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Copyright Ambiguity on a Harry Potter MMORPG
gomiller43
Member Posts: 23
From what I've seen, the only reason it's not being done is because...?
Yeah, I don't even know. I've poked around a bit and it seems like there's an issue with the rights to the whole shishkebab.
So if some one were to make an RPG set in the same place as the books series, and yet it took place long after the events in book 7 and in more places than just the U.K. and Hogwarts. What issues would some one have to expect, considering that they would want to throw some ads in there to help take care of the costs?
Comments
It will be done if JK Rowling wants it to be done, and not otherwise. Whether the game would be any good if it's done is a different question entirely.
Personally I don't think a MMO would capture the essence of the game, a well done single player game is what they need and not those piss poor movie tie-ins they always release.
Unless you have Rowling's permission, you will get sued if you try to make a Harry Potter game.
yea another themepark mmo is totally what we need.
Harry Potter wouldn't work as an MMO. There isn't enough content to work with to turn it in to a MMO, at least not with out making changes to Harry Potter world. It would however make a great RPG game if done right. They could go back and do content before Voldmort fell to Harry as baby. That is my opinion any way.
If someone wants to make a Harry Potter MMO, Rowling could do what WotC did with warhammer. She could just liscense the name and content to a developer. she does not need to be involved in its development.
why has one not yet been made? *insert 9001 reasons here*
im not sure if a harry potter MMO would work. Everything is ranged combat. As far as classes, insert tank/dps/healer. (hooray for creativity!)
crafting could work out as
Herbalist: grows plants. can make weak potions
potions maker: makes strong potions. relies on herbalist for materials
wand maker: makes wands
Tailorer: makes robes
etc. i could see crafting being HUGE in such a game, but the combat would be terribad.
1st year wold be the tutorial
2nd year would levels 1-5
3rd year etc.
after you graduate then you go on raids.
Quidditch could be RMT similar to Tribes Ascent
I can see quite a lot being done with the IP. Will it be theme park? yes. could it be a good theme park? yes. Will the devs puss out and make the game "beatable" after a week of play? yes.
It doesn't work as literature, perhaps giving it a shot as a video game?
Don Quixote's Delusions
Whow.
"It doesnt work as literature"
And the Saturn V failed as getting us to the moon, I guess ?
World of Warcraft, most failed MMORPG ever ?
Water, will just never cure thirst, no matter how much you drink ?
The only book thats more successful than the HP books is probably the Bible.
Turbine was developing it for Wb games but it was canceled for some reason. This is what i heard from a friends of a friend of a siter of a dog of a cat.
And Don is not a bad childrens book or series. It actually is very nicely leveled to help get a kid into reading. Even if they dont read anything esle reading harry potter is better then not reading at all.
Bestseller ≠ Succesful ≠ Good literature.
I totally agree with you. But an MMORPG based on a book for 5 year olds?
Don Quixote's Delusions
Harry Potter was easy to read and it was a good story. It didn't need to be anything too special. The simple things in life are sometimes the best.
I think it could work as an MMO if you design it right. Don't look at it as if it has to have classes and more than one form of combat, because it doesn't. It could all come down to your attributes, identifying how much you can learn and how effectively you practice what you know. Then it's just up to you as a player to choose the right spells. For instance, say you retained 5 spells from your first year. You'll never forget them. But you can also look back in your spellbooks and briefly study a spell for the day or week or whatever, then getting either bored with that spell or just forgetting it.
Your character wouldn't have to be a combatant either. You could become more of a crafter (as above) or whatever.
You're all missing some key points of the story that were barely mentioned but still make for a good story to follow. Mundungus for one, he was a sort of black marketeer. There were a bunch of illegal trades going on around knockturn alley. That could be fun to do (Sort of like the Rogues of Harry Potter?) and then if you work for the ministry as an Auror, or you work with the department that is responsible for the magical creatures, then you've got some stuff to be doing. There's so much to it, you just gotta dig deep.
I'd want to have it take place in the first war probably.
It's not being done because Rowling doesn't want it done. She's anti-video game. Not like nutjob about it, but she definitely prefers children read versus playing video games, which isn't exactly wrong. While yes, the universe she created has some adult appeal as well, everyone knows full well that it would be children flocking to it because of the history and storyline, and she'd end up a hypocrit on an issue she evidently feels pretty strongly about.
Yes, I know there are single-player games, supposedly that was part of the movie deals or something and she had only so much control over that. She seemed pretty adamant against an MMO though. Instead she created something similar, but it's free and works more like an online reading environment with some side puzzles here and there, more like a social network than anything. As far as I've read, she's not planning for it to ever be anything more than that, especially since she's dropped the series and is looking to create more "adult" fiction.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I have read all the Harry Potter books and I just don't think a standard MMO would do the job. As a fan and a big mmo player i have looked forward to this for a long time.
But forget all this Jobber Jabber i would just like to say how I thikn it should be done
My List:
1. First of all No levels you start the game as a child (probably about the age of Harry aka 12) who just got into the school of any one you pick and as you progress through the grade's you grow .
2. If you pick the popular Hogwarts of course you would be able to pick the between Gryffindor, HufflePuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin or have and auto sort toll would be availible at a click if a button.
3. In any normal rpg you would see a skill tree in which as you progress through the levels you could unlock new skills
but instead that space would be used to keep and store all the spells you have learned.
4. Not a hotkey list in a rpg but still the basic hotkey in which
you could put all the spells you have learned but in 3 set program where you could easily change betwenn them with a simple
Ctrl / up key.
5. After you have finished at the college you could progress throught the magical world as you would do in your actual life and Take a job maybe work for the Ministry of Magic or just be a simple wand crafter in hogsmeade.
6. All profesions would be able to go into depth with and explore and i'm just going to highlight one proffession a wand crafter as in being able to go into depth with the wands making them fully customizeable as in a crafter would be able to scourer the land in search of ingredients and every different ingredient had a different perk.
7. I would like it to be in 3d obviously but also having the animals and magical creeatures in put into beautiful depth.
I know alot of people will not like my opinion but i hope somebody will agree with me and not post bad comments.
What issues could they have is an open ended question, but if I read that as I think you intended, you were asking what issues would prevent JK Rowling from granting a license to do the MMO?
It probably comes down to feasibility of a game that would truly capture the Harry Potter experience. There is no way this game would fit inside another WoW clone.
There are really no levels in the world of Harry Potter. Every wizard (with the exception of a few staring roles) is pretty much equal, with the only difference being skill. Not a numeric skill, but a skill with knowing what spells to cast when and where and how to handle situations effectively. Combat would seemingly need to be action oriented.
Making players into Hogwarts students might seem all good at first, but there really isn't much action. School is for learning, and any events would have to be sequenced and scripted making this just a story driven themepark MMO. Plus there are breaks between years, how would that be handled .. or would it be ignored ... would you get a message after enough classes and quests, "Congratulations, you are now year 2!" Hmm .. I'm not seeing the game centering on pupils.
To avoid interferring with predefined story, the game would need to take place after book 7 (as adult Wizards) .. maybe even after the natural death of Harry. To do any portion right, there would need to be huge content .. another story driven themepark won't do. Find your own adventure. Small details from the books would need to be captured, like a Dark Arts (Death Eater) ability to transmute into a puff of smoke (even during combat) and fly. End-game would need to be sandbox, really. Turn this into some BS, "oh thank you mystery non-Harry hero #187392, you alone saved the world!", and the franchise is ruined. (Maybe it works in a single player RPG, but not an MMO, IMO.)
But the biggest reason for JK Rowling not allowing the MMO might very well be that the game would be too costly to make into a non WoW-clone, and the returns would be a huge gamble if the designers misjudge the market like EA Bioware did with SWTOR. Harry Potter fans expect a mind blowing experience.
Furthermore, JKR may want to do more books & movies - a venture which would be of little risk with high profitability. Making a MMO would be risky and might screw up future lore for future books to boot!
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
So what is good literature for you? For me good literarture is something i enjoy reading an i have enjoyed reading Harry potter.
Now i even begin to believe you didnt ever read this books, you just trying to be smart.
Btw in case you didnt know 5 years old kids doesnt know how to read..
Now for the topic, i think the only way this could work, it would be if this game is set in the world of this magic fantasy but not in the time of harry himself. You could use the lore but not the story of harry potter. The story is too closed.
I agree. There's also the cast-iron fact that if anyone even TRIED to make a Harry Potter MMORPG without getting official permission, by paying for the copyright, they would be destroyed by the resulting financial penalties.
Even if they made it, the audience would be pretty much largely comprised of kids and young teens. God, a thought has struck me - I hope they never release "Twilight: The MMORPG". Can you imagine the crowd that would gravitate to THAT!
This have been a good conversation
They could make a game that takes place in the past or after Harry Potter took place. They could have the game take place in the HP universe but go beyond Hogwarts. They wouldn't need to limit the classes to wizards. There were werewolves and giants and other things in the books and movies that could be used as well as wizard classes. If they really wanted to, they could put some of the more sandbox elements that some people want - that kind of thing would fit into the HP universe.
The tutorial could be a condensed version of Hogwarts, and once you were done the tutorial you would venture into the world and do what you want. I'd much rather see more of the HP universe than be stuck in Hogwarts if they ever make a Harry Potter MMO.
But even on that fact maybe the "Harry Potter World" would not have enough content as you said. But the wizarding world would give a good amount of content. But if this mmo was to be made i have a felling J.K. Rowling would play a good part in supplying information to go off of, and also help create the architectural design of (just for an example) Hogwarts, Gringotts, Hogesmade. So in a complete summary of the small amount of things i said is that with J.K Rowling's help it would be easy to create this wizarding world with probably just a little bit of change but we wouldn't know becasue we where only introduced to a small part so the rest would come from J.K's imaginationand you know where that got us if you catch my drift.
I first answered this question back on April 10 of this year. Single player games have been made and those companies probably hold the rights to an MMO, or someone in the J.K. camp possibly her publisher?
But please remember that character heavy IP don’t do well because every player wants to be the hero. And with Voldermort gone what is the point? BTW, since HP’s magic society seems so anachronistic. I wondered if a U.S. school would be based in either the wild west or puritan colonial times (think salem witch trials). The U.S. is big enough to have two or more schools so I think both periods would be represented.
If the time period was set after the last book, that may interfere with her plans for additional series or the game would have to be kept separate from the cannon.
The real challenge is not getting the permission to make a HP MMO. It is figuring out what to do with it. All player characters are wizards, and NPCs will be muggles, elves and such. What do we role play? Who is going to roll or want to be Mrs Weasley? Who is gonna want to be conductor on the Knight Bus? The point is not everyone can be Auror, or that is it. Everyone is an Auror, or they belong to the Health division of the Ministry of Magic. This link to the HP Wiki lists the departments in the Ministry. You could work for one of those departments or be a death eater for the latest incarnation of the heir of slytherin.
I want a HP MMO, but how to implement it?
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.