"When we introduce richly entertaining offerings like Majestic, Earth & Beyond and The Sims Online, the result is going to impress a lot of people."

okay we have a game thats going to use email for its gameplay, a game that EA didn't even want to develop, and a crappy wannabe action "persistent" online game over a proven (albeit far from beta) UO2 game. yes they made a logical decision for NOW, but UO is gonna turn out like The Realm and Meridian 59. . . dead. They could have developed a future game that could possibly last them 5 - 10 years with UO2. . . but with UO they at best have 2 years to milk.

btw, Earth and Beyond what makes me want to play it more than any other game? or majestic for that matter? (ill give em Sims Online though that was a miracle of a game they didn't even want to make!)

plus pogo/ea.com will die a fast death like mplayer and heat and the new Triple Play is crap.

etc

UO is somewhat unique; if they can freshen it up with new content periodically, it might last a long time. I'm not confident about the kind of effort they're going to put into it, though.

Yeah, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes if EA is really committed to online games. There's going to be increasing competition and I suspect we'll see more churn in these games as players start migrating from one game to another more quickly.

The decision was a surprise to Origin as well, from what I've been reading.

Sorry, I'm a little clueless here.

Why would there be churn? In the online services battles (before AOL really took over) there was tons of churn, but consumers had a lot of incentive to do it. Message boards were bigger than email, so there wasn't a real hassle with moving your address. The services offered all kinds of incentives to join: free months, free hours, reduced rates. I can see wanting to try different things, but from what little I understand, it sounds like to build a character worth playing for any period of time, you have to stay put, at least for a period of time. Is this right?

Isn't churn in a MMORP the opposite of this? You lose your character and have to start anew somewhere else. And is there any financial benefit to swapping out games?

Also, isn't this the game Garriott left over, when they canceled his X project to develop it?

And isn't this the game where they were going to use the (hopefully debugged) version of that massively expensive 9and admittedly very pretty) graphics engine they developed for U9?

If so, Yowza. What a bath EA is taking on this one.

I think there will be more churn because there will be more of these games launched. Yeah, it will be hard to leave behind a character, but I think we'll see it happen with greater frequency since the players will have more choice. And btw, I don't mean they'll just play for a couple of months and quit; I just mean they might now play for 18 months before quitting.

Garriott left over X being cancelled. I don't think UO2 had anything to do with his leaving. I don't know of UO2 used a version of the Ascension engine.

I did a lot of reading on UO2 right after if was first announced. I never read anything about it being developed on the Ascension engine, either. I kept hoping that it might be, and it would have made sense, because it was so beautiful. I guess now we'll never know.

When UO and EQ were new, you saw a lot of migration from Meridian 59 and the slew of 2D RPGs over to the new generation. I suspect that hardcore online RPG fans will shift from one came to another only after a long period of time when they've exhausted the possibilities of their current pasttime, and when there's another choice that seems like an upgrade. I rather doubt that there will be that much lateral movement. I suspect gamers will stick with one throughout that generation of games, then move on. But who knows? We haven't seen the next generation yet .

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I suspect that hardcore online RPG fans will shift from one game to another only after a long period of time when they've exhausted the possibilities of their current pasttime, and when there's another choice that seems like an upgrade.

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The guild I was in in EQ--most of whom migrated en masse long ago to a new server when the one we were on filled up (they left me behind, too )--came as a group initially from Meridian 59. Lots of the early EQ people did.


Asheron's Call suffered not just from graphics envy, but because (and this is just my $.02 worth) the world wasn't very familiar. It was too "original," without really adding enough by virtue of its originality. Religiously avoiding any Tolkein-esque orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, and the like in and of itself isn't necessarily any better than slavishly including them--and in the case of AC, I think folks had a hell of a time getting interested in fighting Drudges and what not.

A troll by any other name, even wearing a different skin, is still a troll. That's the impression I got looking at screenshots of Asheron's call. It looked like they have basically the same creatures, but renamed them and gave them new skins, making it harder for you to recognize what you were up against, and making you learn an entirely new nomenclature for the same old thing. If you are going to go different, go really, really different. You'll either bomb or have a 2-year head start on the clonemakers, ya?

AC also suffered from the fact that they were competing against a very evolved system. When EQ came out, UO was still being refined to fix a lot of the bugs and lag problems that it had. People were willing to leave UO for EQ because of their frustration with said bugs and lag (also, most people prefer a first person view for total immersion games like MMORPGs). However, when AC came out, EQ had already fixed most of the major player concerns and had almost zero lag to speak of.

All of the complaints that come out of EQ now are from people who have been playing for 2 years and are looking for new challenges or are just nit picking. If EQ had been having the same problems that UO was having when AC was released, I think you would have seen a much larger migration to AC.

I do, however, think that EQ is going to be hurt by Anarchy Online. Even if AO only manages to snag 20% of EQs server base, it will be a huge victory for Funcom.

But hey, I think EQ has been out long enough that people have seen all there is to see and have done all there is to do. I doubt they'll cancel their accounts right away, but I can see a lot of dual playing until they decide which game they prefer.

I want to like Anarchy Online, but I can't figure out the controls and I can't get out of like the first room while playing the beta . Of course, I haven't read any documentation, either .

"I want to like Anarchy Online, but I can't figure out the controls and I can't get out of like the first room while playing the beta . Of course, I haven't read any documentation, either."

Ha ha -- that happened to me too. It's pretty neat once you figure things out, but I don't think the sci-fi setting has as much appeal as the high fantasy setting.

"Asheron's Call suffered not just from graphics envy, but because (and this is just my $.02 worth) the world wasn't very familiar. It was too "original," without really adding enough by virtue of its originality. Religiously avoiding any Tolkein-esque orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, and the like in and of itself isn't necessarily any better than slavishly including them--and in the case of AC, I think folks had a hell of a time getting interested in fighting Drudges and what not."

I agree 100%. If they had only gone to a multi-race high fantasy setting like EQ, I think they'd have twice as many subscribers. Those drudges were the pits.

I read about games like Atriarch, which has walking plant people as a player race, and I just wonder why they're designing it that way? Being original doesn't equate to being fun.

I've been a lurker here, but I might as well stop. Anyway, what's been bothering me about Anarchy Online is, I've seen at least a couple of authoritative release-date listings (such as on EBWorld) state that the game is due out within the next two weeks. That just can't be right.

Unless Funcom has the biggest and best QA team in all of Norway, there's no way that game will be finished by then. In fact, I can't imagine that the game would be reasonably balanced and bug free for another three months or so.

People might have dealt with it when EverQuest was unstable/unbalanced for awhile two years ago; but I hope Funcom doesn't assume that these sorts of growing pains are acceptable or intrinsic to the MMORPG genre. At this point, would someone really make the switch from EverQuest to a much buggier game? I doubt it. Anarchy Online has a lot of good ideas, but it's half-baked right now.

--Greg Kasavin

Mark said:

"Yeah, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes if EA is really committed to online games."

That would be a big switch; they've been totally gung-ho for the online stuff for the past eighteen months or so. All their marketing has been really playing up the online aspect of their games, and they allegedly shot down a few project specifically because they weren't online games.

Maybe EA is waking up and smelling the coffee. We'll see.

As for Anarchy Online--I agree, it's not coming out in two weeks. I'd be surprised to see it out much before Christmas.

"I hope Funcom doesn't assume that these sorts of growing pains are acceptable or intrinsic to the MMORPG genre."

I hope not too, but there's no telling what their finances are like and they may feel they have to launch in the next few months.

AO has a good chance of being successful if they have a good launch. They'll be the first science fiction game and they have the best graphic engine. I don't see them doing EverQuest numbers, but I think they have potential to have a larger subscriber base than AC.

The next game I see competing with Everquest numbers in mmrpg's won't be exactly "persistent" world. IMO, the next big wave will be a cross between Diablo and Everquest. If you look to a game like Phantasy Star Online with a semi-persistent world THEN I think we will have a best seller in an mmrpg. Plus I think the ability to have mods will be big as well... Neverwinter Nights might prove to be the stepping stone...or maybe even Dungeon Siege (though both these games arent exactly mmrpgs...)

Until then, i don't see total mmrpg subscribers ever crossing over a million, not too many ppl have enough time to actually "work" to have fun in these games. as well, i think some mmrpg developers really shouldn't want that many subscribing players, i think 100,000 subscirbers (depending on development and network costs) is very reasonable to support over a number of years, and still turn a good profit...i think though it depends on management in that case too.

etc

I agree with you Greg (and welcome btw) about Anarchy Online.

But I fear you're right about them thinking they can get away with the "growing pains" like EQ and UO did (and did again with 2nd Age and I fully expect Third Dawn to be unfinished as well). MMORPG'ers have proven themselves too tolerant in the past and AO might learn that isn't true for everyone with a problematic release.

But then again, if it is a mess. The title sure fits.

--Andrew

I have a hunch that Dark Age of Camelot will do well, though it won't have "blockbuster" numbers ala EQ/UO, i think it may outlast a lot of the other mmrpgs, such as Anarchy Online and Shadowbane.

but really though, theres not much mmrpgs which will be out by the end of this year. . . only Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot come close imo. Shadowbane, dareisay, could be cancelled like UO2...

"MMORPG'ers have proven themselves too tolerant in the past and AO might learn that isn't true for everyone with a problematic release. "

Gamers have been tolerating buggy crap for years, that's why the companies keep releasing them that way. They know that gamers will bend over and take it - like in UO.

Well, it's been a while heh.
Anyway, to respond to what the first dude said:

"plus pogo/ea.com will die a fast death like mplayer and heat and the new Triple Play is crap."

I can speak as a former employee of Mplayer. Mplayer was one of the few networks out there that made money - several million dollars every year. HearMe sold us to GameSpy because they wanted to focus on their products, rather than a massive gaming site that was taking up a large amount of resources. I've never really been a big fan of GameSpy, but now that they've cost me my job (Graphic designer at XtremeNetwork.com), and their plans for Mplayer just irritate me even more (no offense Mark, but I don't like your current 'employer'). Heat would ave stayed open if SegaSoft had survived. It was also doing moderately well (still losing money, but not massive amounts). SegaSoft's other ventures were costing too much money.

Also, I really don't feel any urge to try out AO. The sci-fi setting, as Mark had mentioned, just isn't as interesting as a fantasy setting. It may work for RPGs like Fallout and Deus Ex, but not for an MMORPG. Shadowbane just looks like crap, in my opinion, and Origin was the next game that actually appealed to me. The problem with the focus on UO is that, no matter how you dress it up, it's still a game with majorly horrible graphics. Third Dawn looks equally bad. Bad 3D graphics aren't necessarily better than 'okay' 2d ones. I guess I'll have to wait for Horizons... if it's ever released.

ugh, I've got spelling and grammar mistakes galore in my first post there. I need to start being my own editor. heh. Greg and Robert, know of any staff openings at your respective employers? ;P

"no offense Mark, but I don't like your current 'employer'"

No offense taken. It would be hard for me to wish them well if they cost me my job too.

That's interesting that MPlayer made money, but I wonder if it was going to continue to do so with the advertising downturn? I don't even know how Gamespy makes money. Most of their ads are house ads. I can't believe that Gamespy software sells that much.

As to new MMORPGs, it looks like AC2 and EQ2 may be the best fantasy MMORPGs coming down the pike, and they're a long way off. Horizons just seems like too much pie in the sky stuff.

Planetside could be cool if lag isn't a problem. I like the idea of a persistent world shooter.

I think we're going to see as the massively multiplayer gaming scene grows, if not to maturity then at least to adolescence, that companies that have existing products have a huge leg up on companies trying to break into the buisiness. This disparity will only grow as time goes on. Sony/Verant, EA, and Microsoft are the ones right now, in probably roughly that order of popularity, but I think in the long run Sony/Verant and Microsoft will be on top; EA could very well be there too, but they're too erratic to guess about right now.


Anyhow, these firms have proven they can create MMORPGs and people will pay to play them. They blazed trails in different ways, suffered through the horendous birthpangs of this genre, and have built up a stock of people and tools to deal with the day to day necessities of running one of these beasts. This sort of expertise gets more and more expensive to create from whole cloth each year, not less. So new companies have to be pretty damn good and pretty damn smart to actualy 1) get a game beyond the concept stage into actual online play, 2) get the game a publisher, 3) prove it works in a big beta, 4) actually publish it, 5) maintain it, and 6) make money off of it.


It will be done, but not by nearly as many companies as are already competing for the pie out there.

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It will be done, but not by nearly as many companies as are already competing for the pie out there.

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Yep. I figure that whatever the actual pool of people willing to spend the time to play MMORPGs regularly, this number will always be too small to sustain the number of MMORPGs in development or operation at any given time.

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I figure that whatever the actual pool of people willing to spend the time to play MMORPGs regularly, this number will always be too small to sustain the number of MMORPGs in development or operation at any given time.

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Yeah, you guys are totally on the mark there. I mean, if you go to RPG Vault (at IGN), there are loads of MMORPG sites. Three months ago, there were even more (Dark Zion and such got cancelled early in development), and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. I can only imagine that all these companies don't realize just how many resources a game is going to take. Even if your game isn't a commercial success, you'll still have to make it an enjoyable experience for the few that did buy it. You can totally abandon a game after release, but you better believe that those people who bought your game will never buy another one of your titles. Drawing from the pie analogy, in an industry with so many different pieces of pie, you better make a damn good pie. If you make one mistake, your pie is going to fail badly. Whether it be apple, blueberry, or cherry, it's still pie. Okay, enough with the pie thing - I'm having too much 'fun' with it ;p

Anyway, going back to the discussion about AC. I loved that game. There was just something about the allegiance system that gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. If someone could mix the multi-racial fantasy world of EQ with the craftsmanship of UO with the social system of AC... wow. That game would be destined for greatness. "Asheron Calls Ultima Quests Online forEver," anyone? Phone's rining - it's probably GoD with a publishing offer. ;p

"I can only imagine that all these companies don't realize just how many resources a game is going to take."

Surely they know it takes a big team to support these games. We're all on the outside looking in and we understand that. My guess is that most are like Wolfpack Studios. Their plan is to develop the game and get someone else (G.O.D., but they're rumored to be ditching the project) to publish it and host the servers and pay for the support staff.

The problem with this plan is that most of the publishers are already spoken for. EA and Sony have their titles. Infogrames reportedly has a D&D Online game in the works. Havas wants to do a Middle Earth game. Interplay has a Fallout title lined up.

I suspect we'll see a lot of MMORPG projects start to die after E3.

"Even if your game isn't a commercial success, you'll still have to make it an enjoyable experience for the few that did buy it."

How can a small team compete with Verant and Turbine in production values? Like it or not, most of us put visual polish near the top of the list of features we like in games. The ante's getting raised significantly with Verant's Star Wars Galaxies and the unannounced EverQuest 2. Turbine will probably be right up there too. EA seems to have dropped the ball, though.

"Havas wants to do a Middle Earth game. "

Wow, I would be glad to hear if Blizzard was working on a mmmrpg on the Middle Earth license...Blizzard fails to fail yet...and i could see them outselling even EQ if they got the Middle Earth license. With the movie coming out, I could see a middle earth mmrpg cleaning up on even Star Wars Galxies!

I'm not really too dissapointed with EA about the UO2 cancellation, more that I'm a little dismauyed at how a company as great as Origin used to be has just bitten the bullet. Just a few years ago they had numerous good games like Wing Commander and Ultima and games like Crusader we're pretty cool too. Reading Desslocks last rpg article kind of...was sad.

also the fact that no other rpg like ultima 7 with a seemingly lving, breathing world (UO felt close) has ever been done again...though Arcanum might be it. Hell I'd be happy with games like EQ/AC/Uo solo player with the same gameplay with just a little more randomness, and all offline.

also, I liked Mplayer, the players i played with on Mplayer were pretty cool (generally speaking) and the earlier versions of mplayer (without the browser support) were nice. i didn't mean to say that mplayer was bad.

etc

Havas in this case is Sierra. Some fan site has a rumor that they've been working on a Middle Earth game.

ah, I always think of HAvas and Blizzard alone, forgot that Sierra was under Havas. It would be pretty ironic if out of nowhere Sierra had a beta version of Middle Earth online this summer and then suddenly when LoTR hits the screen xmas 2001, the game is out the door. . . though thats just a fantasy on my part!

its beyond me why they DON'T have ANY rpg set for release with the movie...could rake in some cash imo. maybe theres seekrit projekt dont tell until release!

etc

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Havas in this case is Sierra. Some fan site has a rumor that they've been working on a Middle Earth game.

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I think that most companies are probably intimidated by an ME license. I mean, you've got one of the most popular stories in history. It's what I like to call Episode 1 Syndrome - no matter how good it is, people will be disappointed. But you're right - if they could make a high-quality game based on that mythology, it could be one of the biggest sellers of all time.

Going waaaayyy back to the first post in this thread. Majestic should be one of the most unique gaming experiences ever, if not the most. It's completely interactive, as you become part of the game.

There have been many attempts, but none have really been anything to shout about. In fact, most of the games I've seen have been pretty lame. I had one that was almost Ultima-style, from back in the day, and it was pretty okay, but it certainly wasn't ever going to be a best-seller. In fact, if it hadn't had the name going for it, it might have really sucked.

Visual standards: If you're going to spend hours and hours each week (each day, for some) in one of these online games, it damn well better look good. One of the reasons I got hooked on EQ for a while was its look and feel. Utterly engrossing for a time.

Middle Earth: Most if not all Tolkien-based PC games so far have sucked. Iron Crown Enterprises has done a lot of work with their Middle Earth Roleplaying games, and some boardgames, but on the computer we've had lame strategy games mainly IIRC. Part of the problem is the Lord of the Rings is so character driven that developing a role-playing game where no one is actually Aragorn or Gimli (Arrowroot? Gimlet? Bored of the Rings, anyone?) poses certain, um, challenges. I mean, how exciting is roaming around Middle Earth without the context of the Fellowship and the War of the Ring? ICE got around this challenge it seems by loading their game modules up with intense detail about the world and its denizens and events, and by offering incredibly detailed locations. In a computer game, I'm afraid the design would either be so esoteric no one but Tolkien geeks would want it, or it would be generic, Baldur's Gate with Tolkien trappings. Dunno.


Publishers: Few publishers now want to take on a MMORPG. It costs a lot; the price of entry is sky-high. Developers hoping to land backing better round up capital themselves if they can. As has been said already, the big boys already have their toys.

D&D: With Infogrames being the new owner of all things d20 on the PC, speculation is rampant as to what the hell they will do with the license. Black Isle and BioWare had a great run of D&D games, but what's in the PC pipeline now? Neverwinter Nights, from BioWare, looks good, and Stormfront Studios' SSI-published Pool of Radiance II could be good (or not, depending--it's very hard to tell, and if SSI does its usual kick it out the door with no support routine, the game will die, mark my words), but after that? There's a Baldur's Gate game for the PS2 (which actually looks good, and I'll probably buy it), but nuthin' else that I can see.

"D&D: With Infogrames being the new owner of all things d20 on the PC, speculation is rampant as to what the hell they will do with the license."

I've heard that a team in Austin was working on a D&D MMORPG, but I have no idea at this point what's going on. I've heard some cryptic comments about an announcement to be made soon, but I heard those same comments a year ago.

Infogrames is probably starting from scratch with most D&D projects. The license was the result of a tug-of-war between WotC and Hasbro Interactive, with HI getting to do games first and then WotC wresting that away from them and now Hasbro selling the license to Infogrames.

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Part of the problem is the Lord of the Rings is so character driven that developing a role-playing game where no one is actually Aragorn or Gimli (Arrowroot? Gimlet? Bored of the Rings, anyone?) poses certain, um, challenges. I mean, how exciting is roaming around Middle Earth without the context of the Fellowship and the War of the Ring?

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I may sound like I'm talking about of my ass here, but I think the biggest hurdle for a Tolkein world game is that that are already so many of them. What you say? Tolkein is the most cloned fantasy world ever. D&D, Krondor, and pretty well every other mythical fantasy world uses Tolkein streotypes for their races. Elves are 6 feet tall, thin, have pointy ears, reproduce slowly, and live hundreds of years. Dwarves are short, they are great smiths and miners, they're grumpy, and they love to fight. Humans multiply like rats and have curiosity unlike any other race. Sooo, when you play a D&D computer game, you are actually playing a Tolkein game. When you play a Tolkein game, you say to yourself "Bah, this is just like Pool of Radiance" or "Return to Krondor" or whatever. They have to avoid the "me too" syndrome, so they end up not being able to make a good Tolkein game without it seeming like a cheap clone.

Hell, even Warcraft I and II were nothing more than Tolkein style RTS games.

"Maybe it's because Tolkein didn't give us a whole lot outside the context of the characters. Tolkein went to a lot of trouble to make a complete world, but not enough of it got passed on..."

I think you've missed a lot of reading. Not much of it good reading but Tolkien did sort of leave behind: Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion and the appendices in Return of the King.

ICE did flesh it out extremely well but Robert Mayer is right, so much of Tolkien was borrowed from mythology and so much has been stolen for D&D, any Middle Earth game will just look like any other fantasy RPG. Instead of Candlekeep we visit Bree. Instead of Durgath's Tower we visit Moria, etc.,

Also, so far as a MMORPG goes... Ents are immortal, Elves are immortal and there really are ONLY four wizards and one Ranger in the entire world.

Also, Bob, I tracked down a copy of Bored of the Rings. It took me 3 years of used bookstore browsing... damn... now I bet it can be found on the Internet in five minutes.

I also have Doon.
It takes place on Arruckus the Dessert Planet.
Harvard Lampoon, thou art no where near as humorous as The Onion.

----------Andrew

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I think you've missed a lot of reading. Not much of it good reading but Tolkien did sort of leave behind: Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion and the appendices in Return of the King.

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Also, so far as a MMORPG goes... Ents are immortal, Elves are immortal and there really are ONLY four wizards and one Ranger in the entire world.

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They would have to make alot of compromises with the Middle Earth license to be playable, but thats a small price to pay to be able to play in areas like Hobbiton or Moria, or seeing the likes of Galdriel and Gandalf...it would be just plain cool is all.

Besides im not too thrilled to be able to play a "wookie" in star wars galaxies...something i dont like about playing ANY of those creatures in the bar in Star Wars...too much like Muppets for my taste...i prefer high fantasy, which i think EQ proves does sell.

"Not much of it good reading but Tolkien ..."

btw, what DO you consider good fantasy reading...Tolkien is a master! naysayer begone!

etc

Michael Murphy spewed forth:

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and I'm not sure about there only being one ranger -- I don't think I agree, but I don't have documentation one way or the other.

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"Not much of it good reading but Tolkien ..."

btw, what DO you consider good fantasy reading...Tolkien is a master! naysayer begone!

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Wasn't Faramir a leader of a party of Rangers? They all wore grey cloaks and crap. I swore they too, were woodsy folk who scouted around and shot stuff with arrows.

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There were other Rangers like Aragorn I think, descendents of the other High Men, but damn few; Faramir and his guys were not quite the same sort of Rangers I don't think, but I'm no Tolkien scholar. As for Wizards, I can't remember how many but I thought for some reason there were more than four, but lemme see...Gandalf, Radagast, Saruman, and um, uh, ok, I give.

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As for Wizards, I can't remember how many but I thought for some reason there were more than four, but lemme see...Gandalf, Radagast, Saruman, and um, uh, ok, I give.

---

I keep getting the pedigrees mixed up. I mean, these guys start off as one thing and wind up another....

Sauron was not one of the Istari--they didn't come to Middle Earth until the beginning of the Third Age, long after Sauron came into power and even after the first war of the rings. Sauron was Morgoth's servant, and that's where he derived all of his power.

There were actually five Istari, although only three of them show up in the Lord of the Rings, as Bob pointed out.

Also, there were lots of rangers in the LOTR, although Faramir was not one of them. Remember all those folks who met up and rode with Aragorn when he took the Paths of the Dead to get to Minas Tirith? They were all Dunedain--rangers of the north. In fact, that's how Halbarad, their leader, introduces himself.

The Dunedain themselves are actually the remnants of the kingdom of Arnor, and secretly the protectors of Isildur's heirs. The hobbits and the Bree-folk (and at some points in the books the men of Rohan) call them "rangers," because they have no clue who they actually are.

Wow! I applaud you in your studiousness. (Is that even a word? It is now.) I knew someone out there would know.

Yeah, Ben is our resident Tolkien geek. Every office needs one .

See, years ago, I would have known that. (I could never begin to count how many book reports I did over the Hobbit...One a year, from the fourth grade until my junior year in high school, I think. Only had to read it once every three or four years, to brush up on the details.) But it's been so long since I read any of those books, I've lost all that information.

Thanks Ben (Felderin),
I'm impressed. During this thread I kept looking over at my little Tolkien shelf thinking "should I look it all up?"

Anyway, what do you think of my theory? I can't imagine a Middle Earth MMORPG precisely because I can't imagine Hobbits, Istari, Ents, Dunedain and other rarities being common... and it still being "Tolkien".

--Anduin

Well, in answer to that I'd suggest that you take a look at Iron Crown's Middle Earth Role-Playing Game. It's been around for a long time, and it's really good (I used to run a Second Age campaign in it, and I've played in several).

The answer is that you DON'T make all those things common, unless you want to ruin the flavor of Tolkien's world. Most players would probably be humans, or elves, or dwarves, or (more rarely, since they don't travel outside the Shire much) hobbits. You wouldn't be able to play an Istari, any more than you'll be able to play the Emperor in the Star Wars online game. You wouldn't be able to play an Ent, any more than you'd be able to play a dragon in Ultima Online. They just aren't suitable for player characters. Even if you limit it to just humans (most of the players in my game played human characters), there's still lotd of interesting things to do. I hate this recent attitude that unless a game offers 20 different player races, it can't be any fun. That's a load of crap--the race you choose has very little effect on how much fun the game is to play, at least not for me.

That said, I think Middle Earth is really poorly suited for a massively multiplayer game. Tolien's books have a very epic, heroic flavor to them, and online RPGs are pretty much limited to low fantasy by default (it's hard to have a hero-based game when everyone in the world is a player). The whole idea just seems ill-considered.

Yeah,
I have played MERP (but never with a good "DM"). And it struck me that the game should be limiting. The point is to be in the world of Tolkien, not to be the Ringbearer yourself.
I'd love to see a Middle Earth RPG though. Even a remake of War in Middle Earth would be welcome, even though that wasn't a great game way back when.

So, I agree.
The problem with a MMORPG is there is no limiting factor, like a DM. Everyone is going to want to be Gandalf or Legolas. Impose limits, like you can in a pen and paper RPG and you'll have uprisings.

Same problem with the Star Wars game. Bunch of freaking Jedi and Boba Fetts running around and getting married to each other. ;-)

-Angmar

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Even a remake of War in Middle Earth would be welcome, even though that wasn't a great game way back when.

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"There was another RPG based on Middle Earth that came out a few years later, and it was pretty good, thought I can't remember the name. It reminded me of Ultima, just a tad."

--how do you do your fancy quote thing?--

I think it was called "The Lord of the Rings" and it was released by Interplay.

And I think the only reason I remember War in Middle Earth so fondly was because I was broke, roughly 16, and had way too much freetime to spend with it.

Andrew

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I think it was called "The Lord of the Rings" and it was released by Interplay.

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And I think the only reason I remember War in Middle Earth so fondly was because I was broke, roughly 16, and had way too much freetime to spend with it.

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