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What's Fantasy? - Or what is it NOT!?
Meridion
Member UncommonPosts: 1,495
I've been reading through some upcoming game FAQs, informed myself about WAR (which I admittedly didn't even watch a litte so far) and I came to ask myself? What do people consider fantasy? Does this depend on where they are from, how old they are, what they've done before the IT-age?
SO heck, when I look at WAR I see a game that's so drastically overstyled and overloaded even my, as someone who actually liked WoW, eyes start to hurt. Still it is one of the most-anticipated titles ever. But most commonly cartoony overstyle-style is associated with little kids, or at least it's calles "littly kids style" by self-proclaimed "serious vets"...
So what is your ideal of a fantasy setting
EDIT: Duh, wanted to give examples for the first ones. Grade 1 is Roma Victor, grade 2 is the logical connecting segment that hasn't got any representative MMO as far as I know
SO heck, when I look at WAR I see a game that's so drastically overstyled and overloaded even my, as someone who actually liked WoW, eyes start to hurt. Still it is one of the most-anticipated titles ever. But most commonly cartoony overstyle-style is associated with little kids, or at least it's calles "littly kids style" by self-proclaimed "serious vets"...
So what is your ideal of a fantasy setting
EDIT: Duh, wanted to give examples for the first ones. Grade 1 is Roma Victor, grade 2 is the logical connecting segment that hasn't got any representative MMO as far as I know
Comments
Fantasy should be like in the fourth option (EverQuest II e.g.) and I like the idea of having huge floating islands among the clouds too.
Just no robots and other crap, that's too Star Warsy.
Maybe I been at it too long and it is time to retire. LOL
It's THE fantasy setting, basically.
Forgotten Realms are pretty good too, though
Tolkien's world needs more magic, or more mages.
Warhammer just got everything right IMO. Warhammer 40k is very much fantasy as well, IMO, instead of Sci-Fi. Just look at the Chainswords, the Orcs, the Tyranids ^_^ High-Tech Fantasy.
Warhammer all the way.
And it sounds cool: Warhammer.
Warhammer ftw.
Here are some verious pics of things the art style i like
I must say the orcs in Warhammer look really neat.
Though also because life is so mundane and normal for most people, they prefer the more cartoon like MMOs as it helps them to escape their boring normal life. Though in no way am I saying all people who play WoW are boring. I'll let others make their own mind up on that one!
But to simply answer the question, or at least give my opinion. I like games that have good game play, graphics and character customization. If it has these three things then I dont care how greater degree of fantasy it has in it.
First of all, Rep to this thread.
I myself really only enjoyed a couple of fantasy mmos. My first love would have to be UO, then along came EQ and that took it to a new whole level. I would love to see new games like old EQ, just buff up the engines and graphics. I loved the whole EQ system actually. -- I am now thinking why I am not playing it
I feel that UO/DAOC/EQ would have to be the main outline for fantasy for me, and am really hoping to see at least one title that resembles this.
Did you type their names incorrectly on purpose?
I have to state in advance that I am an original Tolkien reader, I've read the books long before I got a PC (or PCs were purchasable) and I always preferred Tolkien's world over any of the later universes, like Salvatores, the Warhammers/AD&D or the DSA lineage that is quite popular in central europe.
And I think you can openly state that the successors during the decades have each borrowed a lot lorewise, while Tolkien borrowed from mythology. Still, in my view, the concepts grew from "low"-fantasy very much into "high"-fantasy. faster, higher, stronger. Magic grew essential, dark elves, ogres, dragons were open. The farther the whole Fantasy thing advanced, the more visual and "fantasy" concepts got into it.
And I actually think the concepts kind of grew apart. The "Tolkien" idea of philological and geographic depth and heavy emphasis on classical prosaic processes (like classic drama) on the one side and the "action"loaded, vibrant and overwhelming worlds with emphasis on classical conflict and war. I would take this as far as claiming that even the communities somehow parted (and are for a small part reunited in games like Lord of the Rings online). It's like in RL, the one crowd goes to LARPs throwing fireballs and fighting battles, the other crowd reenacts the middle-ages on markets and festivals.
It's a very interesting division and maybe a reflection of current or upcoming MMO trends...
Meridion
I think the poll results are pretty telling - I predicted the outcome that I saw before submitting my vote. Granted, at the time, there were only 15 votes. It'll be interesting to see how the results evolve as more people put their opinions in.
I think the hyper-fantasy setting isn't grounded enough to ever be very popular. When most people read stories, watch movies, etc. they need to feel that at least some portion of the world is grounded in reality - with already-familiar concepts such as societal customs, weapons and armor, technology, geography, etc. The further an author gets from this, the more "work" a human brain must do in order to understand how that world works.
I also think that the technology with magic genre will continue to be weak, because few games, movies, or books have really been set in such a universe. There is such a dichotomy between technology and magic (related to science vs. religion somehow?), that many people have a difficult time putting the two together. It's very rare to see a batallion of tanks go up against fifteen grizzled, grey-haired wizards firing lightning bolts.
So until something else comes along to change the minds of others, I think the most dominant worlds will be very similar.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
Tokien had a lot of fighting and battles in the book as well. They weren't about getting together in midevil festivals.
One thing about stories like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars there are powerful characters. In Lord of the Rings you have charactesr like Gandalf and in Star Wars you have Jedi. This makes for less exciting PvE game because you can't incorperate these powerful classes into the game for everyone to enjoy. D&D made magic more commonplace so now anyone could be a great wizard and fling fireballs like Gandalf. To me thats a great thing.
LOTR is also interpreted in differrent ways. Remember the Hobbit Cartoon? I loved that cartoonistic impression of Tolkiens world. LOTRO is more realistic and more like the movies.
I think the poll results are pretty telling - I predicted the outcome that I saw before submitting my vote. Granted, at the time, there were only 15 votes. It'll be interesting to see how the results evolve as more people put their opinions in.
I think the hyper-fantasy setting isn't grounded enough to ever be very popular. When most people read stories, watch movies, etc. they need to feel that at least some portion of the world is grounded in reality - with already-familiar concepts such as societal customs, weapons and armor, technology, geography, etc. The further an author gets from this, the more "work" a human brain must do in order to understand how that world works.
I also think that the technology with magic genre will continue to be weak, because few games, movies, or books have really been set in such a universe. There is such a dichotomy between technology and magic (related to science vs. religion somehow?), that many people have a difficult time putting the two together. It's very rare to see a batallion of tanks go up against fifteen grizzled, grey-haired wizards firing lightning bolts.
So until something else comes along to change the minds of others, I think the most dominant worlds will be very similar.
You see this kind of thing a lot of Asian Anime so I don't think it's too hard to grasp. Us American's just don't seem to think like that yet.
Let me take an example here. Conflicts in Tolkiens world almost thoroughly evolve through personal emotions, personal heritage, likes an dislikes. Tolkien focuses on this, he's almost obsessed with it (not as much as philology or geography of course, but a lot). Beren, Luthien, Turin, Morwen, Aldarion, Isildur, you can look at pretty much any major character throughout the three ages and you will find that their personal fate prjected on the development of peace and conflict alike. So what I wanted to say is that this is a very classical approach to "fantasy".
While newer universes focus on substantial yet latent reasons for conflict, like territorial, ressource or simply cultural interests. Which makes way for a much more general reason to fight, reign and conquer. Trolls are violent, orcs are brutal, dark elves are hideos, men are powerhungry, elves are noble, dwarves are grounded. Modern fantasy-concepts and lore work very much on this foundation, like "Sure, the A-people hate the B-people, because the B-people are not A-people"...
I'm not saying that one concept is generally superior; the interesting point here is - Why did this division happen? Because the general population has split into PC-lovers and non-PC-lovers? Because people are jaded after decades of all kinds of fantasy?
Oh yea, and medieval festivals usually include a fair bit of (sometimes pretty real) swordfighting...
Meridion
I think if you read fantasy books today there is usually a good backround around why there are conflicts between differnt races. Also if you read the lore for the games there is also usually a decent reason why the differnt races dislike eachother. Warcraft has a whole history going back from orcs vs humans. Everquest builds on the D&D Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance that was very popular when it came out. Though none of the lore is as deep as Tolkiens there is backround story for these differnt conflicts. Of course the stories are similiar so you start to take it for granted after a while. Before RA Savatore wrote the Drizzt books Dark Elves weren't even a part of games for the most part. After D&D built upon the popularity of those books and wrote in depth stories about them and their culture they seem to be in a lot of MMOs now.
Also, for any interested, Michael Moorcock's Wizardry and Wild Romance provides a good start for those looking to delve deeper into the genre. His essay bashing Tolkien, titled "Epic Pooh", is particularly of interest, whether you agree with him or not.
Meridion
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.
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Meridion
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.
MMORPG.COM has worst forum editor ever exists
I voted the EQ2 option, it is, more tolkien based-worlds like Warhammer, or its plagiators Warcraft, wooden houses, cows, dwarfs, elves and wizards, from the Dragonlance to the more deep Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone... in one hand. Howard's Hyborian Age is set in we, the fantasy, scifi collectors name as Sword&Sorcery, a kind of 'low Fantasy' were magic and monsters are horrid and very rare and strange to find, it's more connected to Horror H.P. Lovecraft-styled than not to a pretty ever-magic tolkien lore.
If there are planets, cars, engines, lasers, starships and so then is Sci-fi.
If someone mix it up to a crazy world with elves handling proton bolters then is Fantascience.
The origin of both Warhammer(and its copy Warcraft) and the thousands of fantasy MMO's is Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, as a well-funded lore, traditions, languages, races, kingdoms and so, so so on, and a good literary work made it brilliant, self-standing and over all the most readed book of XXth Century. And seeing the sequels, movies, games and the elvish-dwarf-etc school's endless name of published works, the most culturally influent, I'd dare to say.
It is a question of fangs.
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.
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