varying cast & recast times?

It's all interpretation and presentation... packaging the skillsets and abilities in a way that feels original and is fun to use. I think allowing players to have options and the freedom to "customize and craft" their character's feel, for instance, goes a long way toward making the player happy with the end product. Every game is different in that regard.

The real trick is coming up with a truly different concept... and then implementing it and becoming well-known for it before someone else can copy/assimilate that concept into their own product. That's the challenge... and I've always loved HZ because it has a great mix of old concepts repackaged really well (traditional fantasy races, equipment crafting, spell schools, hotkeyed abilities, a "common evil" in the Withered Aegis) and then integrated those with so many newer concepts (personal AND community world construction, the blighting of world objects, multi-class adventuring, and of course flying dragon characters).

Sure there's still room for changes and additions (swimming, mounts, etc.), but those are very fundamental things that are sometimes alot harder to add in if they haven't been included from scratch. It's hard to get everything you've ever seen and liked across all MMOs into one MMO... and it's also nearly impossible to please everyone.

I guess all that to say... a couple of shared NPC names shoudn't really be a huge deal.

[Steele]

This was a game mechanic built in to some rare raid boss mobs in Everquest 1 where they could literally just say "you're dead" and your character would fall over dead.

Actually... if memory of my Dwarven Warrior days serves me correctly, it was a nearly instant-cast ability that did 32000 damage to a random person on the mob's hate list, but very rarely could be resisted. I think Cazic-Thule in the Plane of Fear was the first to be revamped to get the ability... every 30sec I think it was, the mob would do a zonewide shout of the character's name he was DT'ing, the character would take 32k damage if they failed their resist roll, and yes... they most likely keeled over.

Personally, I always thought it was rather unfair, and a rather cheap way for devs to make a mob "harder" because they underestimated the skill of their playerbase. So yeah... how did that soapbox get there?

*returns the soapbox back to the closet, and the thread back to relevancy*

[Takora Drakan]

Uhm I didn wanted to rumble or something "harming" in my post... did I? I think it's just funny the parralells what mmos sometimes have and the comparison between those paralells...

Just wanted to point out that there is also in EQ a "Sleeper Dragon".

[Steele]

Nono, not at all Takora. It's actually a very interesting topic. I saw your quote about the Finger of Death - I think that's what they actually called that Death Touch - and it brought back SO many memories lol!

[RuneDragoon]

my two cents on this that I wanted to post for a while, but couldn't remember the name of this thread...

Agregors (spelling) that are giant hulking sewn together brutes really look like the guards to wow's undercity...

[awdz]

I thought Aegrors are the ones that look like giant blubbery diseased sumo wrestlers, and that Abominations are the ones that look like they are sewn together.
Avatar of Pain was definitely an Abomination ;-)

[LaughingOtter]

To be fair, all giant, sewn-together undead brutes tend to look somewhat alike. I think it's because they all have the same tastes in personal accessories...

[Steele]

Damnit LaughingOtter, I was resisting the urge, but now... I can't... resist...

Top Ten Abomination One-Liners:
"Is that a drooling, gaping maw in yer belly or are ya just happy ta see me?"
"Abomination cosmetic surgery - now half off!"
"I love that rusted cleaver - it accessorizes SO well your butcher's leg!"
"Friendship bracelets are for wimps. REAL friends trade limbs."
"You think I carry these chains as weapons? Oh no honey, these are the bonds of love."
"Abomination growth spurts: replacing Gnome parts with Half-Giant."
"I got teased alot in school; I had to wear Dryad parts because that's all my parents could afford."
"I'm not proud, but I actually have uttered the words 'I would like to order the Ginsu knife' "
"Abomination used car salesmen - they're slashing prices!"

And last, but not least...
"I only have eyes for you, baby...... the Avatar of Pain ate the rest."

[gopher65]

An Igor is always read to lend a hand when needed.

[Takora Drakan]

Hmm Old Man Jenkins = Leeroy Jenkins?

[AmonGwareth]

Pretty sure Old Man Jenkins predated Leeroy.

First time I played WoW during beta I went to the undercity and saw those guards and immediately thought of abominations. They are neat though.