Red Eagle Entertainment gets Wheel of Time; announces MMO *spoilers in here*

[dusematic]

That's like saying Salvatore's only problem was that he wrote about dark elves.  

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.

[Stabs]

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.

[dusematic]

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

[Sheepherder]

That's like saying Salvatore's only problem was that he wrote about dark elves.  

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.

[Venkman]

Heh, well, in that regard you could say the same about Tolkien. So yea, infringement!

[Sheepherder]

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.

[Venkman]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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.

[Sir T]

There's no danger there. 'The fans' accepted a neverending series of books with no resolution in sight, after all.

[Sheepherder]

You might be overestimating their tolerance.  They are rather attached to the established lore by this point, after all.

[GenVec]

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.

[ghost]

Is Kevin J. Anderson going to finish them up in superb fashion?

[Pennilenko]

oops wrong thread.

[devildog]

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.

[Teleku]

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.

[Merusk]

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."

[dd0029]

 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.

[GenVec]

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.

[Sir T]

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.

[SurfD]

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.

[Ashamanchill]

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.

[Morat20]

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.

[naum]

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.

[Morat20]

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.

[Xuri]

Using too much balefire would unravel the server database, though.

[HaemishM]

You mean logins are made of balefire? 

[Teleku]

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.   

[Merusk]

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.

[Draegan]

Go write about the latest books in a book thread, not a video game thread please.  Or spoiler that shit.

[Reg]

Saying that the latest book was good isn't much of a spoiler. Sheesh.

[Draegan]

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.

[Morat20]

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'.

[Grimwell]

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. :)

[Draegan]

 

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.

[Rasix]

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).