I've been here long enough to know that's no where near how people can be rude around here and how bad it can get.

Excuse me if you're offended. It was meant as a joke.

I didn't take it as rude.

It is quite rude, that's not my picture and I didn't credit the photographer!
Am not sure there is anything that could offend you tinyE...

good point

1. Martin went on record saying he was constantly rewriting the books because he's deathly afraid of a fan guessing a plot development and then suing his ass.
2. Regardless of when the first books were printed, recent developments are recent.
3. The problem is not ripping off, it's shit taste. Instead of going back to the primary sources and picking a type of cold-based undead that's unusual and fun, Martin is chewing cud and rehashing pop culture. Modern epic fantasy is the absolute nadir of speculative fiction, even worse than "tongue-in-cheek" dungeonesque stories.

(I'll be in my bunk, fapping to malfunctioning cannon prototypes.)

Did Warcraft rip off Warhammer?
I mean, look at Warhammer, look at the dates. If not ripped off, let's say... "strongly inspired by". Yes. I'm such a polite person.

Yes.

Also, Planescape: Torment ripped off Martin, and it was awesome.

The problem isn't the ripoff itself, it's that after a decade and a half it's pants-shittingly unoriginal. Warcraft had an immensely popular MMORPG; it was played by the same watercooler "normies"1 that are watching Game of Thrones now.

You're right actually.

Quoted from http://kotaku.com/5929161/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-saved-wow

Patrick Wyatt, the Producer on Warcraft, explains in a lengthy "making of" feature that some at Blizzard had wanted to make a Warhammer game, but things just didn't work out.

"[Blizzard co-founder] Allen Adham hoped to obtain a license to the Warhammer universe to try to increase sales by brand recognition", Wyatt says. "Warhammer was a huge inspiration for the art-style of Warcraft, but a combination of factors, including a lack of traction on business terms and a fervent desire on the part of virtually everyone else on the development team (myself included) to control our own universe nixed any potential for a deal. We had already had terrible experiences working with DC Comics on "Death and Return of Superman" and "Justice League Task Force", and wanted no similar issues for our new game."

"It's surprising now to think what might have happened had Blizzard not controlled the intellectual property rights for the Warcraft universe - it's highly unlikely Blizzard would be such a dominant player in the game industry today."

That may sound dramatic, but it's also probably true. Blizzard's status as one of the giants of the industry (as opposed to being just a really good developer) is built almost solely on the money and fanbase World of Warcraft has generated over the years. Had Blizzard not been in control of Warcraft's fiction, it's attempts to spin a strategy game into a role-playing title - one popular with the mainstream, not just tabletop gaming fans - may have gone nowhere.

The similarities have, though, led to a few awkward moments, as Wyatt explains.

"Years after the launch of Warcraft my dad, upon returning from a trip to Asia, gave me a present of a set of Warhammer miniatures in the form of a skeleton charioteer and horses with the comment: 'I found these cool toys on my trip and they reminded me a lot of your game; you might want to have your legal department contact them because I think they're ripping you off'"

Sorry. I exaggerated a bit. I didn't rip off my entire top. Just the sleeve.

Well, i dunno if GOT rip-off WC but DOTA2 certainly did rip-off DOTA. Lol. Although DOTA2 is sort of like the sequel but it is still from Valve & not from Blizzard. ;p