I want to create a game that uses character classes from World of Warcraft. Are the classes protected by copyright/trademark law? For instance WoW has a Warlock class that is essentially a spell-caster focused in dark magic and summoning demons.
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You may be interested in How closely can one game legally resemble another? – DMGregory May 04 '22 at 12:26
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No, that question is different. The only thing that will be used is a single class. – May 04 '22 at 12:29
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That's a degree of similarity, and the question above answers "what degree of similarity is a problem?" - you will learn faster if you don't shut out potential insights for not being in the exact form you expected them to be in advance. – DMGregory May 04 '22 at 12:31
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During the planing and design of your game, I suggest you do a bit of research.
For instance, a simple search for "Warlock" in my favourite search engine leads to Wikipedia which shows that the concept of warlocks dates back to long before WoW was created. Even Heroes of Might and Magic had Warlocks in 1995, long before WoW.
Often, game designers will not try to invent new terms, they'll use something that exists before that players recognize easily.
IANAL, but it's safe to say that these terms are not copyrighted, nor trademarked. Just keep in mind that you should come up with original skills and features; you may get on a more slippery slope if you also intend to "borrow" the skills and features offered in another game.
Vaillancourt
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Related reading from RGP Stack Exchange: Are classes from a tabletop RPG copyrightable? – Pikalek May 11 '22 at 01:48