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Chris Taylor on Middle Earth Online
Recently, GameSpy's Andrew Bub caught up with Vivendi Univeral's Chris Taylor (of Fallout and Starfleet Command) at GenCon to talk about their Middle Earth Online MMORPG which is in the works. A lot of ground is covered, from which parts of middle earth will be in the game, to how they manage to keep track of all of Tolkien's lore, to Tom Bombadil's poetry.
I'm a Tolkien fanboy...no question about it. I can't help but wonder if this game will damage his creation (Middle-Earth). I don't know how they are going to effectivelly make a MMORPG out of this...there are only a few main characters (maybe around 25 at the most). How can they have a million and a half Aragorns running around in a Middle-Earth. If they start making up their own characters, it will throw the whole basis of the storyline off...especially if they can't touch the Silmarillion. At least the Silmarillion left enough open stories to make a better game...LOTR is such a closed and set in stone story to make a MMORPG of it. I could see an RPG, but a MMORPG won't work. I for one, won't buy it...regardless of my high regards for the original author. I may play a little of it at a friends house or something, but I have no desire to support the tainting.