Remakes aren't made by the original creaters any more

[Matrilwood]

Diablo and Torchlight

WoW and Rift

Dungeon Keeper and Dungeons

The latter IS a little understandable as BullFrog went under in 2004, but Torchlight and Rift are strait rip offs of the original games. I mean yeah, they have totally different story lines, because its the story line that makes a game, game-play is just the icing [sarcasm]. Seriously if I was Blizzard, I would be suing Trion and Runic over copyright.

This seems to be the inverse of the issue where a sequel doesn't have to even be the same genre as the predecessor games, just has to have the same main character.

[Sabre]

Oh yee of little research. Diablo was a rip off of D&D, and Warcraft is a rip of Warhammer, which itself was a rip off of lord of the rings, which was a rip off of europian floaklore. Starcraft was a rip off of Warhammer 40,000, which was Warhammer in space (space knights, space orcs, space elves ect)

So, if torchlight is a rip off, does that mean that Call of Duty is a Wolfenstien rip off? Starfox? Totally a space harrier rip off.

See, when you start throwing around the word rip off things quickly melt down. Pretty much everything is either based on true events or has roots in old legends. As explained above, work backwards and Starcraft is basicly europian folklore having been put through the wringer.

Also, good ideas stick around. Is it a rip off to have wheels on a car for example?

Hell, sometimes they aren't even aware of the old works. I once had an idea for a comic/story where a man goes into space, gets lost, and lands on a strange alien world. Twist ending was it turned out to be earth millions of years in the future. Turns out planet of the apes did that.

This is where the saying "There is no new ideas" comes from. The question is how well can you do it.

That's not to say rip offs don't exsist. They do. However, it has to be intended. eg. new Medal of Hono(u)r exsists soley to cash in on the modern warfare fad. That was a rip off. Rage is not a rip off of Fallout because they both started development at the same time, completely unaware of each other. One was started as a break from high fantasy, the other because "I want a game that has cars like mad max to drive around on mars!"

So, if I had to say. Yes, Rift is a WoW rip off trying to cash in on that games success. Torchlight is not a diablo rip off because one is dark and serious and stays true to the D&D formula, the other is lighthearted and fun with it's own fiction and classes.

[Milkyway64]

Sabre this is why we're in a committed relationship. <3