Originally posted by BlueCoyote Has it occured to anyone else that if you have Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Hobbits on one side of a realm-vs-realm game with Orcs, assorted monsters, and bad humans on the other side, you've nearly got World of Warcraft's premise? Replace the word "hobbit" with "gnome" and add "undead" to the bad humans. They even call the good guys the Alliance. Has it occured to you that the Lord of the Rings was written more than half a century before Warcraft was even concieved? Tolkien revolutionized and popularized the format that Blizzard simply emulated. Good gravy, this is ignorance at its most flamboyant...
Man, I agree w/ you.
I really had high hopes for a game based on the books that invented this whole genre of medieval fantasy that we know today. Everything was invented by Tolkien and I was really looking forward to MEO when I read an article about it 3yrs ago in Computer Gaming mag.
After it was sold to whoever and became LOTR:O, it looked like they took more out of the fantasy and put back in more of what we see in every mmo.
In the article w/ the devs, they said they had spent 3yrs before that working on just how to make it go along w/ the BOOKS (they didn't have the rights to the movies, idk about now) closely as possible.
I'm still gonna try the game, just because of my hopes. I'm really sick of fantasy stuff, but this is what invented fantasy. W/o Tolkien we would have no such things as Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and all that stuff like we do today. Yeah, they may have been there but not anywhere near as popular as they are today.
In answer to your musings: Middle Earth Online, now known as Lord of the Rings Online, was originally being developed by Siera Games Online (SGO). A subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.
Vivendi eventually canned SGO from the project and hired Turbine to do it. Turbine trashed pretty much all of the concepts that SGO originally planned for the game, making it what it is today.
When Siera was working on it I was really hopeful it would be something unique, different and true to Tolkien. Now that Turbine is doing it? I'll still try to get in the beta but I'm not really looking forward to it anymore. Their track record with MMORPG's isn't exactly stellar. I've been following this game since early 1999 when I first heard about it. Needless to say it's been a VERY long wait.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Has it occured to anyone else that if you have Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Hobbits on one side of a realm-vs-realm game with Orcs, assorted monsters, and bad humans on the other side, you've nearly got World of Warcraft's premise? Replace the word "hobbit" with "gnome" and add "undead" to the bad humans. They even call the good guys the Alliance.
Has it occured to you that the Lord of the Rings was written more than half a century before Warcraft was even concieved? Tolkien revolutionized and popularized the format that Blizzard simply emulated. Good gravy, this is ignorance at its most flamboyant...
If you read the preceeding paragraph of my post, that was my point.
People are complaining that LOTRO is a WoW clone while WoW is more of a LOTR inspired fantasy clone. And sometimes asking for gameplay that is more WoW-like!
It seems like BlueCoyote's total failure to absorb 2/3rds of the post I made from which that original quote came from has been carried over into page 2. I'm just moving the correction forward.
Originally posted by SnaKeyMan, I agree w/ you.I really had high hopes for a game based on the books that invented this whole genre of medieval fantasy that we know today. Everything was invented by Tolkien and I was really looking forward to MEO when I read an article about it 3yrs ago in Computer Gaming mag. After it was sold to whoever and became LOTR:O, it looked like they took more out of the fantasy and put back in more of what we see in every mmo. In the article w/ the devs, they said they had spent 3yrs before that working on just how to make it go along w/ the BOOKS (they didn't have the rights to the movies, idk about now) closely as possible. I'm still gonna try the game, just because of my hopes. I'm really sick of fantasy stuff, but this is what invented fantasy. W/o Tolkien we would have no such things as Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and all that stuff like we do today. Yeah, they may have been there but not anywhere near as popular as they are today.
I'm not sure whom you are agreeing with, since BlueCayote's post was basically just accusing the guy that has quote from the "Council of Elrond", I believe the second chapter, of Book II of the Fellowship of the Ring ("The Ring goes East" in Tolkien's original vision, if I remember correctly, smushed together by publishers) of not knowing when J. R. R. Tolkien published his works.
Anyone that thinks I'm ignorant of the fact that Lord of the Rings predates WoW by far, is ignorant of what has actually been said in this thread. Effectively, my statement was the exact opposite of what Blue is trying to indict me of. Because Lord of the Rings inspired this whole genre, comparing it with a game that (reputedly) follows the formulaic aspects of the genre closely is going to yield similarities. I further expanded on the idea that it should be an RvR style game, pointing out that this would make it more like WoW, not less. Which is the portion of the text that is apparently the only part getting read.
I liked some of the original ideas better as well but I'm not going to pounce on LOTRO until I get a chance to play it. Though even in the original state, it was not going to feature any "evil" playable races. The game instead hinged on how the Free Peoples choose to fight the (NPC) Orcs/Trolls/Beasts. Every career path had essentially a "Destroy the Ring" and "Use the Ring" style of progression. If you were an Elf, for instance, you'd eventually mature from a base class into either an Avenger (bad) or a Scout (good).
If they do screw it up, then sure, the development team is more than worthy of the scorn being heaped on it. I think that just because they also made DDO is too weak a reason to make pre-emptive statements about what Turbine is or is not cloning. In fact, I don't know how DDO is actually doing but if it isn't getting the sort of numbers they wanted then, if anything, it would be a warning to Turbine of what will and will not sell (rather than something to be imitated).
I think that just because they also made DDO is too weak a reason to make pre-emptive statements about what Turbine is or is not cloning.
For the record, my observation that I suspect Turbine of just lifting code from one of their other games -- as opposed to explicitly designing an RPG model that "fits" Middle-Earth -- is not based solely on the fact that these are two games from the same developer. It's based on spending time researching the features of both games, and noting a particularly strong correspondence between the character classes of DDO and LOTRO.
I actually prefer to believe the best of people in the absence of clear evidence that they're up to something nefarious/stupid. And I freely admit I could be wrong about the correspondence I think I see between DDO's AD&D-inspired character classes and LOTRO's classes. It's possible that I'm too eager to see a lack of innovation on the part of a developer whose publishers are no doubt pushing hard to see a return on their investment.
But whether we're talking about a direct lifting of code or just cloning a concept, it's still the case the LOTRO will apparently ship with a small, cookie-cutter collection of utterly conventional combat-specific character classes.
So it's not necessarily that LOTRO copies WoW -- it's that everybody's copying the same tired concept: warrior, wizard, healer, rogue.
Comments
Man, I agree w/ you.
I really had high hopes for a game based on the books that invented this whole genre of medieval fantasy that we know today. Everything was invented by Tolkien and I was really looking forward to MEO when I read an article about it 3yrs ago in Computer Gaming mag.
After it was sold to whoever and became LOTR:O, it looked like they took more out of the fantasy and put back in more of what we see in every mmo.
In the article w/ the devs, they said they had spent 3yrs before that working on just how to make it go along w/ the BOOKS (they didn't have the rights to the movies, idk about now) closely as possible.
I'm still gonna try the game, just because of my hopes. I'm really sick of fantasy stuff, but this is what invented fantasy. W/o Tolkien we would have no such things as Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and all that stuff like we do today. Yeah, they may have been there but not anywhere near as popular as they are today.
A Work in Progress.
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In answer to your musings:
Middle Earth Online, now known as Lord of the Rings Online, was originally being developed by Siera Games Online (SGO). A subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.
Vivendi eventually canned SGO from the project and hired Turbine to do it. Turbine trashed pretty much all of the concepts that SGO originally planned for the game, making it what it is today.
A little bit of back story on this is available here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Earth_Online
When Siera was working on it I was really hopeful it would be something unique, different and true to Tolkien. Now that Turbine is doing it? I'll still try to get in the beta but I'm not really looking forward to it anymore. Their track record with MMORPG's isn't exactly stellar. I've been following this game since early 1999 when I first heard about it. Needless to say it's been a VERY long wait.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
If you read the preceeding paragraph of my post, that was my point.
People are complaining that LOTRO is a WoW clone while WoW is more of a LOTR inspired fantasy clone. And sometimes asking for gameplay that is more WoW-like!
It seems like BlueCoyote's total failure to absorb 2/3rds of the post I made from which that original quote came from has been carried over into page 2. I'm just moving the correction forward.
I'm not sure whom you are agreeing with, since BlueCayote's post was basically just accusing the guy that has quote from the "Council of Elrond", I believe the second chapter, of Book II of the Fellowship of the Ring ("The Ring goes East" in Tolkien's original vision, if I remember correctly, smushed together by publishers) of not knowing when J. R. R. Tolkien published his works.
Anyone that thinks I'm ignorant of the fact that Lord of the Rings predates WoW by far, is ignorant of what has actually been said in this thread. Effectively, my statement was the exact opposite of what Blue is trying to indict me of. Because Lord of the Rings inspired this whole genre, comparing it with a game that (reputedly) follows the formulaic aspects of the genre closely is going to yield similarities. I further expanded on the idea that it should be an RvR style game, pointing out that this would make it more like WoW, not less. Which is the portion of the text that is apparently the only part getting read.
I liked some of the original ideas better as well but I'm not going to pounce on LOTRO until I get a chance to play it. Though even in the original state, it was not going to feature any "evil" playable races. The game instead hinged on how the Free Peoples choose to fight the (NPC) Orcs/Trolls/Beasts. Every career path had essentially a "Destroy the Ring" and "Use the Ring" style of progression. If you were an Elf, for instance, you'd eventually mature from a base class into either an Avenger (bad) or a Scout (good).
If they do screw it up, then sure, the development team is more than worthy of the scorn being heaped on it. I think that just because they also made DDO is too weak a reason to make pre-emptive statements about what Turbine is or is not cloning. In fact, I don't know how DDO is actually doing but if it isn't getting the sort of numbers they wanted then, if anything, it would be a warning to Turbine of what will and will not sell (rather than something to be imitated).
For the record, my observation that I suspect Turbine of just lifting code from one of their other games -- as opposed to explicitly designing an RPG model that "fits" Middle-Earth -- is not based solely on the fact that these are two games from the same developer. It's based on spending time researching the features of both games, and noting a particularly strong correspondence between the character classes of DDO and LOTRO.
I actually prefer to believe the best of people in the absence of clear evidence that they're up to something nefarious/stupid. And I freely admit I could be wrong about the correspondence I think I see between DDO's AD&D-inspired character classes and LOTRO's classes. It's possible that I'm too eager to see a lack of innovation on the part of a developer whose publishers are no doubt pushing hard to see a return on their investment.
But whether we're talking about a direct lifting of code or just cloning a concept, it's still the case the LOTRO will apparently ship with a small, cookie-cutter collection of utterly conventional combat-specific character classes.
So it's not necessarily that LOTRO copies WoW -- it's that everybody's copying the same tired concept: warrior, wizard, healer, rogue.
This is really all we should expect?
--Flatfingers