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f13.net General Forums => MMOG Discussion => Topic started by: UnSub on November 12, 2008, 10:25:28 PM



Title: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: UnSub on November 12, 2008, 10:25:28 PM
That's how it reads to me. (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21067)

Red Eagle hasn't even got a website about the company up (http://www.red-eagle-entertainment.com/), but they are announcing MMOs, games for all platforms, at least three movies to be made by Universal that they can leverage off...

I give Darkfall a better chance of success than WoTO.

mod edit: Truncated title.  Sorry.  Added spoiler warning.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: UnSub on November 13, 2008, 12:14:50 AM

Oops, my bad - they do have a separate Red Eagle Games (http://redeaglegames.net/) site.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Wasted on November 13, 2008, 12:21:32 AM
If you can get achievement awards for tugging on your braids 100 times I'm sure it will be a hit with the fans.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: FatuousTwat on November 13, 2008, 01:42:03 AM
(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/99701/weary.png)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: JWIV on November 13, 2008, 03:27:12 AM
Awesome.  Hopefully they follow the Karanas school of zone design to capture the apropriate feel of the books.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Hawkbit on November 13, 2008, 10:02:38 AM
I told my wife about this announcement (she's a big wot fan, not a gamer at all) and she said "That's great, but how about they quit fucking around and finish the final book first".  lol

I couldn't make it past the first 100 pages of the first book... Aes Sedai felt too 'feministy' to me.  I like my fantasy women carryable over the shoulder, I suppose. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Soln on November 13, 2008, 10:03:50 AM
Wheel of Grind Online


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Bzalthek on November 13, 2008, 10:39:48 AM
I'm a fan of the books, but I dunno how well angst translates into a marketable game.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Slayerik on November 13, 2008, 11:49:45 AM
Maybe if you use Balefire too much it will randomly make your character do some dumb shit. That would be sweet.

On a serious note, I'm with BZA...How do you make this work as an MMO ? You have the LOTRO problem. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on November 13, 2008, 11:52:52 AM
Well, shit the books have grinds and never-ending treadmills down to a science. An MMOG just seems appropo.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Slayerik on November 13, 2008, 11:59:09 AM
Well played, sir.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Fabricated on November 13, 2008, 04:21:24 PM
Everything is an MMORPG.

I'm blown away we haven't had a Harry Potter MMORPG announced at some point.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: UnSub on November 13, 2008, 05:23:45 PM
*cough* (http://www.massively.com/2008/06/08/is-the-world-of-harry-potter-turbines-next-mmo-project/)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Venkman on November 13, 2008, 08:24:29 PM
This sounds like Perpetual, Round 2. Secure the rights then figure out if you should do something with them then figure out what that could potentially be, get more funding and then hire a team that either laughs at whatever vision you had or is incapable in some other way.

That's not to say this couldn't work. It could But jeezus, WoT is like 11 Simarillions, just long ass shit for the purpose of being really really about the world. That they already said there'd only be three movies and then only #2 and #3 if the first was successful at least shows enough insight into just how few people have probably read the whole damned thing. It's like the Saturday Night Live of books: you probably have a favorite era, but you haven't really loved it from start to contemporary.

Doing any more than two movies would turn this into Dances with Wolves.

But those are the easy parts.

The HARD part is getting Joe the Moviegamer to give a crap. This is not LoTR. It's not even The Belgariod. These are not casual light friendly books the masses have read. At least LoTR had name recognition to attract never-read-its to movies that were damned good for casual fans and at least interesting enough for passersby. WoT is just those big ass door stops you walked by on the way to the Manga and Graphic Novel section at Barnes & Noble.

So I suspect their marketing budget is going to overtake their development one if this ever comes out.

As to MMORPG, it's probaby just the modern equivalent of MMO: a label you slap onto a contrived largely-single-player game you put a monthly fee or avatar outfitting mtx on.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: UnSub on February 13, 2010, 07:39:12 AM
Necro #1 for this evening.

Some movement - Red Eagle signs on Obsidian to do the heavy lifting on the Wheel of Time IP. (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/12/red-eagle-and-obsidian-collaborating-on-wheel-of-time/). EA might be the overall publisher... but they said that back in early 2009. This article seems to indicate that Red Eagle might look to self-publish, or use someone else to distribute but still call themselves publisher.

EDIT: Since there wasn't a thread about Interzone previously, there isn't going to be a Nectro #2. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 13, 2010, 07:45:33 AM
*cough* (http://www.massively.com/2008/06/08/is-the-world-of-harry-potter-turbines-next-mmo-project/)

Ill go out on a limb and say they are most likely the only house that can pull it off.

I know nothing of this eagle house (Who's logo looks very close to EA's) or this "Wheel of time" series.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Malakili on February 13, 2010, 07:50:18 AM
Does anyone else feel like WoT just doesn't translate well into a computer game to begin with?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: rattran on February 13, 2010, 08:05:46 AM
I don't think WoT translated to books well either.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 08:10:44 AM
I don't see why not.  The classes will be:  Warder/Aes Sedai (one for each Ajah)/Asha'man/Aiel/Ogier/Sea Folk.  Hell all you really need is warders for melee and then each Ajah translates into basically Final Fantasy classes (red mage, white mage, black mage, etc.) The Tinkers could be like rogues/thieves.

Then you just grind Trollocs repeatedly.  Since Trollocs are just generic beasts that all look differently, I'm sure there will be A_Puny_Trolloc followed by A_Seasoned_Trolloc followed by A_Vicious_Trolloc and so on and so forth.  Then there are the faceless ones of course not to mention just random bandits and armies (Children of The Light would be sort of like the WoW version of Scarlet Crusade).

Dungeons will be places like Shadar Logoth and that weird tower where the fox and snake people are.


Raid bosses will be leaders of armies and factions, eventually working your way up to Forsaken and the Aelfinn and Eelfinn.  Then they release an expansion where you have to kill Shaidar Haran/The Dark One.  The End.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Malakili on February 13, 2010, 08:12:32 AM
Having player Aes Sedai and Ashaman would be only one step away from letting players play mages in LOTRO.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 08:13:54 AM
I disagree.  There were like 5 mages in LoTR.  In WoT there are thousands of Aes Sedai.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Threash on February 13, 2010, 09:23:47 AM
Wake me up when someone makes a Malazan MMO please, i wanna be a sapper.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 13, 2010, 09:27:22 AM
Good god no.  This reminds me of the store down the street that only sold clothes for little dogs.  It went out of business in about 5 months.  The whole time I'm thinking, "some fucking idiot gave those people money for this venture". 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 13, 2010, 12:01:03 PM
I disagree.  There were like 5 mages in LoTR.  In WoT there are thousands of Aes Sedai.
Most of the work in LOTRO is based off the great masters works of fantasy art. (http://www.spiderwebart.com/products.asp?catagory=tolkien&medium=Paintings%20-%20Acrylic&head=fun)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Merusk on February 13, 2010, 12:34:55 PM
Does anyone else feel like WoT just doesn't translate well into a computer game to begin with?

There's been one game before, and it worked fairly well even if it wasn't all that popular.
There's been a ton of MUDs, MUSHES, MUCKS and MOOs over the years as well.  Hell, I recall there used to be as many as there were Star Wars and Star Trek variants.  Those games were all very much about living in a 'world' vs a grind-em-up Raidfest like WoW, however.   If they followed the design outline Turbine has for LoTR, you might be very surprised.

However, I don't expect anything approaching a professional, polished experience out of it. Darkfall indeed.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 01:40:04 PM
I disagree.  There were like 5 mages in LoTR.  In WoT there are thousands of Aes Sedai.
Most of the work in LOTRO is based off the great masters works of fantasy art. (http://www.spiderwebart.com/products.asp?catagory=tolkien&medium=Paintings%20-%20Acrylic&head=fun)

What are you referring to again?  I think you misunderstood my quote because I'm not understanding the art link in context.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 01:47:00 PM
Good god no.  This reminds me of the store down the street that only sold clothes for little dogs.  It went out of business in about 5 months.  The whole time I'm thinking, "some fucking idiot gave those people money for this venture". 

I really don't get this sentiment.  We've all seen a thousand million derivative MMO's based off of licenses.  This is no different.  They're just going to shoehorn a standard MMO into the lore of WoT.  The WoT world is certainly no worse than the WoW world from a fleshed out story and lore perspective.  Now is it a good idea commercially? Artistically? Those are different questions (all signs point to no).  But it's not as if a WoT MMO must necessarily be more niche than, say, a Warhammer MMO.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 13, 2010, 02:52:30 PM
I really don't get this sentiment. 

Has it ever worked?  WoT sucks......a lot.  I'm sure the game will be terrible too.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 13, 2010, 03:18:14 PM
It's not as big an IP as Star Wars or Star Trek, but it's got solid legs. The proliferation of MUDS and MOOs attests to the fact that there is a playerbase waiting, and if they can shoehorn LOTRO into an MMO I've got no doubt they'll be able to do this as well. Especially if they're willing to do something... *gasp*... creative with it.

Anyway, automatically assuming it will suck because of the IP is just as foolish as assuming it will be good.

(also for reference, the last book in the series wasn't half bad.)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on February 13, 2010, 03:48:02 PM
Its helps that someone else wrote it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 13, 2010, 03:59:57 PM
(also for reference, the last book in the series wasn't half bad.)

The first book wasn't half bad, either.  Too bad he didn't stop.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 13, 2010, 04:19:28 PM
The proliferation of MUDS and MOOs attests to the fact that there is a playerbase waiting,

If you combined the populations of all the WoT MUDs and MOOs, you might feel a few WoW servers. This is not the size of the player playerbase people make MMOs for.

An MMO for WoT is only going to launch if they can cast a much wider net of attraction from a movie. It's not about the books, because no one could ever have a big enough budget to do that series the kind of justice fans of the books would want. So the movie will distill things down to the highlights (probably just book one) and then the MMO will be about killing ten Trollogs.

That could be fine. But we have plenty of that already. I'd really like a good WoT game that shows how the series is different from your usual fantasy tripe. But I don't think anyone involved in these projects can get that kind of budget.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 04:51:32 PM
I really don't get this sentiment. 

Has it ever worked?  WoT sucks......a lot.  I'm sure the game will be terrible too.

That's not the point.  It's not like it sucks worse than Blizzard lore novels or Star Trek books.   I mean last I checked John Updike wasn't writing Star Wars novellas.  The point is it's going to be the same shit as everything else with  WoT reskin.  So it seems weird to me people would have trouble imagining a WoT MMO.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2010, 04:56:01 PM
The proliferation of MUDS and MOOs attests to the fact that there is a playerbase waiting,



An MMO for WoT is only going to launch if they can cast a much wider net of attraction


Warhammer.  Let's set all of our separate nerd predilections aside. There's been plenty of IP's to launch with less cachet than WoT.  Not to mention successful original IP MMOs. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Mrbloodworth on February 13, 2010, 05:08:16 PM
I disagree.  There were like 5 mages in LoTR.  In WoT there are thousands of Aes Sedai.
Most of the work in LOTRO is based off the great masters works of fantasy art. (http://www.spiderwebart.com/products.asp?catagory=tolkien&medium=Paintings%20-%20Acrylic&head=fun)

What are you referring to again?  I think you misunderstood my quote because I'm not understanding the art link in context.

Know what, ignore me, because I read the post wrong. I read images off of mages.  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 13, 2010, 05:14:42 PM
Warhammer. 

Which proved what exactly? This was not the Warhammer that Warhammer fans expected. It was that other Warhammer distilled down to a mere shadow knockoff of WoW with minor points of departure only MMO geeks would even understand. All the units it sold merely showed there's a market of people tired of WoW. It's cliiffdive showed what it takes to be a competent alternative.

Same can be said for Aoc and ChampO.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Setanta on February 13, 2010, 07:20:04 PM
Well, shit the books have grinds and never-ending treadmills down to a science. An MMOG just seems appropo.

This made me snort coke out of my nostrils. AKA the liquid kind. Sadly, it's true.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 13, 2010, 09:29:21 PM
I really don't get this sentiment. 

Has it ever worked?  WoT sucks......a lot.  I'm sure the game will be terrible too.

That's not the point.  It's not like it sucks worse than Blizzard lore novels or Star Trek books.   I mean last I checked John Updike wasn't writing Star Wars novellas.  The point is it's going to be the same shit as everything else with  WoT reskin.  So it seems weird to me people would have trouble imagining a WoT MMO.

And so......you're confused as to why I'm baffled as to why people are giving money to this shit?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Teleku on February 13, 2010, 10:12:08 PM
Man, such WoT hate.  Funny enough, I've just been re-reading the first few books since the final books are coming out.  I recognize the flaws it developed, but even re-reading it now, I still think its better than most fantasy out there.  There are a few that are definitely better (IE Song of Ice and Fire), but its still a good read.

Having said that, I don't see it translating to an MMO well, and all indications point to this just being a companies attempt to cash in on a license, so the game is going to be derivative shit if it actually ever gets made (unlikely).


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: naum on February 13, 2010, 11:10:58 PM
The proliferation of MUDS and MOOs attests to the fact that there is a playerbase waiting,

If you combined the populations of all the WoT MUDs and MOOs, you might feel a few WoW servers. This is not the size of the player playerbase people make MMOs for.

An MMO for WoT is only going to launch if they can cast a much wider net of attraction from a movie. It's not about the books, because no one could ever have a big enough budget to do that series the kind of justice fans of the books would want. So the movie will distill things down to the highlights (probably just book one) and then the MMO will be about killing ten Trollogs.

That could be fine. But we have plenty of that already. I'd really like a good WoT game that shows how the series is different from your usual fantasy tripe. But I don't think anyone involved in these projects can get that kind of budget.

I played a WoT MUD way back, and there was a bunch of them about…

Still, I doubt there is a significant fraction of WoW players that even know what a MUD is. Though the books are still popular and younger folks are still indulging in the WoT series afresh…

…I made it all the way to Winter's Heart and a third of the way through, I could takes no mores…


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 14, 2010, 02:28:02 AM
Warhammer.  

Which proved what exactly? This was not the Warhammer that Warhammer fans expected. It was that other Warhammer distilled down to a mere shadow knockoff of WoW with minor points of departure only MMO geeks would even understand. All the units it sold merely showed there's a market of people tired of WoW. It's cliiffdive showed what it takes to be a competent alternative.

Same can be said for Aoc and ChampO.


I guess my point is that Warhammer is a pretty fucking niche hobbyist game.  Even more so than D&D, and the MMO based off the Warhammer property still managed to launch with much fanfare and grab a large chunk of subs, at least initially, until everyone realized it sucked balls.  Also, my point is that whatever the license is, they'll just shoehorn a prototypical MMO inside of it and so all this talk of not understanding how an MMO will work based off the IP is confusing to me.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 14, 2010, 06:00:11 AM
It's certainly more combat, class and grind oriented than LoTR and ST.  It'll translate into a typical MMO very well.  The only question is where the PC vs NPC dividing line will be.  Will you play a Child of the Light, Aiel and Darkfriend or will they be reduced to no more than PCs.

Hell, it'd make a killer PvP game with all the factions out there if you turned channelers into your typical MMO mage.



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 14, 2010, 07:02:29 AM


I guess my point is that Warhammer is a pretty fucking niche hobbyist game.  Even more so than D&D, and the MMO based off the Warhammer property still managed to launch with much fanfare and grab a large chunk of subs, at least initially, until everyone realized it sucked balls.  Also, my point is that whatever the license is, they'll just shoehorn a prototypical MMO inside of it and so all this talk of not understanding how an MMO will work based off the IP is confusing to me.

Oh, ok, yea, then we aggressively agree :-) I just think it had far less to do with the IP than it had with all the marketing that was done to promote this was WoW 2.0. Which, not-so-coincidentally, is similar to how DAoC was peddled as EQ 1.5 :-)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 14, 2010, 08:50:33 AM
I'm not sure this book series has enough of a fan base to merit spending the money on the IP.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.  Why not just make a game?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 14, 2010, 09:00:18 AM
I'm not sure this book series has enough of a fan base to merit spending the money on the IP.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.  Why not just make a game?


I was just thinking that, but not only in terms of WoT, but also every other niche MMO license.  I mean Warhammer?  Most people have never even fucking heard of that, at least D&D has some cultural cachet for the average person, if not always in a positive light.  I wonder how much the IP rights cost for shit like this, I'm sure it varies but why not just spend that on marketing?  Maybe there is just more value than we think in the hardcore fans of X or Y IP spreading the gospel around the internet and to their friends.  If licensing these sorts of IP's was financially imprudent, I doubt we'd see it continue to occur so often.

Edit:  I suppose another thing to consider is that none of us seem to be overly fond of WoT, but we've heard of it, and I doubt the fact that an MMO was based on WoT would preclude any of us from playing it if it tickled our fancy.  So, maybe there is a value in knowing about that "WoT MMO" that makes it stand out from a sea of other titles.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on February 14, 2010, 09:09:45 AM
Man, such WoT hate.  Funny enough, I've just been re-reading the first few books since the final books are coming out.  I recognize the flaws it developed, but even re-reading it now, I still think its better than most fantasy out there.  There are a few that are definitely better (IE Song of Ice and Fire), but its still a good read.

The problems people have with WOT had was not the first few books (which most people agree are quite good.) Its the fact it became the neverending story, and not in a good way. I remember when there was only supposed to be 4 books in it. But it became an obvious cash cow, and totally formulaic. For years after I gave up on it I walked into bookshops and groaned when I saw yet ANOTHER one. If the guy had lived another 20 years he would have kept writing them and inventing prophecies.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rendakor on February 14, 2010, 09:36:11 AM
Assuming this doesn't end up vaporware or completely awful, I'd at least buy the box based on the WoT license alone; the IP generates more appeal than it did for  WAR, DDO* or WoW.

*My big problem with DDO was that it was set in Eberron, not one of the more recognizable campaign settings like Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 14, 2010, 09:58:39 AM
Man, such WoT hate.  Funny enough, I've just been re-reading the first few books since the final books are coming out.  I recognize the flaws it developed, but even re-reading it now, I still think its better than most fantasy out there.  There are a few that are definitely better (IE Song of Ice and Fire), but its still a good read.

The problems people have with WOT had was not the first few books (which most people agree are quite good.) Its the fact it became the neverending story, and not in a good way. I remember when there was only supposed to be 4 books in it. But it became an obvious cash cow, and totally formulaic. For years after I gave up on it I walked into bookshops and groaned when I saw yet ANOTHER one. If the guy had lived another 20 years he would have kept writing them and inventing prophecies.

I agree the first 3 books were pretty good.  The problem is really when any author attains any amount of success or notoriety they become very difficult to edit for.  This was no doubt exacerbated by the fact that at some point, Jordan made his wife his editor.  To me knowledge she wasn't even a professional editor previously.  Even if she was, one can see how that would be problematic.  There was like a 4 or 5 book span where essentially no major plot points occurred.  He could have wrapped up the series quite nicely in seven books without breaking a sweat.  Instead of the 16 it will end up being now that the final bookw as split into three books.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 14, 2010, 12:01:34 PM
Hell, it'd make a killer PvP game with all the factions out there if you turned channelers into your typical MMO mage.

Them being a typical MMO mage would suck pretty hard, even if it would be prudent for balancing.  Better to do something like this:

  • All channelling requires a wait time before it can begin (embracing the source).
  • All channellers have extremely limited longevity.
  • Aes Sedai have to contend with the oath against using the power as a weapon (Black Ajah can break the oath, with consequences).
  • Male channellers die as they channel.
  • A players class/faction is not shown unless the viewer has special abilities, so people (Whitecloaks, Darkfriends) can easily ambush a Channeller.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 14, 2010, 02:34:26 PM
Hell, it'd make a killer PvP game with all the factions out there if you turned channelers into your typical MMO mage.

Them being a typical MMO mage would suck pretty hard, even if it would be prudent for balancing.  Better to do something like this:

  • All channelling requires a wait time before it can begin (embracing the source).
  • All channellers have extremely limited longevity.
  • Aes Sedai have to contend with the oath against using the power as a weapon (Black Ajah can break the oath, with consequences).
  • Male channellers die as they channel.
  • A players class/faction is not shown unless the viewer has special abilities, so people (Whitecloaks, Darkfriends) can easily ambush a Channeller.

Why is this stuff a good idea in your opinion?  Do you think that would make for better game mechanics in general, or is that your interpretation of the lore?  Because if it's the latter I don't think it's accurate.  Anyway, a good game company will sacrifice lore for gameplay every time.  Just ask Blizzard.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 14, 2010, 04:06:15 PM
How has Blizzard sacrified lore when they write and control the whole thing? :-)

But I get your point. And agree. Unless part of the lore is the specific mechanic of how things work in that world. In which case radical departures could alienate that audience.

Unless the audience is too small to care about  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 14, 2010, 05:01:36 PM
How has Blizzard sacrified lore when they write and control the whole thing? :-)


I consider copious retcons as a sacrifical lamb to good gameplay.  Not that it bothers me mind you, it's really the best and only option.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: vos on February 14, 2010, 05:56:20 PM
Whether you like the books or not, the guy has sold 40+ million of them, which is a serious number in the publishing business.  I find it hard to believe that wouldn't translate into at least some box sales.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on February 14, 2010, 05:59:08 PM
Whether you like the books or not, the guy has sold 40+ million of them, which is a serious number in the publishing business.  I find it hard to believe that wouldn't translate into at least some box sales.

We've had this discussion a million times about IP translating into sales.  Selling games to a core audience of gamers that worship the ground you walk on isn't difficult.  Every other type of fandom -> MMO  seems to be a bit difficult depending on how high you aim.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: vos on February 14, 2010, 06:09:17 PM
I guess it really depends how much they paid for the rights to the IP.

Would it not be significantly cheaper to adapt material than to create it out of whole cloth from a development standpoint? Would a AAA MMO need less writers on staff to adapt than create?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 14, 2010, 06:30:12 PM
Because if it's the latter I don't think it's accurate.

It's a half-assed attempt at a middle ground.  Just imagine a system where Aes Sedai are only allowed to respond in kind with deadly force, otherwise they use crowd control and a warder minion to protect themselves.  Then again, you're probably thinking DIKU and I'm thinking more along the lines of UO or Lineage.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 14, 2010, 07:46:40 PM
IP in MMOs is like marketing: it can open the door to invite new players in, but the game itself needs to be engaging after that first month (or for enough tens of millions that 5% buying into it can fund your game). IP isn't going to solve crappy execution.

I guess it really depends how much they paid for the rights to the IP.

Would it not be significantly cheaper to adapt material than to create it out of whole cloth from a development standpoint? Would a AAA MMO need less writers on staff to adapt than create?

Nah, because all writing needs to be adapted to the story telling medium of task lists and cut scenes. That's where all the work goes. Sitting around coming up with new ideas is never the problem. Anywhere you go you've always got people who'd cut off their right arm to conceptualize a new self-consistent world of their own.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: vos on February 14, 2010, 09:58:33 PM
So for the 50-100 million dollar, 5-8 year, MMO's having an existing IP doesn't matter either way, and could be argued that a whole new IP from the groud up is worth more to them in the long haul (assuming the MMO is successful)?


Since WoT likely doesn't fall into that category. Is the logic behind it to spend 15-25 million and 3 years on an existing IP and hope you make 30-40 million on initial box sales and the first 2 months of subs, and anything after that is gravy?

I guess my question is does the scale of the development affect whether or not using an existing IP is a good idea or not.

I totally get that the long term success of an MMO is dependent on the quality of the game. I'm just wondering if there are companies out there looking to scale the same type of model that goes into say a movie tie-in license and it's short term model to a MMO game. (and by extension wouldn't the WoT license be a good possibility for this?)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Stabs on February 15, 2010, 12:03:58 AM
  • Male channellers die as they channel.

I approve of the idea of suicide bomber as a player character choice - it's certainly fun in Eve.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: WindupAtheist on February 15, 2010, 12:31:22 AM
IP totally matters in an MMO. That's why the three biggest games in the world are LOTRO, DDO, and SWG.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 15, 2010, 02:02:13 AM
Those are good games to illustrate your point.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: schild on February 15, 2010, 06:11:53 AM
Those are good games to illustrate your point.

Should he have used Champions Online or Warhammer?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Xilren's Twin on February 15, 2010, 06:49:53 AM
I don't know why this discussion continues to come up.  Using an existing IP is nothing more than buying marketing.  It will not make your game any more or less successful long term than not have having it; it is all about the initial hype period and marketing push.  It only affects your game design superficially (graphics, settings, lore) unless the IP in question comes with some restrictions built in.  The WoT IP is perfectly fine for a company to use to help attract attention, and depending on how much they had to pay for it, could make a lot of sense financially.

Breaking into a well established market pretty much means you have to have something for people to talk about and get excited.  IP is just a tool for that.
Bioware's recent games of DA and ME:2 are all about building their own IP's, but when they started, they were making games based on the D&D and SW's IP's and they did that for a reason...


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Lantyssa on February 15, 2010, 07:58:10 AM
Should he have used Champions Online or Warhammer?
I'd say Star Trek, but it'll be a few months before we can definitively hammer the point home.  "Maybe this time it'll work!"


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Threash on February 15, 2010, 09:24:26 AM
I don't know why this discussion continues to come up.  Using an existing IP is nothing more than buying marketing.  It will not make your game any more or less successful long term than not have having it; it is all about the initial hype period and marketing push.  It only affects your game design superficially (graphics, settings, lore) unless the IP in question comes with some restrictions built in.  The WoT IP is perfectly fine for a company to use to help attract attention, and depending on how much they had to pay for it, could make a lot of sense financially.

Breaking into a well established market pretty much means you have to have something for people to talk about and get excited.  IP is just a tool for that.
Bioware's recent games of DA and ME:2 are all about building their own IP's, but when they started, they were making games based on the D&D and SW's IP's and they did that for a reason...

Exactly, there's going to be a lot more interest in a "Wheel of Time" MMO than in "generic land of annoying women and interminable sequels" MMO.  That doesn't mean you are gonna get a million subs with a shitty game, it means more people are going to look at it than otherwise would.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: BoatApe on February 15, 2010, 10:39:02 AM
Should players be able to be Ta'veren? :ye_gods: :grin:

(imagines an entire world full of toons whose very presence causes random changes in the world around them)

I can picture the forums now...


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 15, 2010, 12:07:41 PM
Should he have used Champions Online or Warhammer?

Warhammer hit a million people before it collapsed under the weight of Paul Barnett (among other things), so yeah, that would be an option.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 15, 2010, 12:10:12 PM
IP in MMOs is like marketing: it can open the door to invite new players in, but the game itself needs to be engaging after that first month (or for enough tens of millions that 5% buying into it can fund your game).

Buying an IP is all about two things: 1) Geek dev fascination with the IP and 2) cross-promotional marketing potential. The last WoT book comes out and has a trail code for the MMO. Suddenly you have millions of interested potential customers to market to. No, a book IP isn't great for that, unless you are talking about one of the biggest fantasy book IP's on the planet. Any marketer worth his salt knows that geeks will buy shit in a box if you label it right.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Famine on February 15, 2010, 12:45:48 PM
I really don't get this sentiment.

Has it ever worked?  WoT sucks......a lot.  I'm sure the game will be terrible too.

mmmK, many people would disagree with that.

There has been hundreds of WoT MUD's out there including a few dozen NWN Modules out there for it. I would say a good portion of them were popular at least in the genre of MUD's. It might now count for much but that's without marketing and without a lot of people playing online games like 12 years ago. ;)

P.S

Many houses can pull this off. The days of limited MMO developers are over at least for the eastern markets.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 15, 2010, 12:50:53 PM
There are a lot of MMO devs out there, this is true. Expecting any of them to pull this off without it being a great big pile of broken, derivative DIKU shit is as fruitless as making a prophecy for when Noltor the God of Moon Pies will come down and destroy the earth with his mighty marshmallow filling.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: schild on February 15, 2010, 12:51:40 PM
Quote
The days of limited MMO developers are over at least for the eastern markets.

More like, will never be over. Anywhere. Ever.



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Famine on February 15, 2010, 12:58:27 PM
There are a lot of MMO devs out there, this is true. Expecting any of them to pull this off without it being a great big pile of broken, derivative DIKU shit is as fruitless as making a prophecy for when Noltor the God of Moon Pies will come down and destroy the earth with his mighty marshmallow filling.

Aye, well that's the terminology for pulling it off for you. Developing it; sure! Many developers can develop a MMO over time and with the right funding or tech. The question is quality. Will it meet your standards? Define standards... It's no win regardless because everyone has their opinions on what defines the standard.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Pennilenko on February 15, 2010, 01:05:02 PM
I am highly interested in more information regarding the moon pie deity.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Redgiant on February 15, 2010, 01:07:44 PM
The story is great the first 3 books. Still good and back-story-filled in books 4-6. Ridiculously drawn out in the rest.

That said, the concepts and class potential map really good to a more-than-two-sided PvP game (think DAoC). It is a very busy and rich world that Jordan populated, regardless of whether he went long in the tooth in the telling (which he did).

Some ideas...

There are good and evil versions of the following 3 playable realms:

Seanchan
- winged riders
- fighters and very strange pet classes
- Sul'Dam and Damane (your pet is the caster, you are melee/ranged, and you can "leash" other casters as your pet for a time)
- good: do not want to invade (freed damane is playable directly , not a pet), evil: convert everyone to The Blood

Aes Sedai/Ashaman
- different Ajahs have different elemental strengths (but pare down to red-blue-green-yellow, with others turned into crafting concepts)
- warder pets for some melee protection
- multiple warders if Green Ajah, none if Red
- add some drawbacks to being female (Three Oaths) or male (insanity)
- good: White Tower / Black Tower, evil: Black Ajah, turncoat Ashaman

Aiel
- more monk/scout/shaman/mystical/indigenous orientation of classes and abilities
- wise women are the casters
- choose a sept/clan give simlar to choosing a deity when you start; give "set bonuses" when like septs/clans group together
- societies are their classes, mainly hand-to-hand, ranged, very skilled and agile

NPCs to throw into mix

Children of the Light (make them really annoying to encounter)
- big melee or ranged with high magic resists against Aes Sedai
- no casters

Major bosses and lieutenants
- Foresaken and Dreadlords
- Shadar Haran
- Moridin
- Golems
- Snakes and Foxes
- Padan Fain
- Mashadar

Major cultures and races
- Sea Folk
- blight-border defenders
- Camelyn, Tear, Ilian, Mayene, etc

Main characters


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 15, 2010, 01:25:58 PM
Define standards... It's no win regardless because everyone has their opinions on what defines the standard.

The market has defined the standards. They've rewarded Blizzard with the success of WoW and everyone else with the "scraping by and maybe can put out an expansion" status of AoC, WAR, CO, etc.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Famine on February 15, 2010, 01:51:39 PM
Define standards... It's no win regardless because everyone has their opinions on what defines the standard.

The market has defined the standards. They've rewarded Blizzard with the success of WoW and everyone else with the "scraping by and maybe can put out an expansion" status of AoC, WAR, CO, etc.

It's a logical and correct argument to make. The argument really falls on the standard among the developers. Developers would have to raise the bar in order to meet the commanding force of course. That's the most debated topic on the interwebs regarding new MMO games coming into the market. It's very understandable from a consumer point of view but you also have to consider the developer too.

But that's another thread topic on it's own.  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Lantyssa on February 15, 2010, 02:29:20 PM
The market only has to consider the consumers.  Developers can do whatever they believe or make whatever excuses they want.  In the end though, if the consumers aren't buying, it doesn't matter what standards the developer wants to follow.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 15, 2010, 02:43:27 PM
I want to release a buggy, half-finished piece of spaghetti code and charge $9 a month for it.  That's my standard.  Think I'll make money?

Lessons remain unlearned.

Anywho, Red Eagle seems to own the distro rights to all WOT products, they didn't just buy this game.

And you're right A WoT game will never get off the ground, it's just not popular enough.  (http://www.wotmud.org/directory/books.php)
 :oh_i_see:

F13: Applying our ever-narrowing range of tastes and declaring failure since 2006.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 15, 2010, 02:45:16 PM
MMOG developers have to raise their current standards about 6 light years to even approach the level of a Downs Syndrome sufferer.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: naum on February 15, 2010, 03:33:25 PM
Actually, there was a WoT PC release (http://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Time-Pc/dp/B00001XDKL) a while back, I think it was a FPS but I never played it…

Quote
Have you been waiting to experience the power of Aes Sedai, fight with the strength of a Ter'angreal, and search for the everlasting cuendillar seals? The Wheel of Time--with a storyline that's a prequel to the series--holds a combination of action and strategy that mirrors Robert Jordan's bestselling books.

Similar to the series, the Dark One has broken out of his prison--this time held by four seals--and you must find a way to seal him away again. Play as Elayna--in single player mode--and fight to find the missing seals. (You might find this mode slightly limiting, though, since Elayna only moves by foot.) Multiplayer allows the use of the Portal Stones and Ter'angreal and introduces more intricate character development.

The graphics are good, and you get the chance to personally explore the White Tower, Shadar Logoth, the Fortress of the Forsaken, and the Outpost of the Children of the Light--four locations that determine your success in the game. You will not be able to play as Rand, or fight Padon Fain, although there are some surprise appearances by certain characters! The game is almost as engrossing as the series itself; but don't worry if you're a newcomer, the experience of the The Wheel of Time won't be lost on you--you will be lost in it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 15, 2010, 04:15:28 PM
They butchered the setting pretty bad to make it shooter-y.  The game itself was okay for something based on an Unreal Tournament era engine, though weapon ter'angreal selection was a pain in the ass.  Probably the best thing that came out of it was an odd trap laying metagame which got far more use in multiplayer than in the campaign.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Threash on February 15, 2010, 05:00:16 PM
They butchered the setting pretty bad to make it shooter-y.  The game itself was okay for something based on an Unreal Tournament era engine, though weapon ter'angreal selection was a pain in the ass.  Probably the best thing that came out of it was an odd trap laying metagame which got far more use in multiplayer than in the campaign.

No the best thing in that game was the level were you are in that evil city and the mist sneaks up behind you and whispers your name.  Scared the fuck out of me years ago.  Its been too long since i read the books but i remember it captured the feel of that place perfectly.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: raydeen on February 15, 2010, 05:10:06 PM
It was a pretty good game as I recall. Seemed like Thief, Tomb Raider and UT rolled into one. I enjoyed it but didn't (and still don't) know anything about the books.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Venkman on February 15, 2010, 05:50:17 PM
WTF, I thought this was covered last page. Take every WoT MUD ever made and combine all their playerbases at their peak. You'd end up with a few WoW servers maybe.

If that's you're market, set your sites on a freemium Flash MMO and have at it. If you want to do the books justice though, first you target everyone who HASN'T read them (which after book 4 is most people) and then you ape WoW with the free marketing the movie will grant you.

Otherwise you won't get anywhere near the budget yo need to do it right.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Trippy on February 15, 2010, 05:53:46 PM
WTF, I thought this was covered last page. Take every WoT MUD ever made and combine all their playerbases at their peak. You'd end up with a few WoW servers maybe.

If that's you're market, set your sites on a freemium Flash MMO and have at it. If you want to do the books justice though, first you target everyone who HASN'T read them (which after book 4 is most people) and then you ape WoW with the free marketing the movie will grant you.

Otherwise you won't get anywhere near the budget yo need to do it right.
If you used the population of DikuMUDs at their peak to predict the success of EQ you would've been very very very wrong. Not sure why you want to do the same with a WoT MMO.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: UnSub on February 15, 2010, 06:25:56 PM
I've little doubt that this MMO wouldn't exist without the IP - to the extent that I doubt the ink was dry on the licensing contract before they announced the MMO.

If this title ever launches, I don't think we will be looking at a quality product, even by MMO standards.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Khaldun on February 15, 2010, 06:56:40 PM

"The Wolfbrother class seems terribly unfinished. All I do is sit around doing nothing".



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Pennilenko on February 15, 2010, 07:12:21 PM

But that's another thread topic on it's own.  :grin:


I would like to hear your expanded thoughts in another thread, please create one. It would be interesting to hear your side.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Bzalthek on February 15, 2010, 10:05:49 PM
You've gotten better at Braid Tugging (102)!


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Velorath on February 15, 2010, 10:57:45 PM
I've little doubt that this MMO wouldn't exist without the IP - to the extent that I doubt the ink was dry on the licensing contract before they announced the MMO.

If this title ever launches, I don't think we will be looking at a quality product, even by MMO standards.

For the time being, the MMO still doesn't exist.  Really it's not like the initial press release from 2008 was dedicated to Red Eagle announcing that they had pick up the WoT license so they could do an MMO.  It was "Hey we just got this license, and we're doing some movies, and we're forming a game development company, and we're gonna do some movie tie-in games, and we're doing stuff for PC's, and Consoles, and Portables, and cell phones, and we're planning an MMO...".

I'm fairly sure Obsidian doesn't have the means to do an MMO at the moment, and Red Eagle certainly doesn't, nor does it sound like the plan to any time soon.  Apparently, Red Eagle's CEO, Larry Mondragon posted this up on Dragonmount (the WoT community site):

Quote
Hello Everyone!

Thanks to Jason for posting the announcement of our relationship with Obsidian. However, I would like to set the record straight about two important aspects of our development plan.

First, you will all be happy to hear that we are not planning to make a traditional “movie” game that merely recasts the picture we are currently making with Universal. Instead, we want to concentrate our development efforts on telling the other facets of The Wheel of Time story. And as you know, we have a lot to choose from– literally thousands of years of history and scores of major characters, nations, geographies and critical moments in the history of the world since the beginning of the Third Age.

Thus, we have been vetting many creative ideas for game formats, including games derived from the Age of Legends, The Breaking of the World, the War of the Shadow, and even a game concept that focuses on the battle among the Forsaken to become the one and only Nae’blis. We are also looking at skill-based games that are based on the testing of the Aes Sedai for the shawl and the wielding of the many intricate sword forms that are second nature to an experienced Warder. All of this is to simply say that we are critically thinking about game design for an entire family of WOT games that are consistent and supportive of the story portrayed in the movies, but that do far more that merely retell the plotlines, characters and scenes from the films. Trust me when I say that we intend to build games that will excite the imagination of every WOT fan. We just ask that the Wheel of Time community wait to see the fruits of our labor before passing judgement on whether we have been successful in our efforts.

I would also like to make one additional clarification. We are not licensing our WOT development rights and stepping back from the process of building these video games. Quite to the contrary, Red Eagle Games will have an internal development team of its own. However, rather than staffing up a 200 person studio from scratch, we decided some time ago that for our first games it would be far more prudent to hire a small in-house team (e.g. positions such as Art Director, Game Designer, Story Writer, Software Architect, Quality Assurance Director, etc.) and rely on a third party developer to provide the majority of developers and their associated overhead and infrastructure. In this way, we will be providing technical and creative direction to our external developer.

Obsidian Entertainment is a highly-respected game developer with a well-deserved industry reputation for building quality action/role-playing games. By eliminating the need to recruit and manage a large internal workforce within Red Eagle Games, we expect that this new relationship with Obsidian will enable the Company to achieve substantially lower development costs, a shorter production cycle, and improve the quality of our initial video game releases.

We follow the message boards here on Dragonmount closely. We will always give careful consideration to your thoughtful comments and suggestions.


Right now it sounds like they still don't even have a solid idea of what kind of games they want to make, and they don't have a much of an in-house development team yet, so they're using Obsidian to just get some WoT RPG's out there.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Stabs on February 16, 2010, 08:38:08 AM
The story is great the first 3 books.

Were he still alive I'm sure JRRT would be glad you liked it.

Honestly apart from changing Gandalf's gender and making the Hobbits taller the start of WOT is exactly Lord of the Rings. Dark Riders, the Wizard's sidekick being secretly King of a kingdom that was lost, even Frodo being wounded on Weathertop is copied. Merry and Pippin barely even had their names changed.

WOT's so derivative it may be a shaky IP to use for copyright reasons especially if the game design is similar to Lotro as well as the book being similar to Lotr.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on February 16, 2010, 09:09:40 AM
Over the course of a dozen books I really haven't noticed that much resemblance to LOTR other than that it's a fantasy series. Jordan definitely uses a lot of classic fantasy themes but they seem to be mostly stolen from old myths like King Arthur that have been in the public domain forever.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Threash on February 16, 2010, 12:04:38 PM
Over the course of a dozen books I really haven't noticed that much resemblance to LOTR other than that it's a fantasy series. Jordan definitely uses a lot of classic fantasy themes but they seem to be mostly stolen from old myths like King Arthur that have been in the public domain forever.

He was talking about the first book though. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on February 16, 2010, 12:05:29 PM
It's worth noting that there was an official run of WoT resources for the D20 paper system. They didn't do all that many books, and I only bought the very first one to see how they would translate the books into a game - but I think they did a good job of it. I didn't agree with every decision the author(s) made in the transition from book to game, but it was good enough that I could see how a campaign could work - even in a world where Rand was walking the land at the very same time.

That's the core challenge with this IP - creating compelling play/stories in a land where the largest hero and most important plotline isn't available for the players. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Star Trek have all dealt with this, each in their own ways, and I don't think the top complaints about any of those games is "The IP just sucked balls because I couldn't be <insert specific character here>!"

I'm interested enough in seeing how it could translate. I'm a big fan of the world Jordan made, even if his stories in that world drag.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 16, 2010, 02:45:52 PM
The story is great the first 3 books.
Honestly apart from changing Gandalf's gender and making the Hobbits taller the start of WOT is exactly Lord of the Rings. Dark Riders, the Wizard's sidekick being secretly King of a kingdom that was lost, even Frodo being wounded on Weathertop is copied. Merry and Pippin barely even had their names changed.

WOT's so derivative it may be a shaky IP to use for copyright reasons especially if the game design is similar to Lotro as well as the book being similar to Lotr.

Evil men on horses = dark riders? That's a hard fantasy cliche to shake; perhaps they should have taken the train to the Two Rivers.
I don't even know where you're getting the "tall Hobbits" from, unless you mean Ogier, but the only resemblance I see there is that they're peace loving and have pointed ears.
As for "a characters gets wounded so it's just like Weathertop", are you talking about Mat and his cursed dagger? He was never actually wounded. You might make a far better case for Rand's wound outside of Falme, but a number of the characters have some sort of lingering wound, from Thom's limp to Mat's scars from being hung.

Assuming you've read some other fantasy in the last decade, you might want to reconsider whether WoT is really that derivative. Unlike 90% of the rest of the genre, there are no elves, no orcs, no hobbits, and a lot of gray moral areas. If you want to say that Trollocs are Orcs and Fades are Dark Riders and Morgaine is Gandalf you're only giving the books a very superficial reading.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rendakor on February 16, 2010, 03:04:09 PM
Rand's wound (as well as his markings, crown, etc.) is more of a parallel to Jesus than anything from LOTR.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 16, 2010, 03:19:50 PM
WOT's so derivative it may be a shaky IP to use for copyright reasons especially if the game design is similar to Lotro as well as the book being similar to Lotr.

If the Tolkien estate had a problem with it, they would have sued sometime in the last 20 years, considering book 1 was released in 1990.

 :oh_i_see:

A MUCH stronger case could have been made by Jordan's estate against Goodkind if you've read both of those series.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on February 16, 2010, 03:26:40 PM
Rand's unhealing wound is taken right from the Fisher King out of Arthurian legend I think. I expect the Holy Grail to show up any time now.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 16, 2010, 03:45:21 PM
Everyone steals from everyone. Originality is a myth.


Anyway, if you're going to criticize anyone for ripping off Tolkien, no one did it more transparently than Terry Brooks in the Shannara series.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Stabs on February 16, 2010, 05:30:02 PM
I meant no criticism of Robert Jordan for ripping off Tolkien. Good luck to him and his estate.

What I was getting at that $100m or however much a triple A MMO costs to produce is a lot to invest on something that might be open to a copyright claim.

For those who don't see what I'm getting at read volume 1, The Eye of the World, replacing the following names.

Shai'tan - Sauron
Moiraine - Gandalf
Lan - Aragorn
Rand - Frodo
Tam - Bilbo
Matrim - Merry
Perrin - Pippin

The similarities are astonishing. In fact just having Lan/Aragorn also being the mysteriously secretive rightful heir of a kingdom that was broken is probably grounds for a copyright case. That's a pretty specific detail copied very closely.

The Eye of the World is a product of its historical context. There was a huge demand for fantasy doorstop type books in the late 70s and early 80s and almost no recognised authors writing them before Sword of Shannara. Anyone who could get a fantasy epic out was welcome and Robert Jordan had apprenticed by writing Conan pastiches that were authorised by the R E Howard estate.

I have no idea why the Tolkien estate has made no move against WOT in the last 20 years. I'm just pointing out it is possibly a gamble to spend a lot of money on this franchise. I actually rather enjoy the books, especially the parts describing Matt's generalship. I wouldn't want to bet my business on their originality though.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Venkman on February 16, 2010, 05:33:54 PM
If you used the population of DikuMUDs at their peak to predict the success of EQ you would've been very very very wrong. Not sure why you want to do the same with a WoT MMO.

Confused. Were the population of Diku-style MUDs a lot greater than EQ1 hit or were they a lot less? I had been assuming the latter but don't have anything but hearsay and a relative few sources to go by.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 16, 2010, 05:49:50 PM


The similarities are astonishing. In fact just having Lan/Aragorn also being the mysteriously secretive rightful heir of a kingdom that was broken is probably grounds for a copyright case. That's a pretty specific detail copied very closely...

...I have no idea why the Tolkien estate has made no move against WOT in the last 20 years.

lol are you high?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MM
Post by: Famine on February 16, 2010, 06:01:47 PM
If you used the population of DikuMUDs at their peak to predict the success of EQ you would've been very very very wrong. Not sure why you want to do the same with a WoT MMO.

Confused. Were the population of Diku-style MUDs a lot greater than EQ1 hit or were they a lot less? I had been assuming the latter but don't have anything but hearsay and a relative few sources to go by.

Depends on how you calculate it. I would say, "yes" on their being more during those times if you combine all of the MUD's together. It's still not fair simply because it's free-to-play versus pay-to-play. It's also many different style of MUD's that may all be fantasy but have different mechanics and or designs. The point however, is how many were WoT's and how popular they were in a time when online gaming was not as popular as it is today.

For example, I played on a PKILL MUD based on Diku/Rom/RoT. It was fantasy based but had super fast leveling. PvE supported PvP thus the popular PvE grinding was nullified for instant action balanced game play around killing each other with full looting mechanics. Something that's very rare and the reason many of us took so long to jump into the MMO genre after Realm, Ultma, EQ and etc. It's basically 2 different games and wouldn't be fair to combine them unless you're making a point on how popular online games were in the 90's compared to today.

Taking a look at WoT MUD's on the other hand is a different story. They seemed to be widely popular even by those who didn't know anything about it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 16, 2010, 07:15:38 PM
For those who don't see what I'm getting at read volume 1, The Eye of the World, replacing the following names.

Shai'tan - Sauron
Moiraine - Gandalf
Lan - Aragorn
Rand - Frodo
Tam - Bilbo
Matrim - Merry
Perrin - Pippin
"Bilbo was talking again, he realized, sometimes only murmuring, sometimes loud enough to understand. "Battles are always hot, even in the snow. Sweat heat. Blood heat. Only death is cool."

"Merry bared his teeth in a silent, snarling rictus, and pulled himself into an ever tighter knot, but he never took his eyes from her. A convulsion shook him at her touch, and abruptly he pulled one hand out, slashing at her face with the ruby-hilted dagger."

"The wind roared with Frodo's voice down the pass, whipping the wall of flames into a wall of fire that sped away from him and toward the Trolloc host faster than a horse could run. Fire burned into the Trollocs and the mountains trembled with their screams."


Now if you want to argue that the Wheel of Time is merely a classic retelling of the hero's journey, as in Hero with a Thousand Faces, you'd probably be right. But there's a level of character complexity that WoT has that Lord of the Rings just doesn't get into, with the possible exception of Boromir. That's not a critique of LOTRO, it's just emblematic of our modern taste for more ambiguous characters. So yes, WoT is filled with certain archetypes, as many stories are... but there's a lot of flavor and nuance that is sitting there waiting to be appreciated.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on February 16, 2010, 07:35:57 PM
This game should have only two classes.  Aes Sedai and Warder.  No more holy trinity shit anymore!

Also, this will be released on the Wii to allow the use of the Wii-mote for weaving the source.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Megrim on February 16, 2010, 08:40:26 PM
For those who don't see what I'm getting at read volume 1, The Eye of the World, replacing the following names.

Shai'tan - Sauron
Moiraine - Gandalf
Lan - Aragorn
Rand - Frodo
Tam - Bilbo
Matrim - Merry
Perrin - Pippin
"Bilbo was talking again, he realized, sometimes only murmuring, sometimes loud enough to understand. "Battles are always hot, even in the snow. Sweat heat. Blood heat. Only death is cool."

"Merry bared his teeth in a silent, snarling rictus, and pulled himself into an ever tighter knot, but he never took his eyes from her. A convulsion shook him at her touch, and abruptly he pulled one hand out, slashing at her face with the ruby-hilted dagger."

"The wind roared with Frodo's voice down the pass, whipping the wall of flames into a wall of fire that sped away from him and toward the Trolloc host faster than a horse could run. Fire burned into the Trollocs and the mountains trembled with their screams."


Now if you want to argue that the Wheel of Time is merely a classic retelling of the hero's journey, as in Hero with a Thousand Faces, you'd probably be right. But there's a level of character complexity that WoT has that Lord of the Rings just doesn't get into, with the possible exception of Boromir. That's not a critique of LOTRO, it's just emblematic of our modern taste for more ambiguous characters. So yes, WoT is filled with certain archetypes, as many stories are... but there's a lot of flavor and nuance that is sitting there waiting to be appreciated.

wat


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on February 16, 2010, 09:04:47 PM
but there's a lot of flavor and nuance that is sitting there waiting to be appreciated.

Well sure, Jordan had to fill it with something when he was writing 6 filler books where pretty much zip happened bar his bank balance expanding.

Anyway if we are talking estates suing, I think the owners of the Dune series would like a slice of that particular pie. Male-female aspects of magic, long prophesied male mage hero and a compleatly female mage class anyone?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Lt.Dan on February 16, 2010, 09:10:21 PM
This game should have only two classes.  Aes Sedai and Warder.  No more holy trinity shit anymore!

Also, this will be released on the Wii to allow the use of the Wii-mote for weaving the source.
And braid tugging!

Although for real innovation they could release for X-Box with top sekrit pouting and frowning detection.

(Sorry if there have been too many braid tugging jokes already - but hey WoT is 12 books of that shit)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 16, 2010, 09:14:39 PM
Now that's just plain not fair and untrue.


There's skirt smoothing, sniffing, muttering and pointed looks, too.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 16, 2010, 09:15:25 PM
But there's a level of character complexity that WoT has that Lord of the Rings just doesn't get into, with the possible exception of Boromir. That's not a critique of LOTRO, it's just emblematic of our modern taste for more ambiguous characters.
wat
I don't even want to start on that debate.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 16, 2010, 09:24:43 PM
Rand's unhealing wound is taken right from the Fisher King out of Arthurian legend I think. I expect the Holy Grail to show up any time now.

1. Jordan pretty much does an entire epilogue chapter devoted to "Hai dudes, Google the word Fisher"
2. He has used the holy grail, several times: Sa'angreal.  Brush up on your French and slice out a few letters.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Megrim on February 16, 2010, 09:40:56 PM
But there's a level of character complexity that WoT has that Lord of the Rings just doesn't get into, with the possible exception of Boromir. That's not a critique of LOTRO, it's just emblematic of our modern taste for more ambiguous characters.
wat
I don't even want to start on that debate.

Then why say it?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 16, 2010, 10:04:53 PM
But there's a level of character complexity that WoT has that Lord of the Rings just doesn't get into, with the possible exception of Boromir. That's not a critique of LOTRO, it's just emblematic of our modern taste for more ambiguous characters.
wat
I don't even want to start on that debate.
Then why say it?
I drop random provocative comments in the hopes of derailing threads even further. Seriously though, if you want to argue it, I'm going to need something a bit more solid than 'wat'.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Megrim on February 17, 2010, 12:27:22 AM
How about your face?

Also, the burden of proof is on you, since you are the one that made that stupid claim.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 17, 2010, 01:04:59 AM
I honestly just don't care enough to argue about who has more nuanced characters. You have your stupid opinion and I have mine.

I like video games and am eager to hear further thoughts to that end.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on February 17, 2010, 02:18:22 AM
Quote
2. He has used the holy grail, several times: Sa'angreal.  Brush up on your French and slice out a few letters.

That's true about Sa'angreals but has he ever used one as the actual Holy Grail?  The Holy Grail is what's supposed to heal the Fisher King and his kingdom right?

Then there's Rand's lost hand. That's taken right out of Celtic Mythology. I bet he'll  be getting a silver prosthetic in the next book. Rand is a huge mish mash of every legendary hero you can think of. It's barely left enough mythology to apply to the other main characters.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: UnSub on February 17, 2010, 06:22:09 AM
I am not disappointed at all that I didn't read these books. Thank you thread!

However, when that David Eddings Sparhawk- or Piers Anthony Incantions-based MMO comes out, then I'll be able to contribute!  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on February 17, 2010, 08:20:39 AM
Can you motherfuckers not spoil the last books since I havn't read them yet.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 17, 2010, 09:02:30 AM
The similarities are astonishing. In fact just having Lan/Aragorn also being the mysteriously secretive rightful heir of a kingdom that was broken is probably grounds for a copyright case. That's a pretty specific detail copied very closely.

No, really it's not. Stop talking now.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 17, 2010, 09:12:33 AM
I didn't know if he was joking or not so I didn't get nasty.  I'm reformed.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 17, 2010, 10:31:57 AM
That's true about Sa'angreals but has he ever used one as the actual Holy Grail?  The Holy Grail is what's supposed to heal the Fisher King and his kingdom right?

Winter's Heart, last chapter.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on February 17, 2010, 10:43:00 AM
Can you motherfuckers not spoil the last books since I havn't read them yet.
I think the statute of fair limitations on spoilers has passed on this one my friend. Months have passed since the most recent book came out and if you aren't up to speed it's on you to avoid conversations about it. This isn't a week one spoiler, etc.

Re: Stabs & Jordan ripping Tolkien

You just took an Introduction to Literary Theory 127 didn't you?  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on February 17, 2010, 10:44:54 AM
Can you motherfuckers not spoil the last books since I havn't read them yet.
I think the statute of fair limitations on spoilers has passed on this one my friend. Months have passed since the most recent book came out and if you aren't up to speed it's on you to avoid conversations about it. This isn't a week one spoiler, etc.

Some of us stall out every time after Dumai's Wells.  So, no, the statute of limitations with Jordan is perpetual.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on February 17, 2010, 10:48:40 AM
I'd counter that if you don't have it in you to finish the books, you shouldn't give a damn to have them spoiled.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on February 17, 2010, 10:52:50 AM
Shenanigans.  (I'm actually trying to finish them now.  I figure a dead Jordan means we get this series finished in shorter order.) 

Spoiler police have spoken.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on February 17, 2010, 11:53:01 AM
I've read the first 7 or 8 a few times (maybe not the last few, but the first 4 I have) and I'm basically not reading any of them again until it's ended.  There's to much detail in these books to pick them back up and my OCD flairs up when I'm missing information.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 17, 2010, 12:48:35 PM
What's with people claiming not to be big fans of the series and reading the volumes multiple times?  I've never read the same book twice in my life.  Looks like SOME people are in the closet about their love of WoT.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on February 17, 2010, 01:14:03 PM
I've never read the same book twice in my life.  Looks like SOME people are in the closet about their love of WoT.

For me, it's simply the same thing as watching a movie more than once or playing through a game multiple times.   Movies tend to be shorter, games tend to take longer.  All the difference I tend to see there.   There's multiple series/books that I've read a few times.   Some completed series are just too long or have ultimately bad pay offs that I don't bother.  With an uncompleted series, if there's time, I reread if it's been a long time between books.

As for WOT, it just always gets to a point where I feel like I'm slogging through it instead of enjoying it.  Kind of like what's happened to me with Erikson's Malazon series.

Yah, more than you wanted to know.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on February 17, 2010, 01:40:52 PM
What's with people claiming not to be big fans of the series and reading the volumes multiple times?  I've never read the same book twice in my life.  Looks like SOME people are in the closet about their love of WoT.

I never said I didn't like the series, quite the opposite.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 17, 2010, 05:01:16 PM

Jeez, wut? Yea, you could create some direct parallels, but WoT very quickly diverges from the usual trite fantasy hero's journey.

You wanna talk knockoffs? Go with The Belgariod  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on February 17, 2010, 05:07:29 PM
But all this talk of copyright infringement is silly anyway. It just doesn't work like that with fiction. And as someone said already if there was going to be a lawsuit for infringement it would have happened when Terry Brooks published The Sword of Shannara which was such a massive ripoff of Tolkien that I couldn't even finish it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 17, 2010, 06:41:48 PM

Jeez, wut? Yea, you could create some direct parallels, but WoT very quickly diverges from the usual trite fantasy hero's journey.

You wanna talk knockoffs? Go with The Belgariod  :grin:
There's 17 stages to Campbell's monomyth and with a broad enough interpretation you can pick them out quite easily. Here's the first six.

The Call to Adventure
The hero starts off in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown.
I don't think anyone's going to argue that one.

Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.
Rand doesn't want to leave the Two Rivers, but reluctantly realizes the necessity of it now that he is being hunted by Darkspawn.

Supernatural Aid
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known. More often than not, this supernatural mentor will present the hero with one or more talismans or artifacts that will aid them later in their quest.
Moraine bestows knowledge of the Dark One and his designs on the world, Tam gives him the Heron-marked (and power-forged) sword.

The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.
Flight from the Two Rivers pursued by Dragkhar.

Belly of The Whale
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self. By entering this stage, the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis.
You might argue that this occurs when he first channels to give strength to Egwene and save Bela. Alternatively, Shadar Logoth. Or if you really want to encompass the whole series, it happens after he confronts the Trolloc Horde at Tarwin's Gap. Or takes up the Dragon Banner after Falme.
 
Amusingly enough, this began by me arguing that Jordan isn't a knockoff of Tolken, something which I stand by. But saying that he radically breaks away from the hero's journey/hero with a thousand faces is equally ridiculous. There's nothing "trite" about the monomyth; it's just an attempt to describe the fundamental structures that underlay these types of stories.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: naum on February 17, 2010, 06:59:39 PM

Jeez, wut? Yea, you could create some direct parallels, but WoT very quickly diverges from the usual trite fantasy hero's journey.

You wanna talk knockoffs? Go with The Belgariod  :grin:
There's 17 stages to Campbell's monomyth and with a broad enough interpretation you can pick them out quite easily. Here's the first six.………………



Amusingly enough, this began by me arguing that Jordan isn't a knockoff of Tolken, something which I stand by. But saying that he radically breaks away from the hero's journey/hero with a thousand faces is equally ridiculous. There's nothing "trite" about the monomyth; it's just an attempt to describe the fundamental structures that underlay these types of stories.

I've been reading this legendary tome on screenwriting by Robert McKee (http://www.amazon.com/Story-Substance-Structure-Principles-Screenwriting/dp/0060391685), and according to him, just about all screenplays (except for a few upside-down deviations) follow the "Hero's Journey" template.

Except he uses his own laced jargon instead of Campbell's — he calls it a quest, but it's riddled with nearly the same plot inflection points, but it pretty much is the exact same paradigm…


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 17, 2010, 07:04:23 PM
Only so many ways to skin a cat.  Not how but how well.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 17, 2010, 07:43:46 PM

Jeez, wut? Yea, you could create some direct parallels, but WoT very quickly diverges from the usual trite fantasy hero's journey.

You wanna talk knockoffs? Go with The Belgariod  :grin:
[/quote]
There's 17 stages to Campbell's monomyth and with a broad enough interpretation you can pick them out quite easily. Here's the first six.

The Call to Adventure
The hero starts off in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown.
I don't think anyone's going to argue that one.

Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.
Rand doesn't want to leave the Two Rivers, but reluctantly realizes the necessity of it now that he is being hunted by Darkspawn.

Supernatural Aid
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known. More often than not, this supernatural mentor will present the hero with one or more talismans or artifacts that will aid them later in their quest.
Moraine bestows knowledge of the Dark One and his designs on the world, Tam gives him the Heron-marked (and power-forged) sword.

The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.
Flight from the Two Rivers pursued by Dragkhar.

Belly of The Whale
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self. By entering this stage, the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis.
You might argue that this occurs when he first channels to give strength to Egwene and save Bela. Alternatively, Shadar Logoth. Or if you really want to encompass the whole series, it happens after he confronts the Trolloc Horde at Tarwin's Gap. Or takes up the Dragon Banner after Falme.
 
Amusingly enough, this began by me arguing that Jordan isn't a knockoff of Tolken, something which I stand by. But saying that he radically breaks away from the hero's journey/hero with a thousand faces is equally ridiculous. There's nothing "trite" about the monomyth; it's just an attempt to describe the fundamental structures that underlay these types of stories. [/spoiler]
[/quote]

And yes, you can eventually distill everything ever written down to a series of molecules too :-)

My point was that over all of the WoT books I've read (not yet the last two), the story markedly diverges from LoTR a lot more than the five books of The Belgariod (and The Mallorean, which was sort of a retelling). Those parallels sustain through the whole series a lot closer than they do over the WoT series.

I shouldn't have said "trite hero's journey". But ya never know what's going to set someone off on some academic tangent  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Xilren's Twin on February 18, 2010, 05:15:15 AM
For me, it's simply the same thing as watching a movie more than once or playing through a game multiple times.   Movies tend to be shorter, games tend to take longer.  All the difference I tend to see there.   There's multiple series/books that I've read a few times.   Some completed series are just too long or have ultimately bad pay offs that I don't bother.  With an uncompleted series, if there's time, I reread if it's been a long time between books.

As for WOT, it just always gets to a point where I feel like I'm slogging through it instead of enjoying it.  Kind of like what's happened to me with Erikson's Malazon series.

I just started rereading the Malazan series bc it had been so long between his new book i wanted it to make sense.  Unlike WoT with Erikson's stuff i feel like i have to pay attention because there so much important crap hidden in the minutea of what happens/doesn't happen and what is said/not said.  His books are slog because there is so many things going on at once often involving very intricate histories in a complex world.  Too many important/powerful characters.  WoT on the other hand, just has so much meaningless fluff padding each book after 3, sprinkled with scenes which actually move the plot forward that when i re-read one of those, i skim most pages and just hit the highlight.  Much quicker that way (though i must say the latest book moved along much better with Sanderson at the helm - btw if you haven't read his mistborn series those are worth a read too for the magic system alone).

And enough with the"every fantasy series is the same" Campbell archtypes and crap.  Yes it's true but its a stupid argument over which series is "ripping off" another let alone which is "best".  Just like video games, it's all about the specifics of the implementation of the story (game).  The WoT world is actually an nice setting and does make good fodder for a book, game, movie or RPG.  Jordan's writing style may leave a lot to be desired, but i cant fault the world design too much.  By contrast, as iconic as the LotR is, from a pure reading enjoyment standpoint i find them almost as much of a slog as WoT just because of Tolkien's writing style.

Bring on the games so we can talk about how they ripped off WoW feature X instead   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 18, 2010, 02:47:18 PM
Jordan's only problem was that he couldn't maintain a proper pace worth a shit.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 18, 2010, 03:02:13 PM
That's like saying Salvatore's only problem was that he wrote about dark elves.  :grin:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on February 18, 2010, 03:25:20 PM
The Malazan books were terrible toward the newer ones.  The last one was Toll of the Hounds?  I think.  I couldn't make it through it. 


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Threash on February 18, 2010, 03:59:57 PM
The Malazan books were terrible toward the newer ones.  The last one was Toll of the Hounds?  I think.  I couldn't make it through it. 

I've read up to Bonehunters so far and i've had a very hard time putting them down, they are all incredibly good.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 18, 2010, 04:11:13 PM
That's like saying Salvatore's only problem was that he wrote about dark elves.  :grin:

lol.  I'm still disgusted that I actually took some people seriously in the book thread when they were talking about how great Salvatore was.  Comparing Jordan to Salvatore is a low blow though.  Salvatore is a formulaic hack who writes for the tween audience.  


Jordan at least wrote a few good books before he sold out/checked out.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Stabs on February 19, 2010, 07:56:42 PM
I did some research after spouting my mouth off up-thread. (This may not be the optimal sequence but ah well).

I now no longer think there is a realistic plagiarism case.

Plagiarism is a really hard charge to make stick. Many high profile authors have successfully defended themselves in recent years including J K Rowling and Dan Brown.

In the Da Vinci code case Mr Justice Peter Smith later ruled that Brown did not infringe Baigent and Leigh's copyright

"Even if the central themes were copied they are too general or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law."

It seems likely that this would apply to Eye of the World.


Apologies to everyone.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dusematic on February 19, 2010, 08:53:44 PM
I did some research after spouting my mouth off up-thread. (This may not be the optimal sequence but ah well).

I now no longer think there is a realistic plagiarism case.

Plagiarism is a really hard charge to make stick. Many high profile authors have successfully defended themselves in recent years including J K Rowling and Dan Brown.

In the Da Vinci code case Mr Justice Peter Smith later ruled that Brown did not infringe Baigent and Leigh's copyright

"Even if the central themes were copied they are too general or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law."

It seems likely that this would apply to Eye of the World.


Apologies to everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUEJszARn-4


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 20, 2010, 01:52:32 AM
That's like saying Salvatore's only problem was that he wrote about dark elves.  :grin:
Quote
Nynaeve gave her braid a firm tug (editor: "and it separated completely from her scalp," write it in or find a new publisher.)

Jordan's problem could be easily fixed if his editor wasn't his wife and had a set of thumbscrews, his problem is he likes to ramble about unnecessary shit that could easily be cut.  He's not an untalented author: the road to Caemlyn part in the first book still manages the suspension of disbelief the 20th time I've read it, he just wouldn't shut the fuck up and get to the point.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 20, 2010, 08:48:34 AM
Heh, well, in that regard you could say the same about Tolkien. So yea, infringement!


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 20, 2010, 12:32:58 PM
LoTR is the size of the first two WoT ones.  Tolkien is actually an example of functional culling of bullshit: he focuses primarily on the story of the journey and exploration of the world (lore and history inclusive), minor details about characters and actions are omitted.  Whether people appreciate reading about his chosen focus is beside the point.  Jordan wrote in detail about everything, and as he got further along got lazy about culling out stretches of time where nothing of import happens.  Simply put: bad pacing for the level of detail he included.  Or alternatively, too much attention to detail for a narrative that doesn't skip past dry sections.  Which is why so many people think the books are dreary, yet find the world intriguing.

Whether the IP is good for a game depends on what they intend to make the game about.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 20, 2010, 12:46:25 PM
When I say "Tolkien", I'm talking about all his works. So for me, it's not WoT to LoTR. It's WoT to Simarillion.

The big difference of course being that Tolkien wrote books about parts of the world whereas Jordan was writing one long linear narrative. And when I think about it that way, I find I agree with you. You could read the Hobbit and nothing else, or LoTR and nothing else. If you're reading the Simarillion, you're already so invested in the world you're less interested in pacing and more in just knowledge and immersion anyway.

WoT meanwhile is told as one long story. One long long long ass story. Even Tom Clancy in his heyday broke up the Jack Ryan evolution into bit size chunks.

A WoT game would likely need to just focus on book 1. Which was the best one anyway. But the IP does include intrinsic endless whack-a-mole grind, so you don't even need to "end" it per se. I'm sure Red Eagle is thinking "ooh, guaranteed DLC" though.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 20, 2010, 02:55:34 PM
The crazy portal stone to Toman Head / people see every possible permutation of their life flash before their eyes, the Dark One randomly fucking with time and reality, time as an infinite loop, and parallel dimensions make it trivially easy to hand wave away every aspect of a non-persistent world with massive disconnects to the established lore.  The limitations of the IP will be imposed by what the fans will accept, not by canon.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on February 21, 2010, 12:03:23 PM
There's no danger there. 'The fans' accepted a neverending series of books with no resolution in sight, after all.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on February 21, 2010, 12:47:36 PM
You might be overestimating their tolerance.  They are rather attached to the established lore by this point, after all.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 21, 2010, 11:20:49 PM
There's no danger there. 'The fans' accepted a neverending series of books with no resolution in sight, after all.
There's two left. The Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light, slated for release in fall of this year and fall of 2011 respectively.

The end is in sight.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: ghost on February 22, 2010, 10:49:52 AM
Is Kevin J. Anderson going to finish them up in superb fashion?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Pennilenko on February 22, 2010, 11:22:42 AM
oops wrong thread.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: devildog on February 26, 2010, 12:37:12 PM
So i take it that the stage where your wacky wife steers you into feminizing the series and boring have your readers to tears is a new addition to the formula? To each his own i suppose, but i thought it was pretty evident when his wife started wearing the pants in the series. I tried to tough it out, but never got through the 5th book. 30 pages of describing the curtains in the castle followed by wrapping up and epic battle in 4 pages kind of lost me. This series would probably make a hell of a crafting mmo.



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Teleku on February 26, 2010, 03:10:19 PM
I thought the series and its pacing was great up through book 6, where the pacing flaws and things not happening began, but book 6 still ended awesomely.  7,8,9 all suffer from the never ending fluff problem, but I hear book 10 and 11 pick up the pace and are suppose to be good ( I haven't read those yet, I'm going back and rereading the first few books to get me back up to speed to start on the final books).  Really, thats only 3 to 4 books out of 11 so far.  That's actually not that bad.



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 26, 2010, 03:26:17 PM
I couldn't stand 7 and didn't finish 8.  I skipped 9 entirely and skimmed 10 when my wife got it.  10 seemed pretty good and I actually read 11 in its entirety.  Jordan's habit of rehashing everything 10,000 times meant I didn't have to have read the previous four books and still knew exactly what was going on.  If there was something I didn't quite get, or went "wait, what?" I looked it up online, then read the relevant chapter or two in the previous books.

Haven't picked up 12 at all, which apparently came out last October.   The whole series needs a fan to go through sum up and edit the books then push them online, a la "The Phantom Edit."


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: dd0029 on February 26, 2010, 03:55:14 PM
 The whole series needs a fan to go through sum up and edit the books then push them online, a la "The Phantom Edit."

Ask, and ye shall receive.

http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/

Click each book title for chapter summaries.  On my last re read before the new book I used this to "read" book 9.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: GenVec on February 27, 2010, 06:40:30 AM
I'm a big fan of the series, but I wouldn't bat an eyelash if someone told me they skipped books 7, 8, 9, and 10. They're simply not worth the time of reading in anything but an abridged form. Also, I don't know why everyone complains about book 6... though perhaps the scene at Dumai's Wells is just so awesome that it overshadows the rest of the book for me.

So i take it that the stage where your wacky wife steers you into feminizing the series and boring have your readers to tears is a new addition to the formula? To each his own i suppose, but i thought it was pretty evident when his wife started wearing the pants in the series. I tried to tough it out, but never got through the 5th book. 30 pages of describing the curtains in the castle followed by wrapping up and epic battle in 4 pages kind of lost me. This series would probably make a hell of a crafting mmo.
This sort of mouth breathing nonsense is spouted by some Jordan fans who don't want to admit that their hero (or rather TOR) extended the series for monetary reasons, and would rather view the decline in quality through the lens of their own misogynistic bullshit. Endless rambling chapters isn't some sort of feminization of the writing - women hate the new books just as much as men do.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on February 27, 2010, 07:10:33 AM
If anything I'm sure it was the other was around, Jordan arranging for his wife to be editor so he could ramble all he wanted. The publisher was making money too so why would they object.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: SurfD on February 27, 2010, 02:08:40 PM
Rand is a huge mish mash of every legendary hero you can think of. It's barely left enough mythology to apply to the other main characters.

I felt i had to point this out, as dramatically as possible, to account for the fact that as he lies in his grave, Jordan is having a great laugh at the entire literary world.

This is the ENTIRE point of his whole novel series.

Think about it.  What is the one central concept that he intentionally points out at the beginning of EVERY SINGLE FUCKING BOOK.   That all this has happened before, and will happen again, just in slightly different ways.

He has basicly written a novel series, and sold it, where the core concept of the book is that His main characters are SUPPOSED to be direct representations / mishamashes of every story ever told about a hero through the course of time, becauese the wheel keeps going around, and people keep forgetting what came before.

Think of a Major character of myth or legend, and you could probably stick him somewhere in the wheel of time without much difficulty.

Jordan's entire premise for his books is that no story is completely original, so why not just steal everything and and put my own twist on it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Ashamanchill on March 02, 2010, 08:19:55 AM
Oh sure! I get sent over seas without regular computer access and a decent WoT arguement finally breaks out! I hope this piece of sin makes it out by the time I get home, I'm looking forward to the laughs.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Morat20 on March 02, 2010, 01:44:18 PM
Trade: WTB 1xHorn of Valere.
Trade: Horn is BoP, newb.

LFG: LF Aes Sedai w/Balefire Ter'angreal for Forsaken Run
LGF: Need tank for w/Eye of the World starter quest. Thx.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: naum on March 02, 2010, 02:10:48 PM
Trade: WTB 1xHorn of Valere.
Trade: Horn is BoP, newb.

LFG: LF Aes Sedai w/Balefire Ter'angreal for Forsaken Run
LGF: Need tank for w/Eye of the World starter quest. Thx.

:roflcopter:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Morat20 on March 02, 2010, 05:21:33 PM
I really wanted to work in a way to imply that "healing" was done by having someone balefire the guy that just killed you, thus erasing him from existance retroactively, thus meaning he stopped existing before he killed you, and thus you're alive.

Which would, at least, be a unique healing method. But then you really don't NEED anything else if you have balefire.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Xuri on March 03, 2010, 01:57:52 AM
Using too much balefire would unravel the server database, though.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: HaemishM on March 03, 2010, 11:51:18 AM
You mean logins are made of balefire?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Teleku on March 03, 2010, 04:55:03 PM
Hey, they could just make it so that when ever you die, you rez on a different random server, to represent you being reborn in another possible world.

Unless somebody balefires you of course.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on March 06, 2010, 12:47:52 PM
Since this descended into a discission of the books..

My wife picked up the latest at the library earlier this week.  I'd been skimming through and have found myself reading the whole damn thing instead.  There's actual plot advancement, very little sniffing/ braid tugging and the characters are more interesting again.   It's not all crammed into the last 40 pages of the book.   Also, Sanderson's writing style, while similar, isn't given to page and a half expositions on the decorations adorning the beverage cart a character walks past.  It's actually a good read! I'm in shock.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on March 07, 2010, 09:47:46 AM
Go write about the latest books in a book thread, not a video game thread please.  Or spoiler that shit.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on March 07, 2010, 09:53:54 AM
Saying that the latest book was good isn't much of a spoiler. Sheesh.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on March 07, 2010, 02:19:48 PM
Saying that the latest book was good isn't much of a spoiler. Sheesh.

I stopped reading his post after: "Since this descended into a discission of the books..  ..My wife picked up the latest at the library earlier this week "

So I have no idea what he posted.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Morat20 on March 07, 2010, 07:43:03 PM
I stopped reading his post after: "Since this descended into a discission of the books..  ..My wife picked up the latest at the library earlier this week "

So I have no idea what he posted.
He said, without spoiling a thing, something that could be summed up with: "It reads like Jordan, if he had a real editor and someone who told him 'Move the fucking plot along, jackass'.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on March 08, 2010, 11:43:40 AM
Can we get an official declaration of how long we have to tag something as a spoiler for F13?

IMO, if you haven't read a book more than three months since it's been released, it's on you to suck it up and deal with the spoilers. If I haven't read one in that time period, I don't hate on folks who spoil it for me - it's my own fault.

TV + Movies are on an even shorter time frame for me, about two weeks. That's plenty of time to get to the theater or watch the DVR recording.

Yes, I'm grumpy, growing old, and intolerant of people who demand spoiler tags but are too damn lazy to read in a suitable time frame. :)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Draegan on March 08, 2010, 12:13:47 PM
 :oh_i_see:

It has nothing to with time, it has to do with where it's being posted.  This is a thread about video games.  You can unspoiler the shit out of the book in a thread that has to do with books because I will avoid that thread.  I don't think I should have to worry about the latest book being spoilered in a video game thread.  Unless you want to be a douche about it.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2010, 12:38:21 PM
Can we get an official declaration of how long we have to tag something as a spoiler for F13?

IMO, if you haven't read a book more than three months since it's been released, it's on you to suck it up and deal with the spoilers. If I haven't read one in that time period, I don't hate on folks who spoil it for me - it's my own fault.

TV + Movies are on an even shorter time frame for me, about two weeks. That's plenty of time to get to the theater or watch the DVR recording.

Yes, I'm grumpy, growing old, and intolerant of people who demand spoiler tags but are too damn lazy to read in a suitable time frame. :)

Some common sense guidelines:

If it's outside of a thread discussing a specific book/movie/TV, spoiler it regardless.  This for instance, is a thread about a game.  You shouldn't have to worry about major plot points in books being spoilered here. If someone asks you to spoiler something, be a nice person and do so. However, general aspects of the world and simple remarks such as "this book as good"  shouldn't need to be.   A time where you would spoiler would be like "if they set it after X happens, how do you balance that"  where X is a very specific event that occurs during the timeline of the series and just isn't part of the general back drop of the book.

Books, we only have one thread and it's fairly generic.  Try not to be a dick and spoiler stuff there.  People come to series at different times. It's not hard to say "I liked a book" without giving away the twist.

With TV and movies, most people have done a decent job knowing when or when not to spoiler.  Again, this is the age of Netflicks and DVR, not everyone watches a show as it airs.  Then again, most people would try to be smart if they don't want to be spoiled.  I'm like 4 episodes behind on Lost so I'm staying the hell away from that thread. 

It's not hard to spoiler something.  It's not hard to read something that's spoilered or continue a conversation about spoilers. We have a 30 page Mass Effect 2 thread that proved that (which is now open to spoilering). 

Books, games, and other media tend to be a collection of amazing moments that most here would like to experience without having it ruined by someone too lazy to select their text and click a single time.  Just use your head and realize that not everyone is you. I haven't been to a goddamn movie theater in 9 months (guess how old my son is).


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on March 08, 2010, 01:01:16 PM
I'll certainly make a point of spoilering any plot points that come up for discussion - I know I've been guilty of not doing that in here in the past.  But seriously, I'd suggest that people shouldn't be too shocked if they come across spoilers for a series of books in a thread discussing a future game based on them. If you want to be strict there are very basic game mechanics that would have to be spoilered.


I think it's a little cumbersome.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2010, 01:16:41 PM
If you want to be strict there are very basic game mechanics that would have to be spoilered.

A time where you would spoiler would be like "if they set it after X happens, how do you balance that"  where X is a very specific event that occurs during the timeline of the series and just isn't part of the general back drop of the book.

Fits your spoiler, which luckily had been spoiled for me previously.  My fault for clicking, however.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on March 08, 2010, 11:02:56 PM
I didn't ask that because I want to be a jerk and spoil it for slow readers; I asked because I can't believe that I can't talk about the books a damn game is being based upon in the thread for the game.

I have not seen every Star Trek episode (thank God). Should I feel legitimate in requesting people spoiler tagging the STO thread when they discuss the shows? Unless it's in the TV forum?

There is some sarcasm in that question, but really it's also fair. I think the spoiler police are coming out in this thread because they haven't read the book *months* after release... and in other areas where it's not hitting them they are much less subjective.

I know, cry more noob... but really I expect better of folks.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sir T on March 08, 2010, 11:12:00 PM
Yeah. Sorry guys. a month after the book comes out you cant demand spoilerification of your favorite book that you happen to be addicted to, let alone years after the eleventy zillion previous books came out.

Its out and were going to talk about them. Robert Jorden has no more right to perpetual spoiler rights than Harry Potter.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Sheepherder on March 09, 2010, 01:39:19 AM
Snape killed Dumbledore.

Also, my money is on them setting the game between the prequel and the first book.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Reg on March 09, 2010, 01:44:53 AM
That'd be a very smart thing for them to do. It'd have the same kind of advantages that setting the new Star Wars game during the KOTOR times has.  I'm not convinced they're that smart though. I get the feeling they're going to just pump out a game for box sales and a couple months worth of subscription revenues like Cryptic.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on March 09, 2010, 07:07:06 AM



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on March 09, 2010, 07:09:14 AM
What I said wasn't up for debate.

I'm sorry, take the revolution up somewhere else.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Xurtan on March 09, 2010, 07:19:32 AM




Not that I expect it to happen, but you could really have an interesting spell casting system with this IP. Creating your own weaves, experimenting and what not. Actual Spellcrafting.. hm. (Yeah, I know, its never going to happen. I can dream, can't I?)


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Grimwell on March 09, 2010, 09:26:11 AM
Bah.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Merusk on March 09, 2010, 03:35:59 PM
So we're spoilering books that came out 5 years ago, too? Because that's, when the spoilered event Grimwell referenced above took place and it's pretty central to any game mechanics discussion.  Better spoiler the Potter reference as well.  So is the guideline on movies a year or better then?  Just let us know, because it's getting silly.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time license; immediately announces MMO
Post by: Rasix on March 09, 2010, 04:22:29 PM
Quit crying.  Go spoiler something in a movie thread if makes you happy.  Or open a thread with SPOILERS ENABLED. Or just quit crying.

This is a dead issue here.  Send me a PM if you're confused/unhappy.


Actually, go nuts.  Spoil away.  I'll tag this thread title somehow (long enough as it is).  

Avoid this thread if you don't want stuff in the books spoiled.  I don't consider this a change in the way we normally do things here.  I just don't feel like bothering with this issue right now.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sir T on March 09, 2010, 11:30:27 PM
Ok. Leaving aside jokes about 'Male channalers would act like they are going insane from the taint by simply acting like gamers,' how would that translate in game? Some ideas off the top of my head

(a) Male channelers lose more and more control of their character as an encounter progresses (gamers will HATE this)
(b) Simply restricting channalers to female only
(c) Male channelers would be "Gentled" and could have been rendered resistant or immune to magic in some way. Effectively make them a fighter class. (Yes I know that the books say gentled males tend to die soon after but the player is "an exception")


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Xuri on March 10, 2010, 12:27:55 AM
Don't forget that, depending on the timeline, channelers who've been "Gentled" can be healed.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Reg on March 10, 2010, 12:41:55 AM
If they do the smart thing and set the game before Rand's birth then I think the easiest thing to do is to just not allow male channelers at all.  Another advantage to an earlier setting is that nobody has access to the most powerful spells yet.  The teleports in particular would really trivialize a lot of the game.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Draegan on March 10, 2010, 06:58:32 AM
Ultimate mangina excuse.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: naum on March 10, 2010, 08:24:34 AM
BRING BACK ARTUR HAWKWING!


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Grimwell on March 10, 2010, 10:15:05 AM
I think I'd go with setting the game in the timeline just after the end of the books. We have just under two more years of books, and that's reasonable enough time for the game development to work through and with.

That allows for male channelers who aren't completely insane - unless the ending changes that.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Redgiant on March 10, 2010, 12:08:15 PM
I like Xurtan's timeframe. The lore of the early period before the Bore is pretty ripe for an MMO.

Although the Aiel weren't like they are now yet, and they would make a great fighter/ranger/monk faction to have.

There isn't much you can do with an insane mechanic, other than make spells wildly variable between fizzling and incrementing crits, with an occasioinal backfire or PBAE effect/debuff. Sort of like the feedback in WAR (which as a Sorc I hated). I'd just leave it out, hence before the Bore (or after the cleansing, but imo the "current" timeline isn't nearly as interesting as the whole vanished civilization and its peculiar combination of magic/channeling sources and technology).

The more interesting feature is fleshing out the Fire/Water/Earth/Air/Spirit combos for spellweaving and creating new spells and ter/sa/angreals that embed those spells into their charges. And forkroot-tipped daggers to silence casters.

If you edit out a lot of the bullshit that is merely filler and doesn't move any plot forward, particular between the women and very particularly in the later books, this series is defintely one of the richest fantasy series ever. They do borrow from all sorts of sources, but the sum works as a world.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sheepherder on March 10, 2010, 02:04:35 PM
Ok. Leaving aside jokes about 'Male channalers would act like they are going insane from the taint by simply acting like gamers,' how would that translate in game?

There is no rhyme or reason to when the cheese slides off the cracker or what they do afterward.  Which means it can be safely ignored.  Although, as I said before, they could equally have a taint-induced "you rot to death from using the power" mechanic as well.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: tazelbain on March 10, 2010, 02:40:00 PM
Age of Legend, no taint plenty of Aes Sedai.  Red Eagle could by first developer to actually learn from the mistakes of their predecessors.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sheepherder on March 10, 2010, 05:08:37 PM
Brave New World with automagic rifles would be a fucking stupid game setting.  It's bad enough that Jordan included it as backstory in the books, in a game it would just piss people off who want warders, swords, and horses.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Merusk on March 10, 2010, 05:48:53 PM
Pretty much, yeah.

The solution most often used on MUDs was to simply not offer male channelers.  If you were a wielder of the OP you were female and tied to the Aes Sedai (or Damnae)   As the books progressed I know several MUDs expanded this to include other associations but always kept their 'timeline' set before the introduction of the Ashaman.

Ok. Leaving aside jokes about 'Male channalers would act like they are going insane from the taint by simply acting like gamers,' how would that translate in game? Some ideas off the top of my head

(a) Male channelers lose more and more control of their character as an encounter progresses (gamers will HATE this)
(b) Simply restricting channalers to female only
(c) Male channelers would be "Gentled" and could have been rendered resistant or immune to magic in some way. Effectively make them a fighter class. (Yes I know that the books say gentled males tend to die soon after but the player is "an exception")

We did the insanity thing on the MUD I helped run.  The more someone channeled the more random things would happen to them.  Blurting out random things.. running away, casting random weaves on pcs and npcs.   Eventually the man started to rot and his stats would drop, then he 'died' because his stats hit 0.  We only had a few players who took it that far, but since it was an RP mud they were well-remembered.  The system itself was pretty despised, though, and this was in the days when grinding was accepted. (Hello 100 levels and only 3 mobs that gave you xp from 95 to 100... and only 100xp a pop.)

I know a few places restricted channelers to women only.  Still, that brought up the issue of linking them to the tower to learn anything. 

The later (and current) books in the series would be a hell of a mess to do anything in.   Seanchan are such a big part of the story, what with owning half the world, but imagine the outcry at having a slave NPC for your Sul'dam character.  Ignore the Seanchan/ don't allow people to play them and you piss off a segment of the populace that really wants to.

It's a great series but not one that lends itself well to a traditional MMO.  Its better suited to a virtual world but those aren't profitable.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sheepherder on March 10, 2010, 06:32:17 PM
Seanchan are such a big part of the story, what with owning half the world, but imagine the outcry at having a slave NPC for your Sul'dam character.

Might be less than you think.  I dunno, did you try this with your MUD?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Teleku on March 10, 2010, 07:05:25 PM
Seanchan are such a big part of the story, what with owning half the world, but imagine the outcry at having a slave NPC for your Sul'dam character.

Might be less than you think.  I dunno, did you try this with your MUD?
Your comparing a text based internet game nobody knows about to a graphical game that they would be pitching to the mass's.  The way the public receives it would be quite different I imagine, and I do think a slave class would be a bit controversial (but possibly not, Conan got away with lots of shit).

Also,
Brave New World with automagic rifles would be a fucking stupid game setting.  It's bad enough that Jordan included it as backstory in the books, in a game it would just piss people off who want warders, swords, and horses.
Bwa?  You didn't like the age of Legends stuff?  I thought it was awesome, and I've always liked the "set in the dark age after a major disaster" setting the series had.  What don't you like about the back story?

Anyways, I'm somewhat torn on what would be the best setting.  I agree setting it during the war of Power would be kind of cool, but would completly negate the point of spending money on an IP.  They'd basically be buying it and then only using stuff thats mentioned fleetingly in a few of the books.  The setting sets itself up perfectly to factions though, all of which have their own various warrior, rogue, and magic using class's.  Aiel (Channeling Class Wise ones), Seanchan (Channeling Class Suldam), Western Kingdoms (Channeling Class Aes Sedai).  Then of course there is the shadow faction, which could let you play as a Darkfriend of any of the factions?

Hard to pick a good time frame though.  Set during the Aiel War would be good, since you could still have them at play in the west, but no way to get Seanchan in really.  Setting it later in the series runs into the problem of confining lore, though it would split the map up perfectly between factions (Seanchan have the southwest, Rand has all of the West, Borderlands unified in the north, a few unstable kingdoms in between (battlegrounds  :awesome_for_real:).  Not to mention allowing male channelers if much later.

Ultimately, I think the best bet would be to set it right during the first book.  I believe the Seanchan had probably landed on Toman Head at that point.  If you play the Seanchan faction, your part of the invasion, and get all sorts of quests/missions to push on into the world.  As the Aiel, they've been sent out to look for the Carn'a'carn, so that's why you would be wondering/questing all over the wetlands.  Most of the kingdoms would then be controlled by the Forsaken at that point, giving you all sorts of of reasons to be fighting shit no matter where you went.  Places that hadn't been taken over by one of the forsaken could be the western factions starting zones (Andor/Borderlands/etc.).


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sheepherder on March 10, 2010, 08:31:54 PM
Your comparing a text based internet game nobody knows about to a graphical game that they would be pitching to the mass's.  The way the public receives it would be quite different I imagine, and I do think a slave class would be a bit controversial (but possibly not, Conan got away with lots of shit).

Your RP'ing MUD crowd will be pretty liberal biased.  If anyone is likely to freak out about slavery in games it's probably them, though they have a bit of a Schrodinger's Cat problem where the issue is both liberal and not, because people have the right to play/make the game as they like, right?  Concerned parents and politicians will troll like they usually do, but it's pretty easy to dismiss them as irrelevant to development of a game.

Quote
Bwa?  You didn't like the age of Legends stuff?  I thought it was awesome, and I've always liked the "set in the dark age after a major disaster" setting the series had.  What don't you like about the back story?

It started vaguely Utopian, but without massive references to high technological sophistication.  Then Jordan felt the need to flesh it out while ignoring why the fuck a guy capable of making explosions with his head would bring a sword to a laser fight conducted from the back of a flying hovercraft.

Quote
Hard to pick a good time frame though.  Set during the Aiel War would be good, since you could still have them at play in the west, but no way to get Seanchan in really.  Setting it later in the series runs into the problem of confining lore, though it would split the map up perfectly between factions (Seanchan have the southwest, Rand has all of the West, Borderlands unified in the north, a few unstable kingdoms in between (battlegrounds  :awesome_for_real:).  Not to mention allowing male channelers if much later.



Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Merusk on March 10, 2010, 09:13:25 PM
Your RPing mud crowd who did the Seanchan thing was also into RPing bondage and other such behaviors.  Ditto the Aes Sedai/ warder groups, actually.  Logs were.. interesting.. when looking into complaints about chat channel violations.

That aside, they were also coming into the game with an understanding of the setting and world.  They were wanting to play in Jordan's world, it wasn't being thrown at them with no indoctrination.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sheepherder on March 10, 2010, 10:04:34 PM
Your RPing mud crowd who did the Seanchan thing was also into RPing bondage and other such behaviors.  Ditto the Aes Sedai/ warder groups, actually.  Logs were.. interesting.. when looking into complaints about chat channel violations.

I considered that, but decided I didn't want to go there.  Why did you have to go there?


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Venkman on March 13, 2010, 01:48:11 PM
That aside, they were also coming into the game with an understanding of the setting and world.  They were wanting to play in Jordan's world, it wasn't being thrown at them with no indoctrination.

This. Unless it's an indie title with an indie budget entirely marketed to fans of the book/lore. Like a larger MUD with graphics.

But if it's a big(ger) budget game trying for the usual MMO crowd, they'll be a lot more people who've played WoW than who've memorized the books. To them it'll be WoW-like first, something different second, something that references works people have heard about third, and something that's set in Jordan's world fourth.

Having said that, I don't immediately recall anything specifically controversial that would appear in a retail-sold MMO in the first place.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: UnSub on March 15, 2015, 08:38:47 AM
ARISE!

So, maybe you heard about the cheap "Wheel of Time" TV show that appeared in the middle of the night to no fanfare (http://io9.com/the-real-story-about-that-wheel-of-time-pilot-that-aire-1684773094)?

No? Anyway, that was Red Eagle - the same company that promised the MMO six years ago (and haven't updated that original link in all that time either). It's possible that by airing that show they get to keep all the rights, including the digital ones.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Draegan on March 16, 2015, 12:55:56 PM
Not sure what the point is. The longer you wait to do anything with it, only diminishes the value of it. This series is not going to grow in popularity.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Sophismata on March 16, 2015, 02:24:41 PM
Not sure what the point is. The longer you wait to do anything with it, only diminishes the value of it. This series is not going to grow in popularity.
Actually, waiting until after Game of Thrones was a resounding success would have been tremendously beneficial if the studio wasn't incompetent.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Yegolev on March 16, 2015, 05:47:26 PM
Curse you for my clicking of this.


Title: Re: Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*
Post by: Paelos on March 17, 2015, 07:18:43 AM
I watched it. Billy Zane still makes me laugh in terrible stuff.