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

[Reg]

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.

[Rasix]

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.  

[Grimwell]

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.

[Sir T]

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.

[Sheepherder]

Snape killed Dumbledore.

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

[Reg]

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.

[Grimwell]

[Rasix]

What I said wasn't up for debate.

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

[Xurtan]

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?)

[Grimwell]

Bah.

[Merusk]

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.

[Rasix]

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.

[Sir T]

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")

[Xuri]

Don't forget that, depending on the timeline, channelers who've been "Gentled" can be healed.

[Reg]

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.

[Draegan]

Ultimate mangina excuse.

[naum]

BRING BACK ARTUR HAWKWING!

[Grimwell]

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.

[Redgiant]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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.

[tazelbain]

Age of Legend, no taint plenty of Aes Sedai.  Red Eagle could by first developer to actually learn from the mistakes of their predecessors.

[Sheepherder]

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.

[Merusk]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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?

[Teleku]

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  ).  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.).

[Sheepherder]

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.

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.

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  ).  Not to mention allowing male channelers if much later.

[Merusk]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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?

[Venkman]

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.

[UnSub]

ARISE!

So, maybe you heard about the cheap "Wheel of Time" TV show that appeared in the middle of the night to no fanfare?

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.

[Draegan]

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.

[Sophismata]

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.

[Yegolev]

Curse you for my clicking of this.

[Paelos]

I watched it. Billy Zane still makes me laugh in terrible stuff.