Which option is AoC>? I thought middle earth would be my favourite setting. But now it never can be since turbine have made the mmo completely gimped and unrealistic to lore imo.... no istari....bollocks to that. Now my ideal prolly has to be AoC, sorry to be a fanboi. But its dark, mature, low fantasy and much more original and interesting than the tolkien spam in every other fantasy mmo. conan books where written pre tolkien so.... muahahahahahahaha Anyway when AoC finally gets dull after many years of play (hopefully) I would prolly lookf or a different fantasy setting to that which I have played in AoC. Something different and interesting and ever changing is my ideal fantasy setting.
There are Istari in it, i've met two of them Gandalf and Radaghast (forgive the spelling) you just can't play them. There were only five istari (wizards) so why should thousands of players be able to roll a wizard. I wanted rangers but you know tough shit, i still play it.
This is why LOTRO and Star Wars set in the Original Trilogy time period wont draw a lot of people. People want to play characters they want to read in the books and see in the movies, but they can't. Thats one of the reasons Star Wars Galaxies was never the most popular MMO. Only one Jedi per server.Prolly the reason i wudn't play SWG either. A kotor one would rock cuz then everyone can be jedi, plus bioware always make amazing games. lets just hope the rumours are true. anyhow episodes 4,5and6 are boring to base a game on, the kotor storyline was better than those films in my opinion.... well...
Which option is AoC>? I thought middle earth would be my favourite setting. But now it never can be since turbine have made the mmo completely gimped and unrealistic to lore imo.... no istari....bollocks to that. Now my ideal prolly has to be AoC, sorry to be a fanboi. But its dark, mature, low fantasy and much more original and interesting than the tolkien spam in every other fantasy mmo. conan books where written pre tolkien so.... muahahahahahahaha Anyway when AoC finally gets dull after many years of play (hopefully) I would prolly lookf or a different fantasy setting to that which I have played in AoC. Something different and interesting and ever changing is my ideal fantasy setting.
There are Istari in it, i've met two of them Gandalf and Radaghast (forgive the spelling) you just can't play them. There were only five istari (wizards) so why should thousands of players be able to roll a wizard. I wanted rangers but you know tough shit, i still play it.
This is why LOTRO and Star Wars set in the Original Trilogy time period wont draw a lot of people. People want to play characters they want to read in the books and see in the movies, but they can't. Thats one of the reasons Star Wars Galaxies was never the most popular MMO. Only one Jedi per server.Prolly the reason i wudn't play SWG either. A kotor one would rock cuz then everyone can be jedi, plus bioware always make amazing games. lets just hope the rumours are true. anyhow episodes 4,5and6 are boring to base a game on, the kotor storyline was better than those films in my opinion.... well...
I hope so. It would suck though if they make Jedi weaker then every other class like they did in SWG after they decieded to let everyone be one. That wouldn't make much sense. I guess their excuse is that they are force sensative and not actual Jedi now. Perhaps a solution would be to start as one class then have them switch to Jedi at a certain level like in KOTOR 1.
The reason that there are no playable Istari are (ranked by importance)
1) Istari are Maiar of the Valar people. They are vastly more powerful than the children of Eru Iluvatar
2) The Heren Istarion - the Order of the Sorcerers - had only the members that took part in the history of the third age. There may be more, but it is a fact that they do not shape the fate of middle-earth during the ending decades of the third age.
3) The Istari are forbidden to use power and violence. What Mithrandir shows during the last battles is actually against his orders from Manwe, the Valar king.
4) There may be more Istari and if you let them be playable, you would have to enable players the fate of the Istari, to do the council of the Valars bidding. they are NOT free to decide, this is gift given to the Eldar and Edain only.
So Istari ARE indeed very much excluded from being a playable option in a Tolkien based MMO. Unlike female warriors, in the history of later Numenor and the realm of Eorl the Young, many women fought as shieldmaidens and defended their countries. Of course there is still a male majority that may or may not be represented in an MMO, still its largely more possible to allow female champions than to allow Istari.
The central problem here is that Gandalf is shown as "your next best mage" in the movies, and many many people have only seen the movies, but Gandalf is only a demi-god in an old man's manifestation. Actually, each of the Istari is of the same rank in terms of power as Sauron. Sauron is "only" a Maiar, his master would have been more powerful, the fallen Melkor, Morgoth, the black fiend, but well, you know the story, war of wrath, eternal doom n stuff...
Meridion
Besides: Jedi in Star Wars are only friggin people with force-sensitive powers. INcluding them in SWG for the broad masses was a stupid idea all the way from the start. In my book, combinations that are darn sure to be overly popular should somehow be excluded, like the armies of elven rangers in every other MMO out there. I would exclude elven rangers for players just to reestablish balance *lol*...
In Lord of the Rings I don't really mind being something other then a Ranger/Istari. In Star Wars the only class I would play is a Jedi. If there aren't Jedi as a playable class then the main attraction of Star Wars is taken away IMO. Thats why KOTOR is great because there are lots of Jedi around. It would in fact be great if they just had Jedi and split the Jedi/Sith into differnt classes for people to play. Then you wouldn't have to worry about balence issues and people could still play Jedi/Sith wich is the main draw of Star Wars anyway. Yes there are people who might want other roles in the Star Wars universe, but they are in the minority.
I myself would (and have) prefer a bounty hunter to a jedi anytime. Or a medic... Jedi, well, they are, so "uuuuh I'm so special with my twinkle blinkle special abilities yay"... I would not play an istari either btw, or anything that's naturally powerful. Playing a hobbit guardian is a really nice role IMO, it adds to the feel if you're not like "hey, in RL I'm a nobody so please let me be Lord Ghoulbane of Longshore-Dragonstone"....
For me being a Jedi isn't so much about the power, but trying to play the role of the characters I watch in the movies. Thats also why I understand people would want to play Rangers/Istari in Lord of the Rings. It's not all about wanting to be the most powerful though some people would treat it that way. Thats why I said they should make everyone a Jedi then no one would be overpowered, but everyone would get to play the most wanted class in the Star Wars. I mean if you take aways the Jedi all you got left is pretty much the same stuff every other sci-fi has. If I wanted to do that I would just play another sci-fi game. Star Trek will be coming out in a year or two.
In Lord of the Rings I don't really mind being something other then a Ranger/Istari. In Star Wars the only class I would play is a Jedi. If there aren't Jedi as a playable class then the main attraction of Star Wars is taken away IMO. Thats why KOTOR is great because there are lots of Jedi around. It would in fact be great if they just had Jedi and split the Jedi/Sith into differnt classes for people to play. Then you wouldn't have to worry about balence issues and people could still play Jedi/Sith wich is the main draw of Star Wars anyway. Yes there are people who might want other roles in the Star Wars universe, but they are in the minority.
Nah there could be somethings other than jedi which are playble. think of jango fett. a bounter hunter like that I would like to play aswell as jedi. i reckon these four could be balanced ok.
1.jedi/sith, weaker armour-robes. casters and lightsaber wielders
2.robots such as hk47, awesome to roleplay btw, packed with gismo's. since a robot, pretty solid armour could be had. maybe the tanks.
3.bountyhunters such as jango fett, posin darts, jet packs, rockets, snipers, maybe stealth? these are the rogues.
4. some kind of powerfull alien race, something original
Fantasy is sorta whatever it wants to be, but I think the OP knew that so I wont lecture
I always have preferred fantasy that makes some sense. To me, fantasy needs to introduce new ideas to structure a world, new laws of nature. Then the world needs to abide by those laws that have been created. So if theres a floating castle in a world that has gravity, there needs to be something behind that castle, something that makes sense, and it cant just be 'oh its magic'. The idea behind the castle floating needs to be supported with one of the new ideas that structure this fantasy world.
Its not really a big prob in MMOs but I like to read a lot and some fantasy series are just ridiculous. Its like they are constantly making up new magic and it all contradicts leading with huge plot holes and dues ex machinas. When I read a fantasy book, I prefer that the book isnt still introducing new elements of fantasy in the last few chapters. Instead its good to introduce the world in the start of the book, and by the end of the book elements of the world that we already know about should be coming together for a good and reasonable ending. But we get a lot of books like those by david eddings and terry goodkind where you're 5 books into the series at the last chapter of the book and the author is still creating wildly this or that reason for the hero defeating the villian, it just becomes ridiculous.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I think it's all from Lorto to WoW, what ever people wants it to be. If there is no magic, then I would not call it fantasy. Also if it has sci-fi stuff, it's not really anymore fantasy, but sci-fi.
Fantasy is anything not really achievable in reality so just beacuse a book/movie/mmo doesn't have alot of magic in it does not mean it isn't a fantasy. Sci-Fi is basicaly fantasy in a futuristic setting rather that say the dark ages, look at Warhammer 40,000 it clearly merges fantasy and Sci-Fi and could be called Science Fantasy.
I've had this arguement beforce so can't be arsed to convince you the truth, look it up. but actually fantasy is a genre of alternative world with magic. the word fantasy and genre fantasy are different.
Which option is AoC>? I thought middle earth would be my favourite setting. But now it never can be since turbine have made the mmo completely gimped and unrealistic to lore imo.... no istari....bollocks to that. Now my ideal prolly has to be AoC, sorry to be a fanboi. But its dark, mature, low fantasy and much more original and interesting than the tolkien spam in every other fantasy mmo. conan books where written pre tolkien so.... muahahahahahahaha Anyway when AoC finally gets dull after many years of play (hopefully) I would prolly lookf or a different fantasy setting to that which I have played in AoC. Something different and interesting and ever changing is my ideal fantasy setting.
There are Istari in it, i've met two of them Gandalf and Radaghast (forgive the spelling) you just can't play them. There were only five istari (wizards) so why should thousands of players be able to roll a wizard. I wanted rangers but you know tough shit, i still play it.
Ooo I hoped somebody might say this so i can go on my rant I put on turbines forums aoens ago.
I don't have any edvidence and cba. but I tell you anyway even though you prolly won't belive me.
only 5 istari NAMED. There are others, those where just the leaders... and even more magicians, tolkien has said that there where more magic users. Turbine decided to not to have proper magic because there where FEW magic users in the lore.
WELL GUESS WHAT SMEG HEADS! HOW ANY FEMALE FIGHTERS WHERE IN TOLKIENS WRITINGS.... 1!!!!
only one or maybe two mentioned women fighters, but they'll let thousands of players play women just not istari.
doesn't matter anyway since it hasn't got PvP and even if it did it would be without proper magic. everybody else can still enjoy this game, not trying to take that away from them.
If you had read the books you would know that by the time the war of the ring had started there were not many Istari about many had died in the past. the five named were the the leading members of the council and i think only 3 or 4 of them were alive during the war of the ring.
You think the 2 blue ones which went into the east died?
well maybe they should have set the game when there where more istari, a la kotor.
Which option is AoC>? I thought middle earth would be my favourite setting. But now it never can be since turbine have made the mmo completely gimped and unrealistic to lore imo.... no istari....bollocks to that. Now my ideal prolly has to be AoC, sorry to be a fanboi. But its dark, mature, low fantasy and much more original and interesting than the tolkien spam in every other fantasy mmo. conan books where written pre tolkien so.... muahahahahahahaha Anyway when AoC finally gets dull after many years of play (hopefully) I would prolly lookf or a different fantasy setting to that which I have played in AoC. Something different and interesting and ever changing is my ideal fantasy setting.
There are Istari in it, i've met two of them Gandalf and Radaghast (forgive the spelling) you just can't play them. There were only five istari (wizards) so why should thousands of players be able to roll a wizard. I wanted rangers but you know tough shit, i still play it.
Ooo I hoped somebody might say this so i can go on my rant I put on turbines forums aoens ago.
I don't have any edvidence and cba. but I tell you anyway even though you prolly won't belive me.
only 5 istari NAMED. There are others, those where just the leaders... and even more magicians, tolkien has said that there where more magic users. Turbine decided to not to have proper magic because there where FEW magic users in the lore.
WELL GUESS WHAT SMEG HEADS! HOW ANY FEMALE FIGHTERS WHERE IN TOLKIENS WRITINGS.... 1!!!!
only one or maybe two mentioned women fighters, but they'll let thousands of players play women just not istari.
doesn't matter anyway since it hasn't got PvP and even if it did it would be without proper magic. everybody else can still enjoy this game, not trying to take that away from them.
If you had read the books you would know that by the time the war of the ring had started there were not many Istari about many had died in the past. the five named were the the leading members of the council and i think only 3 or 4 of them were alive during the war of the ring.
You think the 2 blue ones which went into the east died?
well maybe they should have set the game when there where more istari, a la kotor.
We are talking about thousands of people being able to roll Istari when they do not have large numbers and would be very overpowered. The fact that two blue wizards wen into the east does not justify playable Istari. Anyway the game will progress throught the war of the ring just like the book. After so many expansions we will be in Mordor and the war will end and guess what, when the war was over the Istari went across the sea just like the Elves to be with the Valaar. SO would you be happy if when the game got the the end of the war that your Istari that you worked hard on was taken away?
P.S. They couldn't set the game back when there more Istari beacuse at there peak there were not many. In KOTOR there are thousands and thousands of force sensitives.
lol, when did i try and justify it with the 2 istari going to east, that doesn't make any sense? can you read? i said that because you said only 3 or 4 where left, only saruman died.
okay anyway you guys win, if you want. i still think istari could and should have been implemented into the game, maybe i'm ignorant that way.
Istari were sent by Manwe, they were not many in the beginning and they were not many in the end. They have a dedicated fate and are vastly more powerful than humans, elves or dwarves. If you had read some more Tolkien I am sure you would agree with the statement that Istari are not a possible option for a playable race for anyone in his right mind and an ounce of respect for Tolkien lore left
Fantasy to me has many influences. Robert Howards Conan the ultimate barbarian really sets the tone of the worlds to me, very dark and dangerous. Tolkien took it much further with deeper worlds and detailed all the races (elves, men etc) and I see it as what ALL modern fantasy is based on. It to me, had the most influence on what I think is fantasy but even others had impact in places. Stuff like HP Lovecraft's Chtulu even though his stuff is much darker and wierder more on the border of horror then anything else, I can see mixes and ideas across all three that make up what I think is fantasy.
I also grew up before pc's, I was a teenager playing Chainmail (which eventually became Dungeon's and Dragons). I really got into reading fantasy again during the Tolkien re-birth of fantasy in the late 70's. Which is what got me into the pen and paper gaming once it came out. To live in that fantasy world, to actually be a character in it was the coolest thing ever. I always played one of the dwarves who were relatives of one of "The Hobbit"'s 12 fellowship.
In 1977, I saw a movie one memorial weekend that really really got me interested in sci-fi. That was my new Fantasy world from then on. Care to guess what it was?
Obviously that Sci-Fi was Star Wars. I was born that year so I didn't get to see it in the movie theatre.
Speaking of fantasy races I find that in interesting topic. Each race seems to represent something inside of humans.
Elves represent the beauty, good, intelligence, and perhaps arrogance in humans. They are the tree huggers of the fantasy world.
Dwarves represent the desire to build, craft, and greed for money/metal. They are like the industrial portion of the fantasy world.
Hobbits are child like, small, innocent, and enjoy the relaxed peaceful life. They represent the child in all of us.
Orcs/Goblins/Trolls/etc. are mean, greedy, and dumb. They represent the dumb bully in the fantasy world.
Humans obviously can represent all of these things.
This is one of the issues I have with the 3rd edition rules for AD&D. They left you be any race/any class. These races are there to represent differnt parts of the human spirit and when you take that away you kind of take the meaning away. When you can play a good Orc or and Evil Elf then it starts to chip away at the foundations of your world and why you made things the way they were in the first place. Humans are sapposed to be special because they can choose who they are.
@Flyte: That's actually what I think when I see modern styled games. Dark Elves = hideous, High Elves = Noble, Dwarves = Grounded, Men = Powerhungry...
The point is, the fantasy with which I grew up and read over an over, Tolkien, is very different from that. The elves themselves are very differentiated people, the Noldor, crafting people, building huge yet beautiful cities in white and silver, wearing heavy armor, impulsive and powerful, armed and fierce, you would not call them tree huggers for sure... or the Laiquendi, shy, mostly archers, tree lovers, hide in their forests in ossiriand and don't care very much about politics or territory.
So it's very much NOT the concept of "this race equals characteristic X" but a wide variety of different peoples acting very very differently. It's not "these are the dwarves yay". The dwarves of Khazad-Dum in the third age were totally different compared to the Naugrim of Belegost in the first age, or look at the Hobbits, even there, in this secluded little paradise which is the shire, in the south farthing hobbits live in houses and care for defense ans politics whereas in the area of hobbiton, they are mostly simple people, peasants or craftsmen...
Long story short -> What you describe is a phenomenon I encountered after my inital fantasy years with Tolkien, the manifestation of race-archetypes or the "I'm a elf, so I HAVE to love woods"
Thats a good point. I never read the lore fo the Tolkien stories. I know he wrote books just describing the differnt races and their histories. I just read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings which didn't go into detail about the races or histories of the people. It was more about the story of Bilbo/Frodo and the ring. I always looked at the races representing a differnt part of the human spirit, but I guess Tolkien looked at things differntly. If you like that kind of thing though it's becoming very popular. Race/Class is no longer restricted in games. Races aren't taken for granted to act a certain way. I always thought that was a bad thing though as each race had a defining characteristic which was thrown out the window. You might as well just have humans if you are going to do that.
The first type of fantasy you have to address is "sincere fantasy" or mythology. This is a type of fiction that the audience does not recognize as fiction and actually believes it to be true. For example, that the Northern Lights actually are caused by the Valkyrie or that there really was a Minotaur in a palace on Crete. Usually these stories are taken for granted as happening "in another place and time" without any kind of proof. It's just something you believe as part of your upbringing and cultural background... Santa Claus among children falls into this category as well as most religion, to be somewhat more controversial. A natural extension to this type of fantasy is the other side of the coin - mythology that is recognized as such. I can read a story from Egyptian mythology and enjoy it as fiction rather then a distant "fact" of the world. The Titanomachy is still interesting, even if it never happened, even if people once sincerely believed that it did.
The second type of fantasy is more typical fiction - the intentional work of a writer seeking to craft an "alternative" to what we recognize as real. Magic isn't real, but we can imagine what it would be like if it was. Orcs aren't real, but they can serve as a vehicle for our own concept of race. The two major types that we see in this category have been recognized here: character driven and concept driven. Character driven stories (like The Lord of the Rings) show you the world through the eyes of very specific people, not necessarily as it is, but rather how they see it. Everything takes place in the context of these people's causes, emotions, abilities, and so forth - LOTR was not told from the perspective of an Orc and it would be vastly different if it was. The most significant thing about this type of fiction is that it often insinuates a much larger world despite never overtly "showing" it to you through the eyes of the character. Often distant places are referenced or explained, but never truly shown... We have to fill in the blanks. On the other hand, concept driven fantasy paints a picture of the world in broad, sweepingly general strokes. Race A hates Race Z, group B can do X but group C can only do Y, etc, etc... The fact that individuals actually compose these archetypes (stereotypes?) rarely ever matters. Stories can be told within this type of setting, but it usually tends to run along very narrow guidelines laid out in larger concepts. More often then not the world is exposed in a general manner rather then a personal one, which tends to allow a much more open ended potential for story lines.
What we usually refer to as fantasy can actually be broken down significantly. For example, if there is magic, is it "open" or "closed" to the world? Settings like Dungeons and Dragons are extremely open in that virtually everyone knows about it and many can use it; on the other hand, in the World of Darkness the very existence of everything outside the norm is actively concealed from the mundane world. Furthermore, closed worlds can be further separated by whether the story is told from the perspective of people who are in the know (Harry Potter) or people who are not (the X Files). Furthermore, any fantasy genre can be differentiated based on a relative scale of "illumination," so to speak. Is it a world of light fantasy where even evil, demonic forces aren't that terrifying (Warcraft) or is it a dark, foreboding world where horrible things lurk in the dark places of the world (Cthulhu Mythos)? Is it somewhere in between? Obviously, the distinctions go on... One of the biggest differences tends to be the time frame of the story in reference to our world. Medieval fantasy (like Dungeons and Dragons) is vastly different from modern fantasy (like the World of Darkness), while things in between (like Arcanum's Steampunk, to continue the theme of settings used by Troika) can make a world of difference in terms of viable stories.
I could go on, but I'm going to touch upon graphics before this gets hideously long...
The interesting thing about these games is that they place MASSIVE consideration on the essential look of the world that is completely absent from books. The Lord of the Rings was a cartoon before it was a live action epic, but it was still the same source material. Warcraft, Warhammer, City of Heroes, and most all Anime embrace a vibrant style of art that completely separates them from any vestige of being realistic. This does not make such settings any more or less mature or fantastic, it merely portrays them in a manner that acknowledges its own departure from our world. Any style can convey a different impression upon the viewer; however, a live action elf and an animated elf are still both elves. You could tell the exact same story in either manner and it will still be the same story - one is still no more real then the other.
Another interesting thing is what is known as the Uncanny Valley, a steep drop off of emotional response commonly seen in people who interact with synthetic humanoid robots. Looking at a industrial robot invokes little or no emotion in humans; however, having a near perfect humanoid machine look at you and speak is like having a conversation with an undead corpse. It is consistently unnerving and eerie to people not accustomed to it. The problem is that as you approach a "perfect" copy of a person, the more you tend to notice and fixate on the flaws. Hence the impression of something "just not right" about realistic graphics. The most common complains about games that strive for realistic graphics is that they come across as plastic, lifeless, and aesthetically unappealing and people start to point out even the smallest inconsistency or flaw. Obviously, this does not bode well for a fantasy game at all. The fact that games with "cartoony" or highly exaggerated and stylistic graphics tend to be more popular is not a matter of immaturity, but rather the appeal of a complete departure from reality over a poor copy of it.
Finally, I'd like to talk about something you don't see very often in fantasy. Total recreation. In the quintessential fantasy game, you start in a town full of NPC quest-givers, shopkeepers, guards, and so forth, you do odd jobs that involve you wandering outside the gate whacking small creatures that respawn ad infinitum, and every single person does pretty much the same thing for the same people. The suspension of disbelief this requires is mind-boggling. The fact that people can argue about "realism" while overlooking this gross inconsistency is similarly mind-boggling. Let me introduce you to the real world...
You know that big, stone, human capital city (Stormwind, for instance)? Well every single stone had to be pulled out of a quarry, shaped, moved, put in place, and finished; every single worker had to have meals every day that had to be gathered from somewhere by someone else, they had to have a place to lay their head every night, which in turn had to be made from other materials; all of those people had to have families and histories of their own, all of them had to grow up somewhere, many must have kids of their own someplace else; every bandit you slaughter or exp and loot had to be born someplace, raised by someone, hardened into a villain by some circumstance, brought to your sword by some twist of fate, and once he's dead, it's final... You get the idea - Where is the quarry? Where are the craftsmen? The farmers? The farmland? The homes? The families? The histories? We don't see that in the World of Warcraft... We barely ever see that sort of detail or consistence in any work of fantasy, especially not MMORPGs. Show me ONE game with a realistic economy, a realistic society, a realistic ecosystem, a realistic approach to magic, races, monsters, backgrounds, NPCs, etc, etc... It doesn't exist. Why? Because realism is BORING! It's so boring that we forget to remember that it was ever missing in the first place. It's so boring that even works of fiction firmly grounded in our reality exclude much of it - honestly, how often do authors tell you about each and every time the protagonist goes off to take a shit over the course of the story? It gets clipped because no one cares about it; just like all those tedious little details about building New Stormwind or every bandit's life story. Welcome to fantasy, say goodbye to realism... It won't be missed.
Another interesting thing is what is known as the Uncanny Valley, a steep drop off of emotional response commonly seen in people who interact with synthetic humanoid robots. Looking at a industrial robot invokes little or no emotion in humans; however, having a near perfect humanoid machine look at you and speak is like having a conversation with an undead corpse. It is consistently unnerving and eerie to people not accustomed to it. The problem is that as you approach a "perfect" copy of a person, the more you tend to notice and fixate on the flaws. Hence the impression of something "just not right" about realistic graphics. The most common complains about games that strive for realistic graphics is that they come across as plastic, lifeless, and aesthetically unappealing and people start to point out even the smallest inconsistency or flaw. Obviously, this does not bode well for a fantasy game at all. The fact that games with "cartoony" or highly exaggerated and stylistic graphics tend to be more popular is not a matter of immaturity, but rather the appeal of a complete departure from reality over a poor copy of it.
You know that big, stone, human capital city (Stormwind, for instance)? Well every single stone had to be pulled out of a quarry, shaped, moved, put in place, and finished; every single worker had to have meals every day that had to be gathered from somewhere by someone else, they had to have a place to lay their head every night, which in turn had to be made from other materials; all of those people had to have families and histories of their own, all of them had to grow up somewhere, many must have kids of their own someplace else; every bandit you slaughter or exp and loot had to be born someplace, raised by someone, hardened into a villain by some circumstance, brought to your sword by some twist of fate, and once he's dead, it's final... You get the idea - Where is the quarry? Where are the craftsmen? The farmers? The farmland? The homes? The families? The histories? We don't see that in the World of Warcraft... We barely ever see that sort of detail or consistence in any work of fantasy, especially not MMORPGs. Show me ONE game with a realistic economy, a realistic society, a realistic ecosystem, a realistic approach to magic, races, monsters, backgrounds, NPCs, etc, etc... It doesn't exist. Why? Because realism is BORING! It's so boring that we forget to remember that it was ever missing in the first place. It's so boring that even works of fiction firmly grounded in our reality exclude much of it - honestly, how often do authors tell you about each and every time the protagonist goes off to take a shit over the course of the story? It gets clipped because no one cares about it; just like all those tedious little details about building New Stormwind or every bandit's life story. Welcome to fantasy, say goodbye to realism... It won't be missed.
These two paragraphs explain a lot of how I feel though I didn't know how to explain it to others myself. I love cartoony graphics for the reasons you mentioned and do indeed find realistic graphics to be plastic looking. I also don't like the having a whole real world where everything has to have a reason. I just like to adventure pretending to be a hero in the fantastical world that has been created.
Manveru, this is basically the thing I wanted to outline above. During the evolution of fantasy, things have become very much archetypes, not only races but cities, forests, towns, professions. Wether you tell a story from the view of a single person like in a narrowed down time-scheme and viewpoint book, or if you open the scenery up like basically in most MMOs (mainly because of massive information flow between all players), the worlds have grown to consist of symbols mainly.
While I agree that realism is tedious, I don't agree WHY its tedious. You say it's tedious because we don't want every day things to be reenacted in a game/book. Well, scenes like those are on fast forward, only because they are boring? Or perhaps, because modern fantasy thinks they HAVE to be boring? See, contemporary prosa and contemporary films (not Hollywood movies) manage quite efficiently to create every day scenes exciting. Few months ago I saw a serbo-croatian low budget movie about a man coming back from war and finding his wife murdered. K, so much for the "fancy post-war story". But the rest of the film, 80 minutes, were about his way back into life and I found every minute of it highly "entertaining"...
...So let me take this to mythology. Ancient mythology served almost thoroughly as a religious foundation. The heroic figures, demo-gods and gods there were not "funny little symbols" they were (and for some people are) real. Just as real as a 2000 year-old carpenter from Nazareth. So OF COURSE, these stories had to function in a symbolic way and left out the profane as thoroughly as possible. And later, in the middle-ages and the renaissance, where entertainment was very scarce and times were overly painful, OF COURSE stories were ideals and left the profane and painful out as much as possible. In fact, this concept worked during all times. After the second world war, here in Germany a whole genre of movies was born, movies that pictured happy people in rural areas dealing with archetypical problems, aeons away from the real post-war destruction.
BUT, does all this mean that fantasy is only exciting if it reduces reality to symbols, leaves out anything profane (in MMOs even eating, washing or clothing)? - The answer is no. Drawing a race, a city, a person in detail adds much more to the quality of the story - if it's done right of course.
The essential question here is - how detailed is my lore and what does it provide. I daresay most of the modern fantasy was written by authors who chose "symbols" over "realism" not because of the linguistic and prosaic approach and what you want to provide with your world, but out of mere lack of the ability to "make more out of less"... It is mostly (not always) a mere copy of the ancient concept of symbolized figures.
And a final word concerning MMO mechanics. I think, if you let some of the developers (certainly not the fat nerds that finished their IT degree and play P&P) evolve openly and servers, time and money would allow them, oh boy, I know Aunt Emma's day and Aunt Emma's son would provide entertainment for a loooong time. Think of roleplaying, I spent, only a few nights ago, around 3, 4 hours in a virtual bar roleplaying our characters histories... The most meaningless details were suddenly exciting stories, because of the relation that developed to and between our characters. The art of storytelling is based on the most basic things, if I can tell you the story of a man that gets up from his couch to pee and gets back to his couch, and this story is exciting, THEN I am a storyteller. If I start off with a dragon and a castle and an army and some enchanted woods, well, everybody can do that, look at fanfiction.net ...
Meridion
PS: Flyte, I really recommend the Silmarillon if you wanna get started diving into the "real" lore of Arda.
Personally, I think that low fantasy should have had it's own option, and I saw that the OP suggested that it would fall someplace in either choice 2 or 3, but I feel it falls more into category 1, and for now, that's my vote.
There isnt much doubt that Robert E. Howard was the father of modern sword and sorcery stories, and his low fantasy world that he wrote Kull and Conan in was the foundation for that low fantasy genre. In fact, Tolkein, the father of High Fantasy came after Howard. What Howard did, that I enjoy, is essentially take the earth from 10,000 years ago, and use his idea of it for a foundation of the Hyborian Age.
This allows the person reading/playing to feel more deeply involved, simply because you have a conception of the area already. If you were to see a Stygian, you'd relate it right away to Egypt, and you'd feel more connected. A Vanir or AEsir and you'd think of Vikings, and so on. This helps make the world more readily accessible to his readers.
Now, from a game point of view, I prefer that low fantasy, where the world is readily accessible, it's got a grittier feel to it, and that makes it more real to me. No elves, dwarves, orc's or creatures like that, that tend to define the majority of fantasy writings today, and yes, most of 'em are High Fantasy. My imagination doesnt have to work as hard to accept the Hyborian world, as it does these other worlds.
Just what I prefer in a game. Not that the other choices are bad, hell, I like them too, but I'm just answering what I prefer, and why.
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This is why LOTRO and Star Wars set in the Original Trilogy time period wont draw a lot of people. People want to play characters they want to read in the books and see in the movies, but they can't. Thats one of the reasons Star Wars Galaxies was never the most popular MMO. Only one Jedi per server.Prolly the reason i wudn't play SWG either. A kotor one would rock cuz then everyone can be jedi, plus bioware always make amazing games. lets just hope the rumours are true. anyhow episodes 4,5and6 are boring to base a game on, the kotor storyline was better than those films in my opinion.... well...
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This is why LOTRO and Star Wars set in the Original Trilogy time period wont draw a lot of people. People want to play characters they want to read in the books and see in the movies, but they can't. Thats one of the reasons Star Wars Galaxies was never the most popular MMO. Only one Jedi per server.Prolly the reason i wudn't play SWG either. A kotor one would rock cuz then everyone can be jedi, plus bioware always make amazing games. lets just hope the rumours are true. anyhow episodes 4,5and6 are boring to base a game on, the kotor storyline was better than those films in my opinion.... well...
I hope so. It would suck though if they make Jedi weaker then every other class like they did in SWG after they decieded to let everyone be one. That wouldn't make much sense. I guess their excuse is that they are force sensative and not actual Jedi now. Perhaps a solution would be to start as one class then have them switch to Jedi at a certain level like in KOTOR 1.
1) Istari are Maiar of the Valar people. They are vastly more powerful than the children of Eru Iluvatar
2) The Heren Istarion - the Order of the Sorcerers - had only the members that took part in the history of the third age. There may be more, but it is a fact that they do not shape the fate of middle-earth during the ending decades of the third age.
3) The Istari are forbidden to use power and violence. What Mithrandir shows during the last battles is actually against his orders from Manwe, the Valar king.
4) There may be more Istari and if you let them be playable, you would have to enable players the fate of the Istari, to do the council of the Valars bidding. they are NOT free to decide, this is gift given to the Eldar and Edain only.
So Istari ARE indeed very much excluded from being a playable option in a Tolkien based MMO. Unlike female warriors, in the history of later Numenor and the realm of Eorl the Young, many women fought as shieldmaidens and defended their countries. Of course there is still a male majority that may or may not be represented in an MMO, still its largely more possible to allow female champions than to allow Istari.
The central problem here is that Gandalf is shown as "your next best mage" in the movies, and many many people have only seen the movies, but Gandalf is only a demi-god in an old man's manifestation. Actually, each of the Istari is of the same rank in terms of power as Sauron. Sauron is "only" a Maiar, his master would have been more powerful, the fallen Melkor, Morgoth, the black fiend, but well, you know the story, war of wrath, eternal doom n stuff...
Meridion
Besides: Jedi in Star Wars are only friggin people with force-sensitive powers. INcluding them in SWG for the broad masses was a stupid idea all the way from the start. In my book, combinations that are darn sure to be overly popular should somehow be excluded, like the armies of elven rangers in every other MMO out there. I would exclude elven rangers for players just to reestablish balance *lol*...
In Lord of the Rings I don't really mind being something other then a Ranger/Istari. In Star Wars the only class I would play is a Jedi. If there aren't Jedi as a playable class then the main attraction of Star Wars is taken away IMO. Thats why KOTOR is great because there are lots of Jedi around. It would in fact be great if they just had Jedi and split the Jedi/Sith into differnt classes for people to play. Then you wouldn't have to worry about balence issues and people could still play Jedi/Sith wich is the main draw of Star Wars anyway. Yes there are people who might want other roles in the Star Wars universe, but they are in the minority.
Meridion
Nah there could be somethings other than jedi which are playble. think of jango fett. a bounter hunter like that I would like to play aswell as jedi. i reckon these four could be balanced ok.
1.jedi/sith, weaker armour-robes. casters and lightsaber wielders
2.robots such as hk47, awesome to roleplay btw, packed with gismo's. since a robot, pretty solid armour could be had. maybe the tanks.
3.bountyhunters such as jango fett, posin darts, jet packs, rockets, snipers, maybe stealth? these are the rogues.
4. some kind of powerfull alien race, something original
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I always have preferred fantasy that makes some sense. To me, fantasy needs to introduce new ideas to structure a world, new laws of nature. Then the world needs to abide by those laws that have been created. So if theres a floating castle in a world that has gravity, there needs to be something behind that castle, something that makes sense, and it cant just be 'oh its magic'. The idea behind the castle floating needs to be supported with one of the new ideas that structure this fantasy world.
Its not really a big prob in MMOs but I like to read a lot and some fantasy series are just ridiculous. Its like they are constantly making up new magic and it all contradicts leading with huge plot holes and dues ex machinas. When I read a fantasy book, I prefer that the book isnt still introducing new elements of fantasy in the last few chapters. Instead its good to introduce the world in the start of the book, and by the end of the book elements of the world that we already know about should be coming together for a good and reasonable ending. But we get a lot of books like those by david eddings and terry goodkind where you're 5 books into the series at the last chapter of the book and the author is still creating wildly this or that reason for the hero defeating the villian, it just becomes ridiculous.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I've had this arguement beforce so can't be arsed to convince you the truth, look it up. but actually fantasy is a genre of alternative world with magic. the word fantasy and genre fantasy are different.
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Ooo I hoped somebody might say this so i can go on my rant I put on turbines forums aoens ago.
I don't have any edvidence and cba. but I tell you anyway even though you prolly won't belive me.
only 5 istari NAMED. There are others, those where just the leaders... and even more magicians, tolkien has said that there where more magic users. Turbine decided to not to have proper magic because there where FEW magic users in the lore.
WELL GUESS WHAT SMEG HEADS! HOW ANY FEMALE FIGHTERS WHERE IN TOLKIENS WRITINGS.... 1!!!!
only one or maybe two mentioned women fighters, but they'll let thousands of players play women just not istari.
doesn't matter anyway since it hasn't got PvP and even if it did it would be without proper magic. everybody else can still enjoy this game, not trying to take that away from them.
If you had read the books you would know that by the time the war of the ring had started there were not many Istari about many had died in the past. the five named were the the leading members of the council and i think only 3 or 4 of them were alive during the war of the ring.You think the 2 blue ones which went into the east died?
well maybe they should have set the game when there where more istari, a la kotor.
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Ooo I hoped somebody might say this so i can go on my rant I put on turbines forums aoens ago.
I don't have any edvidence and cba. but I tell you anyway even though you prolly won't belive me.
only 5 istari NAMED. There are others, those where just the leaders... and even more magicians, tolkien has said that there where more magic users. Turbine decided to not to have proper magic because there where FEW magic users in the lore.
WELL GUESS WHAT SMEG HEADS! HOW ANY FEMALE FIGHTERS WHERE IN TOLKIENS WRITINGS.... 1!!!!
only one or maybe two mentioned women fighters, but they'll let thousands of players play women just not istari.
doesn't matter anyway since it hasn't got PvP and even if it did it would be without proper magic. everybody else can still enjoy this game, not trying to take that away from them.
If you had read the books you would know that by the time the war of the ring had started there were not many Istari about many had died in the past. the five named were the the leading members of the council and i think only 3 or 4 of them were alive during the war of the ring.You think the 2 blue ones which went into the east died?
well maybe they should have set the game when there where more istari, a la kotor.
We are talking about thousands of people being able to roll Istari when they do not have large numbers and would be very overpowered. The fact that two blue wizards wen into the east does not justify playable Istari. Anyway the game will progress throught the war of the ring just like the book. After so many expansions we will be in Mordor and the war will end and guess what, when the war was over the Istari went across the sea just like the Elves to be with the Valaar. SO would you be happy if when the game got the the end of the war that your Istari that you worked hard on was taken away?
P.S. They couldn't set the game back when there more Istari beacuse at there peak there were not many. In KOTOR there are thousands and thousands of force sensitives.
lol, when did i try and justify it with the 2 istari going to east, that doesn't make any sense? can you read? i said that because you said only 3 or 4 where left, only saruman died.
okay anyway you guys win, if you want. i still think istari could and should have been implemented into the game, maybe i'm ignorant that way.
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Fantasy to me has many influences. Robert Howards Conan the ultimate barbarian really sets the tone of the worlds to me, very dark and dangerous. Tolkien took it much further with deeper worlds and detailed all the races (elves, men etc) and I see it as what ALL modern fantasy is based on. It to me, had the most influence on what I think is fantasy but even others had impact in places. Stuff like HP Lovecraft's Chtulu even though his stuff is much darker and wierder more on the border of horror then anything else, I can see mixes and ideas across all three that make up what I think is fantasy.
I also grew up before pc's, I was a teenager playing Chainmail (which eventually became Dungeon's and Dragons). I really got into reading fantasy again during the Tolkien re-birth of fantasy in the late 70's. Which is what got me into the pen and paper gaming once it came out. To live in that fantasy world, to actually be a character in it was the coolest thing ever. I always played one of the dwarves who were relatives of one of "The Hobbit"'s 12 fellowship.
In 1977, I saw a movie one memorial weekend that really really got me interested in sci-fi. That was my new Fantasy world from then on. Care to guess what it was?
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
Obviously that Sci-Fi was Star Wars.
I was born that year so I didn't get to see it in the movie theatre.
Speaking of fantasy races I find that in interesting topic. Each race seems to represent something inside of humans.
Elves represent the beauty, good, intelligence, and perhaps arrogance in humans. They are the tree huggers of the fantasy world.
Dwarves represent the desire to build, craft, and greed for money/metal. They are like the industrial portion of the fantasy world.
Hobbits are child like, small, innocent, and enjoy the relaxed peaceful life. They represent the child in all of us.
Orcs/Goblins/Trolls/etc. are mean, greedy, and dumb. They represent the dumb bully in the fantasy world.
Humans obviously can represent all of these things.
This is one of the issues I have with the 3rd edition rules for AD&D. They left you be any race/any class. These races are there to represent differnt parts of the human spirit and when you take that away you kind of take the meaning away. When you can play a good Orc or and Evil Elf then it starts to chip away at the foundations of your world and why you made things the way they were in the first place. Humans are sapposed to be special because they can choose who they are.
The point is, the fantasy with which I grew up and read over an over, Tolkien, is very different from that. The elves themselves are very differentiated people, the Noldor, crafting people, building huge yet beautiful cities in white and silver, wearing heavy armor, impulsive and powerful, armed and fierce, you would not call them tree huggers for sure... or the Laiquendi, shy, mostly archers, tree lovers, hide in their forests in ossiriand and don't care very much about politics or territory.
So it's very much NOT the concept of "this race equals characteristic X" but a wide variety of different peoples acting very very differently. It's not "these are the dwarves yay". The dwarves of Khazad-Dum in the third age were totally different compared to the Naugrim of Belegost in the first age, or look at the Hobbits, even there, in this secluded little paradise which is the shire, in the south farthing hobbits live in houses and care for defense ans politics whereas in the area of hobbiton, they are mostly simple people, peasants or craftsmen...
Long story short -> What you describe is a phenomenon I encountered after my inital fantasy years with Tolkien, the manifestation of race-archetypes or the "I'm a elf, so I HAVE to love woods"
Meridion
The first type of fantasy you have to address is "sincere fantasy" or mythology. This is a type of fiction that the audience does not recognize as fiction and actually believes it to be true. For example, that the Northern Lights actually are caused by the Valkyrie or that there really was a Minotaur in a palace on Crete. Usually these stories are taken for granted as happening "in another place and time" without any kind of proof. It's just something you believe as part of your upbringing and cultural background... Santa Claus among children falls into this category as well as most religion, to be somewhat more controversial. A natural extension to this type of fantasy is the other side of the coin - mythology that is recognized as such. I can read a story from Egyptian mythology and enjoy it as fiction rather then a distant "fact" of the world. The Titanomachy is still interesting, even if it never happened, even if people once sincerely believed that it did.
The second type of fantasy is more typical fiction - the intentional work of a writer seeking to craft an "alternative" to what we recognize as real. Magic isn't real, but we can imagine what it would be like if it was. Orcs aren't real, but they can serve as a vehicle for our own concept of race. The two major types that we see in this category have been recognized here: character driven and concept driven. Character driven stories (like The Lord of the Rings) show you the world through the eyes of very specific people, not necessarily as it is, but rather how they see it. Everything takes place in the context of these people's causes, emotions, abilities, and so forth - LOTR was not told from the perspective of an Orc and it would be vastly different if it was. The most significant thing about this type of fiction is that it often insinuates a much larger world despite never overtly "showing" it to you through the eyes of the character. Often distant places are referenced or explained, but never truly shown... We have to fill in the blanks. On the other hand, concept driven fantasy paints a picture of the world in broad, sweepingly general strokes. Race A hates Race Z, group B can do X but group C can only do Y, etc, etc... The fact that individuals actually compose these archetypes (stereotypes?) rarely ever matters. Stories can be told within this type of setting, but it usually tends to run along very narrow guidelines laid out in larger concepts. More often then not the world is exposed in a general manner rather then a personal one, which tends to allow a much more open ended potential for story lines.
What we usually refer to as fantasy can actually be broken down significantly. For example, if there is magic, is it "open" or "closed" to the world? Settings like Dungeons and Dragons are extremely open in that virtually everyone knows about it and many can use it; on the other hand, in the World of Darkness the very existence of everything outside the norm is actively concealed from the mundane world. Furthermore, closed worlds can be further separated by whether the story is told from the perspective of people who are in the know (Harry Potter) or people who are not (the X Files). Furthermore, any fantasy genre can be differentiated based on a relative scale of "illumination," so to speak. Is it a world of light fantasy where even evil, demonic forces aren't that terrifying (Warcraft) or is it a dark, foreboding world where horrible things lurk in the dark places of the world (Cthulhu Mythos)? Is it somewhere in between? Obviously, the distinctions go on... One of the biggest differences tends to be the time frame of the story in reference to our world. Medieval fantasy (like Dungeons and Dragons) is vastly different from modern fantasy (like the World of Darkness), while things in between (like Arcanum's Steampunk, to continue the theme of settings used by Troika) can make a world of difference in terms of viable stories.
I could go on, but I'm going to touch upon graphics before this gets hideously long...
The interesting thing about these games is that they place MASSIVE consideration on the essential look of the world that is completely absent from books. The Lord of the Rings was a cartoon before it was a live action epic, but it was still the same source material. Warcraft, Warhammer, City of Heroes, and most all Anime embrace a vibrant style of art that completely separates them from any vestige of being realistic. This does not make such settings any more or less mature or fantastic, it merely portrays them in a manner that acknowledges its own departure from our world. Any style can convey a different impression upon the viewer; however, a live action elf and an animated elf are still both elves. You could tell the exact same story in either manner and it will still be the same story - one is still no more real then the other.
Another interesting thing is what is known as the Uncanny Valley, a steep drop off of emotional response commonly seen in people who interact with synthetic humanoid robots. Looking at a industrial robot invokes little or no emotion in humans; however, having a near perfect humanoid machine look at you and speak is like having a conversation with an undead corpse. It is consistently unnerving and eerie to people not accustomed to it. The problem is that as you approach a "perfect" copy of a person, the more you tend to notice and fixate on the flaws. Hence the impression of something "just not right" about realistic graphics. The most common complains about games that strive for realistic graphics is that they come across as plastic, lifeless, and aesthetically unappealing and people start to point out even the smallest inconsistency or flaw. Obviously, this does not bode well for a fantasy game at all. The fact that games with "cartoony" or highly exaggerated and stylistic graphics tend to be more popular is not a matter of immaturity, but rather the appeal of a complete departure from reality over a poor copy of it.
Finally, I'd like to talk about something you don't see very often in fantasy. Total recreation. In the quintessential fantasy game, you start in a town full of NPC quest-givers, shopkeepers, guards, and so forth, you do odd jobs that involve you wandering outside the gate whacking small creatures that respawn ad infinitum, and every single person does pretty much the same thing for the same people. The suspension of disbelief this requires is mind-boggling. The fact that people can argue about "realism" while overlooking this gross inconsistency is similarly mind-boggling. Let me introduce you to the real world...
You know that big, stone, human capital city (Stormwind, for instance)? Well every single stone had to be pulled out of a quarry, shaped, moved, put in place, and finished; every single worker had to have meals every day that had to be gathered from somewhere by someone else, they had to have a place to lay their head every night, which in turn had to be made from other materials; all of those people had to have families and histories of their own, all of them had to grow up somewhere, many must have kids of their own someplace else; every bandit you slaughter or exp and loot had to be born someplace, raised by someone, hardened into a villain by some circumstance, brought to your sword by some twist of fate, and once he's dead, it's final... You get the idea - Where is the quarry? Where are the craftsmen? The farmers? The farmland? The homes? The families? The histories? We don't see that in the World of Warcraft... We barely ever see that sort of detail or consistence in any work of fantasy, especially not MMORPGs. Show me ONE game with a realistic economy, a realistic society, a realistic ecosystem, a realistic approach to magic, races, monsters, backgrounds, NPCs, etc, etc... It doesn't exist. Why? Because realism is BORING! It's so boring that we forget to remember that it was ever missing in the first place. It's so boring that even works of fiction firmly grounded in our reality exclude much of it - honestly, how often do authors tell you about each and every time the protagonist goes off to take a shit over the course of the story? It gets clipped because no one cares about it; just like all those tedious little details about building New Stormwind or every bandit's life story. Welcome to fantasy, say goodbye to realism... It won't be missed.
How do you kill that which has no life?
While I agree that realism is tedious, I don't agree WHY its tedious. You say it's tedious because we don't want every day things to be reenacted in a game/book. Well, scenes like those are on fast forward, only because they are boring? Or perhaps, because modern fantasy thinks they HAVE to be boring? See, contemporary prosa and contemporary films (not Hollywood movies) manage quite efficiently to create every day scenes exciting. Few months ago I saw a serbo-croatian low budget movie about a man coming back from war and finding his wife murdered. K, so much for the "fancy post-war story". But the rest of the film, 80 minutes, were about his way back into life and I found every minute of it highly "entertaining"...
...So let me take this to mythology. Ancient mythology served almost thoroughly as a religious foundation. The heroic figures, demo-gods and gods there were not "funny little symbols" they were (and for some people are) real. Just as real as a 2000 year-old carpenter from Nazareth. So OF COURSE, these stories had to function in a symbolic way and left out the profane as thoroughly as possible. And later, in the middle-ages and the renaissance, where entertainment was very scarce and times were overly painful, OF COURSE stories were ideals and left the profane and painful out as much as possible. In fact, this concept worked during all times. After the second world war, here in Germany a whole genre of movies was born, movies that pictured happy people in rural areas dealing with archetypical problems, aeons away from the real post-war destruction.
BUT, does all this mean that fantasy is only exciting if it reduces reality to symbols, leaves out anything profane (in MMOs even eating, washing or clothing)? - The answer is no. Drawing a race, a city, a person in detail adds much more to the quality of the story - if it's done right of course.
The essential question here is - how detailed is my lore and what does it provide. I daresay most of the modern fantasy was written by authors who chose "symbols" over "realism" not because of the linguistic and prosaic approach and what you want to provide with your world, but out of mere lack of the ability to "make more out of less"... It is mostly (not always) a mere copy of the ancient concept of symbolized figures.
And a final word concerning MMO mechanics. I think, if you let some of the developers (certainly not the fat nerds that finished their IT degree and play P&P) evolve openly and servers, time and money would allow them, oh boy, I know Aunt Emma's day and Aunt Emma's son would provide entertainment for a loooong time. Think of roleplaying, I spent, only a few nights ago, around 3, 4 hours in a virtual bar roleplaying our characters histories... The most meaningless details were suddenly exciting stories, because of the relation that developed to and between our characters. The art of storytelling is based on the most basic things, if I can tell you the story of a man that gets up from his couch to pee and gets back to his couch, and this story is exciting, THEN I am a storyteller. If I start off with a dragon and a castle and an army and some enchanted woods, well, everybody can do that, look at fanfiction.net ...
Meridion
PS: Flyte, I really recommend the Silmarillon if you wanna get started diving into the "real" lore of Arda.
Personally, I think that low fantasy should have had it's own option, and I saw that the OP suggested that it would fall someplace in either choice 2 or 3, but I feel it falls more into category 1, and for now, that's my vote.
There isnt much doubt that Robert E. Howard was the father of modern sword and sorcery stories, and his low fantasy world that he wrote Kull and Conan in was the foundation for that low fantasy genre. In fact, Tolkein, the father of High Fantasy came after Howard. What Howard did, that I enjoy, is essentially take the earth from 10,000 years ago, and use his idea of it for a foundation of the Hyborian Age.
This allows the person reading/playing to feel more deeply involved, simply because you have a conception of the area already. If you were to see a Stygian, you'd relate it right away to Egypt, and you'd feel more connected. A Vanir or AEsir and you'd think of Vikings, and so on. This helps make the world more readily accessible to his readers.
Now, from a game point of view, I prefer that low fantasy, where the world is readily accessible, it's got a grittier feel to it, and that makes it more real to me. No elves, dwarves, orc's or creatures like that, that tend to define the majority of fantasy writings today, and yes, most of 'em are High Fantasy. My imagination doesnt have to work as hard to accept the Hyborian world, as it does these other worlds.
Just what I prefer in a game. Not that the other choices are bad, hell, I like them too, but I'm just answering what I prefer, and why.