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Chris Taylor on Middle Earth Online

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the hobbits-and-orcs dept.

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.

11 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Tolken's rolling in his grave.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mass media's doing to Tolken's fine works as they do to everything else that's "popular". They're Over-saturizing his books.

    I wouldnt be surprised in 2 years, most people will hate the "Lord Of the Rings" series of books. In a way, It's kind of sad.

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    1. Re:Tolken's rolling in his grave.... by IIRCAFAIKIANAL · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're probably right, though Tolkien was rolling (his eyes) when he saw people dressing up as elves in the 60's, IIRC, so I doubt this would surprise him.

      It will be kinda sad when leet games are all bragging about the phat lewt they got camping the Shelob spawn...

      In any case, at least with the media saturation, many new people are exposed to Tolkiens work - hell, some of em may make it through the Silmarillion :)

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      Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
  2. Be glad you weren't named after a character.... by quinkin · · Score: 3, Interesting
    As someone who was named after a character of the LOTR (blame my whacked out parents not me) I can tell you I have had more than enough...

    I'm glad it is a pretty obscure character. Any Aragorn's or Bilbo's out there?

    Q.

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    Insert Signature Here
  3. It should be good by PaleZer0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I, one who hasn't ever played a true mmorpg, can't wait for this title. When I first heard about these persistant world games, Middle Earth jumped out at me. I'm surprised it took THIS long for someone to make one. It takes and incredible wealth of details to make a good world, and Tolkien is one of the few who has seemingly thought about each and every one.

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    PaleHour
    1. Re:It should be good by Kirby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, Sierra was working on the title - one of my gaming buddies was a developer on this game. It got cancelled several months after they moved all the programmers from Northern California to Seattle.

      As it turns out, a former gaming buddy of mine now works at Turbine in Boston, and is working on this project (in a sysadmin capacity.) Small world! Though, these two friends of mine have never met.

      There's no connection whatsoever between the two projects. The only thing that changed hands was the license, no code or design work.

      (The former Middle Earth developer is now working on Pirates of the Burning Sea, a pirate MMORPG. Which looks cool, in this early stage of development, and I won't say more.)

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      -- Kate
  4. there goes another 15 bucks a month by Lucia_Inverse · · Score: 2, Funny

    but hey atleast its not evercrack ;-).... wait... i have a lev 52 wizzard on the karana server... doh....

  5. An unfortunate built in limit by MBraynard · · Score: 5, Insightful
    MMORPG's require constant updates to add new quests/content. Given how limited the liscence is for this game - "We're only allowed to use the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and parts of the appendices, which are not in the Silmarillion" - how are they going to grow beyong the licence of the game in those books?

    This compares to the Star Wars games, where Lucas has approved an entire expanded lore, as has Paramount with Star Trek.

    Ultimatly, this game will force the creation of non-Tolkien, expanded lore or it will fail.

    1. Re:An unfortunate built in limit by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Insightful

      they don't really have to. if they just slap up a world with all the cities described in lotr&hobbit, it's really enough.

      basically, if it's set around the war of the ring or near those times, there's no need to poke into silmarillion described parts of the world.

      besides, it's an mmorpg, my belief is that most of the game is going to end up killing the rats in some big woods with most of the other players doing the same, so it doesn't really matter if you can't 'go west' so to speak. now, if it had same aspects of freedom as morrowind it might be fun.

      -

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      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. Ooh, the Cracks of Doom quest! by SnowDog_2112 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I personally can't wait to see Tolkien's world totally trashed by hordes of power-leveling script kiddies, talking about pwning the Balrog and camping Orthanc.

    I found this somewhat amusing, speaking of MMORPG + LOTR.

    Funnier than this similar parody, at least.

    Another one ....

    (There's another one out there which is funnier, but I can't find it. My leet Google skills have failed me....)

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    Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
  7. What about Total Annihilation 2? by Sparky9292 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Chris Taylor should create a new RTS that similar to Total Annihilation. Dungeon Siege flopped, and we don't need yet another pay-per-play MMORPG.

    Total Annihilation was a revolutionary RTS game which even today still surpases todays RTS with waypoints, build queues, air/naval/army/tank units, fantastic mod capability, and cool weaponry.

    1. Re:What about Total Annihilation 2? by mayns · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, wrong Chris Taylor. This is the one that worked on Fallout, not the one that did Dungeon Siege.