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eGenesis to Develop New MMO with Orson Scott Card

Posted by Zonk on from the from-fishing-to-faith-healing dept.

Johnathon Walls writes "eGenesis, makers of the non-combat, world-building massively multiplayer online (MMO) game "A Tale in the Desert" versions 1 and 2, has signed a deal with Orson Scott Card (author of Ender's game and The Seventh Son) to develop the pre-Civil War American world of "Alvin the Maker" into a new MMO. This is also going to be a non-combat-centered, community-building world. Questions remain as to the amount of interest these non-combat games generate, and concerns about the rapidly dropping population of Tale 2 (a steady decline from 2089 subscribers on Sep 26 to 1582 subscribers on Jan 6) really bring this issue to the forefront."

7 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. For those of you by revery · · Score: 3, Informative

    who have never read any of Orson Scott Card's work, run, do not walk, to the nearest bookstore/library and buy/check out/steal/photocopy Ender's Game.

    For those of you who have read some of his novels but have never read his short stories, you should check out Maps in a Mirror, recently re-released in paperback. In particular, check out "The Hanged Man and the King of Words", "Unaccompanied Sonata", "Mikal's Songbird", "A Plague of Butterflies", uhm... look just buy the book ok.

    And while I'm at it. There is a story in the book After the King called "Silver of Gold" by Emma Bull and another one called "The Fellowship of the Dragon" by Patricia A. McKillip, and well, you should read those too.

    That's it.

    Oh wait. Terry Pratchett is great too...

    Oh, hello Nurse Ratchet...

    [Sounds of scuffling in the background]

    Must press submit...

    1. Re:For those of you by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Informative

      who have never read any of Orson Scott Card's work, run, do not walk, to the nearest bookstore/library and buy/check out/steal/photocopy Ender's Game.

      For those who actually do this its waste of time if you dont read the second book Speaker For The Dead which is by far the best book in the series. Enders Game is not bad but its main purpose is to serve as an intoduction to Speaker.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
  2. A MMO I'd definately try and probably like by hsoft · · Score: 3, Informative

    would be a MMOTG (Tactical Game). One of my favourite game ever is Final Fantasy Tactics, and I always tought: "Goddammit, how cool it would be if it was multiplayer, and how GODLY it would be if it was MM!"

    What I dislike about MMORPG is that you don't have the time to say "oh shit" that you are already dead in PvP. You don't have the time to talk to your opponents. Of course, if both players are nice RPers, maybe that they'll talk to each other, but has it ever happened to you with anybody else than people you already knew before combat? Have you ever tried to be a "Verbose PK" in UO? You can't. Combat goes too fast. Of course, you can macro some cool stuff to say, but it rapidly grows boring to say the same old stuff.

    I'm saying this and I for one have no idea of a practical way to implement a game like that. Nevertheless, it would probably a MMO I would stick to. Or maybe it already exists and someone will tell me where I can find it?

    --
    perception is reality
  3. Re:But will it translate into a worthwhile product by AEton · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thank you for pointing this out. I had no idea.

    --
    We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
  4. Population stats for various MMORPG's by mcguyver · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here are my population estimates for some of the major MMORPG's.
    Lineage: 2,000,000 subscribers
    World of Warcraft: 600,000
    Final Fantasy XI: 550,000
    Everquest 1: 250,000
    City Of Heroes: 200,000
    Everquest 2: 150,000
    A Tale in the Desert 2: 1,500

    1,500 isn't much in the world of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game's.

    1. Re:Population stats for various MMORPG's by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Informative

      Remember that for pretty much all of those games with huge populations, there are many servers running the game. You can't interact from one server to another, so it doesn't really matter if a game has 2 billion people playing it when only 10,000 of them inhabit any one server.

      Besides, the defining quality of "Massively" multiplayer games isn't that zillions of people can play, but rather that it's significantly bigger than something like Diablo 2 where lots of people play on battle.net, but only 8 people can join one game at a time.

  5. Recommended reading by bigbigbison · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some folks on here have suggested some of Orson Scott Card's fiction. I would also like to suggest some read his non-fiction. He is an outspoken critic of homosexuality and gay marriage. I read those works by Orson Scott Card and they were enough to convince me that I didn't want to read any of his fiction. Your mileage may vary, but it doesn't hurt to be an informed consumer.

    --
    http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players