Wasn't sure what forum this should go in...

 

I noticed today that the Esswraiths in the Runescape Runespan look more than a bit like Hork-Bajir from the Animorphs series. The Death esswraith is the closest in terms of colors but the color is not important. I looked for a good picture showing an esswraith in profile, so you can see the neck and leg shape, but I couldnt find any good ones. Anyways if you have played in the Runespan and you are familiar with esswraiths and are familiar with Hork-Bajir I think you will see what I'm talking about.

 

It may not be an intentional homage or reference but its definitly not a coincidence, I think the artist who worked on the esswraiths had at the very least, seen a picture of a Hork-Bajir, or maybe had read/seen the Animorphs series and was consciously/unconsciously inspired by it.

 

If you've never read animorphs idk if you can judge, but if you want to know what I'm talking about at least, heres what the Animorphs is.

 

[spoiler=Comparison images here.]

 

 

 

 

What do you think?

 

The tail is short (but it does have a tail), and it doesnt have the prominant arm blades but there are small spikes on the arm. Rest of the body shape is very similar I think.

This should probably go in General Discussion.

Now that you mention it, yes they do look a lot alike

A lot of their content is at least inspired by other games, books, movies, and various mythologies. Now that you mention this one, they do seem near identical. I wouldn't mind seeing a thread with more of these to show just where Jagex got their inspiration. ;). It was one of the interesting things I found with Rune Wiki, that they'd list this type of information.

 

Also, I moved the thread to RuneScape » General Discussion. :).

reminds me of the tzhaar/predator thread.

reminds me of the tzhaar/predator thread.

On a similar note, a friend pointed out that the esshounds resemble the shiny form of the pokemon Ninetales (Which is in turn based on a legend that every anime fan is familiar with). Fantasy tends to be creative in a very derivative way :razz:

"Small 'c' creativity". Taking what's already "in the box" (inspired by the phrase 'thinking outside the box') and tweaking it to make something new.

100% coincidence. No disucssion value. For one they look nothing alike. Different head. Jagex's essnoobthingies have 2 joints in the legs. Shorter neck. The arms are different. The tail is different. The mouth is fragmented like a Halo Elite. and many more.

creativity comes from everywhere anyway. People take ideas from anything and improve it, then it becomes their "creation". Nt sure if dicussion is needed

Interesting!

 

However, as I recall, weren't Hork-Bajir supposed to have backwards knees? I'm almost certain of this, as I remember them explaining they had to get people walking backwards when they made the TV adaptation.

 

Regardless, I always enjoy seeing connections like this in any kind of work, so thanks for bringing it up!

I don't really see it, sure they have similarities but then they are both pretty blog-standard anthropomorphic lizard-type creatures so it is to be expected.

I don't really see it, sure they have similarities but then they are both pretty blog-standard anthropomorphic lizard-type creatures so it is to be expected.

 

I agree. They may look similar, but there is only so much you can do with some creatures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdTgsBuJc1o

 

Obligatory.

Been a long time since I thought of Animorphs, that was a good series.

 

But yeah, no.

This is more of a stretch than most of these threads

I'm afraid I don't see it, really. Like someone else said, it's more that they're generic looking lizard creatures than anything else.

Yeah, no.

I suppose there's a passing resemblance, but the same could be said of any monster that's muscled with a long neck, horns and a beak.

Some similarities, but jagex at least tweaked them a bit. Not like the original models for the dragon kin which was pretty much a complete rip off of Change Lords from warhammer.

Some similarities, but jagex at least tweaked them a bit. Not like the original models for the dragon kin which was pretty much a complete rip off of Change Lords from warhammer.

Uh, no, that's your imagination. They were a complete ripoff of some characters from an obscure 1982 film called The Dark Crystal.

Some similarities, but jagex at least tweaked them a bit. Not like the original models for the dragon kin which was pretty much a complete rip off of Change Lords from warhammer.

Uh, no, that's your imagination. They were a complete ripoff of some characters from an obscure 1982 film called The Dark Crystal.

 

Basically in sumation:

Fantasy monster designs end up repeating because there's only so much you can do that doesn't look sooooooo made-up people won't like it and as such every fantasy creature ever in every game, film, book etc. you can probably find at least 3 prior incarnations that are pretty close to identical.

Fantasy monster designs end up repeating because there's only so much you can do that doesn't look sooooooo made-up people won't like it and as such every fantasy creature ever in every game, film, book etc. you can probably find at least 3 prior incarnations that are pretty close to identical.

I'm not normally one to complain about others' grammar, but this post was very hard to read and it took me a while to get what you were trying to say :| .

 

Jagex does leave a lot of tributes to other fantasy/science fiction series in their work, but so do a many other authors. The good ones tend to take all of those things and make their own distinct world out of them. The end result is something like Runescape, where you have all of those elements (Dragons, magic, forest-dwelling elves, subterranean dwarven smiths, and so on) with enough differences to set it apart from the rest of the genre (Dragons are more animal-like than every other fantasy dragon, the elves have/had a large, thriving city in their forest, etc).

Fantasy monster designs end up repeating because there's only so much you can do that doesn't look sooooooo made-up people won't like it and as such every fantasy creature ever in every game, film, book etc. you can probably find at least 3 prior incarnations that are pretty close to identical.

I'm not normally one to complain about others' grammar, but this post was very hard to read and it took me a while to get what you were trying to say :| .

 

It really wasn't very hard to understand what he was saying.

 

Anyway, pretty much what Sy said. Jagex themselves have pretty much admitted that they have borrowed extensively from staple fantasy themes. The Mahjarrat were originally just Liche's until they decided to develop them into a major part of the games' lore.

 

They're always going on about how the Tzhaar are a unique creation of theirs so you have to assume that everything else came from some kind of inspiration of earlier fantasy fiction.

Fantasy monster designs end up repeating because there's only so much you can do that doesn't look sooooooo made-up people won't like it and as such every fantasy creature ever in every game, film, book etc. you can probably find at least 3 prior incarnations that are pretty close to identical.

I'm not normally one to complain about others' grammar, but this post was very hard to read and it took me a while to get what you were trying to say :| .

 

It really wasn't very hard to understand what he was saying.

 

Anyway, pretty much what Sy said. Jagex themselves have pretty much admitted that they have borrowed extensively from staple fantasy themes. The Mahjarrat were originally just Liche's until they decided to develop them into a major part of the games' lore.

 

They're always going on about how the Tzhaar are a unique creation of theirs so you have to assume that everything else came from some kind of inspiration of earlier fantasy fiction.

No link- Claiming that just because Jagex said Tzhaar were a unique creation does not imply that nothing else is unique. To try and assume so would be illogical.

Fantasy monster designs end up repeating because there's only so much you can do that doesn't look sooooooo made-up people won't like it and as such every fantasy creature ever in every game, film, book etc. you can probably find at least 3 prior incarnations that are pretty close to identical.

I'm not normally one to complain about others' grammar, but this post was very hard to read and it took me a while to get what you were trying to say :| .

 

It really wasn't very hard to understand what he was saying.

 

Glad someone said that I was rather stumped on what was apparently wrong grammatically because aside from perhaps being slightly on the long-side for a single sentence there is nothing grammatically incorrect.

 

Also not an illogical generalisation at all to make on the Thzaar point, if the major selling point of one species is that they are entirely original (a selling point which is omitted from everything else) it is a relatively logical assumption that the other races all have external sources that inspired them; which is not even hard to assume seeing how basically every monster in rs can be quite easily linked to another fantasy or rl creature.