Comments on: Creative Writing: Expand your horizons!

By: Phaedra

Phaedra — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:30:00 +0000

Cataclysmic: There’s a quest in Winterspring about Owlkin and Elune. It’s a fairly depressing quest (so sad!) but you find out why druids have Moonkin form.

By: Cataclysmic

Cataclysmic — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:02:25 +0000

The druid form ideas are cool, though they would have to work around the Ability names *tries to think of a bear ability*…. ermms I can’t think of any, but form names would have to be changed; rather than catform and bearform it would have to be agileform and tankform or something similar – like “travelform” isnt named cheetahform (though it looks more like a leopard).

Treeforms could be different types of trees. The wispy trees for nightelves and the palm-like tree for tauren maybe?

Moonkin I don’t really understand why a druid would take a moonkin form over some kinda moon spirit of alune and something similar for tauren.

By: Phaedra

Phaedra — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:41:34 +0000

Hehehe. I got into “ElfQuest” at a fairly young age (10). Talk about a departure from Tolkien!

I also enjoy the treatment of Elves by Pratchett in “Lords and Ladies”.

By: Hulan

Hulan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:50:21 +0000

I love the Steven Erikson book for precisely the same reason. I think Tolkien’s book are wonderful but they have been copied to death. Erikson has created a whole new world and there are no Dwarvs or Elves in it! :) They are fantastic books, well worth a try if you haven’t read them already. Funnily enough, his world (The Malazan Empire) was born out of table-top RPG.

By: Mannyac

Mannyac — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:40:15 +0000

Yep, different can be really cool.
For example, I have BBB to thank for turning me on to the book “Grunts”
Very funny and totally challenges the classic fantasy stereotypes.

By: Sah

Sah — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:24:26 +0000

It would most certanly look even funnier with a mongoose tanking than a gnome doing it :) but I like your thinking. Being able to transform to a wolf or a rhino would just be awsome, and the rhino charge should really really hurt.
I guess Morphy got quite close to the truth though. Not only would they have to make skins that looks toatally different, they would have to come up with different abilities, or at least different names, and animations for them all.

It’s easy to copy but it will never be perfect unless you make it your own.

Hopefully I’ll get relaxed enough in a couple of years so I can let my creativity loose. That can sure be interesting :)

By: Morphy of Galakrond

Morphy of Galakrond — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:45:33 +0000

Good call on the rhino tank. I was pondering that the other day and the pragmatist in me decided that Blizzard must view such ideas as needlessly expensive. I would predict their rationale to be something similar to “why create new animations and models when we can just reuse the old stuff and share it between both factions . . . and give ourselves a raise.”

By: Friday

Friday — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:37:37 +0000

I love the creative brainstorming :) I especially like the idea of a druid wolf form. That’s something I would have made, for certain. I’d reroll a Tauren instantly for that lol

By: Tesh

Tesh — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:02:44 +0000

Nice article. I’ve been meaning to dip my toes back into creative writing, and skewering the accepted tropes by challenging assumptions is one thing that I’ve made it a point to do. I’ve read so many books that those who just follow in the footsteps of the giants who preceded them are little more than static.

“Why?” is my favorite question, and one that I often dig into when I write about and analyze game design, not just creative writing. All too often, “just because” or “that’s the way it’s done” is the best answer that can be deciphered, and it’s a very unsatisfactory one.

By: quasiviking

quasiviking — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:54:16 +0000

I had this exact conversation with my wife the other night. No joke. We were watching Fellowship, and I remarked that Tolkien did more to both help and hinder the fantasy genre, she asked me to clarify and so I did. Weird.