Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackBellamy
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These are all very common fantasy tropes anyway, existing before all this in literature. How many human ports next to the plains have been there? Oh look there's one https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Map_of_Sanctuary
I mean if I was making a world I would definitely be putting barbarians somewhere cold and trolls right in the swamp and of course the elves live in the forest.
(Yes you could put barbarians in the jungle but then they would be called 'savages'. Don't ask me, it's just the way it is.)
And the classes, well those are all tropes too, the warrior, the wizard, etc. Everyone was copying from everyone else those heady days. It was like a pandora's box was opened. All of a sudden fantasy has become cool in the past few decades with Tolkien and D&D becoming popular and computer fantasy games and people were miniature gaming with 40k and things like that, and everyone was generating content and ideas as fast as they could. Remember that was right before the apex of Fantasy Frenzy which hit in 2001 with the first LOTR movie being released and really kept up for like decade. I don't think it would have been feasible to release a fantasy product back around then without stepping on some one else's ideas. |
Trust me, EQ copies a lot more from Sojourn/Toril than just the common fantasy tropes. Whole zones are basically copied and renamed, several items with literally the same names and stats, classes and races are basically exact replica besides a select few exceptions (Sojourn had yuan-ti, EQ had to call them iksars and give them legs because yuan-ti is a WotC trademark). The whole fundamental concept of these two games is basically the same. Sojourn actually plays
exactly like text-based Everquest. A lot of the text prompts from things like socials are literal copy-pastes from Sojourn (some were stock DIKU, some not). This goes way beyond sticking to fantasy tropes, Brad very much used content from Sojourn.
That game's community was really pissed about it at the time, and they kinda had a point. Stuff like conjurer/magician being a class based on a permanent elemental pet chosen from one of the four elements, and mostly just damage spells besides, is not some kind of fantasy stereotype. All the classes are that similar, with just a few differences because EQ chose to use mana instead of memorized spell slots, and has a 3D graphical environment allowing for things like snares. While Sojourn is based heavily on AD&D, it also deviates from that ruleset in a number of ways to accomodate a level cap of 50 and a style of game where you can't "rest for the night." Everquest didn't copy D&D tropes, it copied Sojourn.