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Multiple Upcoming Games, Movies Based On Jordan's Wheel of Time
Posted by
Soulskill
on Wed Nov 12, 2008 05:20 PM
from the dragon:-the-rand-al'thor-story dept.
from the dragon:-the-rand-al'thor-story dept.
Today film studio Red Eagle Entertainment announced plans to establish Red Eagle Games, a studio that will produce games based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The games will be developed alongside movie adaptations of the series, which Red Eagle announced a few months ago. They'll be working with Universal on the films. "[Red Eagle producer Rick] Selvage said in an interview that the game company will make a series of games that will be co-launched with the movies. In addition, Red Eagle Games will make a massively multiplayer online game based on the Wheel of Time universe." Wheel of Time fan site 'Dragonmount' recently spoke with Selvage about the movie plans.
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But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wheel of Time has such extensive (sometimes laboriously so) plot lines running in tandem and across multiple characters that may not cross for thousands of pages. Can this be set in film successfully? The introspection of the characters when you're seeing things from their points of view
In truth, I wondered the same of George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire & Ice series recently licensed by HBO [variety.com]. I guess we'll see if they can do that series justice as well.
As for the games, I was a bit disappointed with the 1999 version [gamespot.com] which was basically a Hexen engine playing as an Aes Sedai in one of the Ajahs. A visually pleasing game, though. I certainly hope they do better with The Wheel of Time MMOs & don't dish me another buggy clone like Lord of the Rings or Warhammer.
Red Eagle & Universal, please don't screw this up! Disclaimer: I am a Perrin fan.
Re:But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember reading a review of the demo, apparently of someone who hadn't read the books. "Pretty fog effects. Why am I taking damage?" This was in Shadar Logoth. When I played, the reaction was slightly different - "Fog? RUN!!!!".
This game was why I got a 3D accelerator, but it was delayed many, many times. Fun, I finished it, but nothing memorable.
Parent
Re:But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:5, Insightful)
The single-player mode of the old WoT game was well-scripted and made good use of effects, but was not otherwise particularly memorable (except for Shadar Logoth, which was creepy as hell and scared me multiple times). The MULTI-player, though... incredible. There was an insane amount of depth to it, because everything (except balefire of course) had a counter. The "TING" sound of a Seeker or Decay locking on to me still makes me twitch. When you'd hear it, you'd start running like mad, trying to find the right shield to absorb it, or better yet, reflect it back at the caster, and all the while it was chasing you, moving faster and faster... then you found someone dropped a Legion right on top of the Unravel. GAH!
Good times.
Parent
Re:But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:4, Insightful)
I certainly hope they do better with The Wheel of Time MMOs & don't dish me another buggy clone like Lord of the Rings or Warhammer
You can hope all you like, but it's not going to happen. I'm firmly under the belief that all MMOs for the near future will be cookie cutter clones of each other. They will all attempt to drag out the game for as long as possible with needless time sinks, poor stories, even worse level curves, maps made for the quick jaunt in and out, porting all over the land, and prefab classes with prefab progression.
Hate to be a cynic... but it's what I've seen going through 20 (or more) different MMOs looking for one that's different. So far it's been a waste of time and money. I'd be very surprised to see one in the near future that actually tries to break the common mold.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
EQ was my first. I spent years in the world and it never got old. The classes all had purpose, the spells all didn't. (minor illusion was the best, right next to the mages ability to summon things for their pets and fireworks.) Night was actually dark, you could see what a mob was carrying, drive by buffs were the best present anyone could offer...
Not to mention, EQ had dungeons worth going into. They were not easy to get into, nor easy to get out of. As much as everyone hated trains, everyone knew to
Re:But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, if they try to turn the book's events into a game, it will probably tank, as per usual. RJ was painfully meticulous in his description of events in the book, and developing a game within such strict limitations will not succeed, at least not with the fans who've read the series on multiple occasions.
What they should really do is set a game earlier than what is described in detail in the books, say when one of the false dragons was around. That way there is plenty of conflict, but the game designers have much more leeway on the events and story in the game.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or set it during the War of Power. You must lead your unit during the war; then, when the Dark One is imprisoned and the Breaking of the World begins, it becomes a desperate race to safe as much of the civilization as possible before it's destroyed b
It would be a miracle if they did it justice (Score:5, Funny)
Because "doing it justice" would mean somehow designing a game where the the more you play, the further away end gets!
That would require some impressive new technology, to say the least...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That would require some impressive new technology, to say the least...
It's not new, there's been several ventures into this arena. See this article [wikipedia.org] for more information.
Re:But Can They Do It Justice? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, even better, run each Age for one year. Give a certain number of random players the potential to become the Dragon, but don't tell anyone who they are, ESPECIALLY the people who might be. Players who are in at the beginning of the Age have a better chance of being the Dragon, ta'veren (although I suppose it would also make sense if ALL players were ta'veren), or at least having some special plot role (ie. they could end up like Moirraine, finding the Dragon or other key players by virtue of their awesomeness), but players who join in partway through benefit from a world which is less of a clusterfuck in terms of nobody having any clue what the hell is happening and being able to just drop in on whatever side they like and have at the powers that be.
Obviously, certain things would have to be put into the game to ensure a given Age goes off interestingly, like reliable ways for people to find the Dragon (or at least potential Dragons), compelling incentives to form in-game factions to support Dragons and ta'veren, and ways to ensure that the "randomly" selected players are unlikely to simply fall off of the planet's face.
I'd also be a big fan of a full reset at the beginning of each age, perhaps with perks given to previous high-level characters, but nothing that cannot be overcome by a talented newcomer. of course, I also just get sick of the perpetual suck of not being one of the first hundred people to sign on and always getting stomped by people who will always be bigger and badder just because they've been around longer.
Parent
Realm: Moonrunner Char: Mithrilvar (Score:5, Insightful)
Red Eagle Games will make a massively multiplayer online game based on the Wheel of Time universe.
Because if there's anything the PC gaming market really needs, it's another MMO.
Re:Realm: Moonrunner Char: Mithrilvar (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Look at the bright side... (Score:4, Informative)
At least late-game repetitive time-sinks will be source-material accurate.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>we can look forward to a few Twin Peaks sequels!
Or a Twin Peaks MMORPG.
Hmm.
Couldn't be any more horrendous than the current crops of MMORPGs.
IMO, what made the old school MUDs better than MMORPGs is that players (when they hit a certain level) were oftentimes allowed to make new dungeons. So as your playerbase went up, so did the amount of content available. It's an idea that I'd love to see get transferred to one of the major MMOs.
Featuring (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone still even care (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously..? I started reading the Wheel of Time many years ago, and while the first book was pretty good, subsequent books became increasingly self indulgent, whiney, and so meandering that the story barely advanced. By about book 5, most of the characters were so un-likeable that I could not longer relate to/empathize with them. This has to be one of the most dissapointing series that I have ever read.
CAPTCH: bleeder, as in "you miserable..."
You can't finish the game (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately the game is impossible to finish, because it dynamically generates more and more new mini-games, side quests, and bosses as the player gets closer to the end.
Re:You can't finish the game (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
how? (Score:4, Insightful)
How on earth are they going to condense down as much material as is in one of those books (let alone the whole series) into a movie without leaving out half the story? The Lord of the Rings books are half the size of Jordan's and each of those movies were over three hours long and still left some good stuff out.
Re:how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy.
Jordan goes on and on about setting. Not a problem for film.
Jordan repeats himself over and over regarding character interactions. Easily condensed.
Jordan constantly writes about his characters pulling their braids, smoothing their skirts, etc. They can all do those things at the same time while the story is moving along.
Jordan has described the internal processes of wielding the One Power a million times. In film they'll just replace it with a fancy CGI or call it "metachlorians" (credit a poster above).
Jordan thinks any character ever seen in a book needs a name. They can save about 5 hours just by not naming all their extras.
The last four or so books in the series will probably fit on a single page of the script.
And finally, Jordan didn't finish. There's a good 30 minutes out of the film right there.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Jordan thinks any character ever seen in a book needs a name. They can save about 5 hours just by not naming all their extras.
The last four or so books in the series will probably fit on a single page of the script.
And finally, Jordan didn't finish. There's a good 30 minutes out of the film right there.
Haha. I can see it now. They get all the right people with all the right motivations working on it. They create a movie that is tight, well-paced, dramatic, exciting, all while being faithful to the source
Red Eagle's Reliability.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Loot The Copyright!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Jordan is barely even cold, the 13th book hasn't been published yet, and everyone is already clambering to get wrist deep into his creative work and exploit it."
Good thing we don't have life plus 70 years so the heirs could defend his "property".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably the parent is including New Spring (the prequel) in his count. I've personally felt for a long time that the series should be 13 books (13 being a rather significant number in the WoT universe) and was disappointed that the last book would be numbered 12 (also wondered how one book could wrap up all the open storylines AND fight Tarmon Gai'don). That said, counting New Spring it's 13 books and as long as the final book (whatever it's number) is good, I'll be satisfied. I'll need to re-read the wh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
no, and I quote:
"...The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
According to Ryan Dancey (one of WOTC's ex-vice presidents) when I talked to him years ago, was that Robert Jordan actually pitched the series as a series that would never end. He could just keep churning out product, and people would keep buying it, indefinitely.
Or, I guess, until he died.
Oblig. Princess Bride (Score:3, Funny)
From IMDB [imdb.com].
Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change
Well, so much for hoping he was mostly dead. Didn't take them long to start trying to shake that money tree... Although, I think the movies were in the works for some time before he passed.
Re:Loot The Corpse!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the kind of thinking that leads to a wisecracking CG animated Jamaican sidekick to a newly midichlorian fuelled Rand al'Thor.
Parent
Re:Loot The Corpse!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. By the fifth book, Jordan was already wrist deep in skullfucking his own creative property by recycling storylines and padding word counts with endless descriptions of wardrobe. They're doing nothing but carrying on a tradition Jordan started himself.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
wrist deep in skullfucking
Umm... I'm pretty sure that's not how skullfucking works...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Many Movies?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm.. 3 days.. Well, that is 72 hours. Can make quite a few movies to cover 72 hours.
An epic fantasy shot in the style of 24. I do not know if I should be horrified or intrigued.
Re:How Many Movies?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding right? Most of those later books can be compressed into about 14 paragraphs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There was a definite end. It was called Tarmon Gai'den. Sheeesh.
Re:How Many Movies?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how many movies there are going to be? Hopefully I'm still alive when the last one comes out(if they ever wrap the series).
They'll probably start out with a clear story arc and a plan to make six or seven very good films that wow audiences, then just belt out a few extra ones that focus largely on minor characters that viewers don't care about while ignoring the compelling story that got everyone interested in the first place. Universal will then go out of business when there's only one movie left to make, and Paramount will take over and expect us all to believe their conclusion is a valid part of the series.
(If you can't decide whether to mod this funny, mod it insightful or just stomp off and cry into your pile of dead-end hardcovers, you must be a disgruntled Robert Jordan fan.)
Parent
Re:How Many Movies?!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I made it thru Crown of Swords...but mainly because of being too stubborn to admit to myself that I was getting sick of it. Had to do a cross country road trip several years later and got the audiobook for Winters Heart thinking I would catch up that way...
Somewhere in Kansas in the middle of the night I decided that it was so tedious and boring that I threw it out the window in disgust. I admit that it might have had something to do with driving thru Kansas...you can't do that alone and stay sane.
I think I reached a point where I just DESPISED every female character in that book.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's exactly how I felt. I always got the impression that Jordan was trying to write strong female characters, but didn't have the slightest clue how one would actually behave. Instead of coming across as strong or sympathetic, they were just fucking obnoxious. And all *exactly* the same. Cadsuane (had to look up the name on Wiki) was the last straw.
Oh, and the bizarre sexual fantasy feeling to it: women spanking each
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>disastrously bad sequels and prequels by Herbert and Anderson.
You mean Sanderson?
Obviously AMoL isn't out yet, but every book he's written to date has been bloody brilliant.
He's not Jordan, sure. He might not use Jordan's attention to ridiculously unimportant detail, or Jordan's reuse of every plot thread multiple times, or Jordan's complete inability to handle plot and multiple viewpoints, but... oh wait, yeah. They'll probably actually be pretty good.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah but if they remove all the references to the female character who constantly pulls on her braids we can condense it down into just about 25 hrs of film.
I can't remember her name. But the memory of the author telling us she was fiddling with her hair every 10 sentences has remained forever in my mind as the poster child for how not to assign a recognizable characteristic to a character, then abuse it far too often.
I read the first few books and honestly wanted to like them but they were just so badly writ
Re:Karma whore time (Score:4, Funny)
I guess what I'm getting at is that you'll have to turn in your nerd card.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A series for the ages... (Score:4, Interesting)
My feelings exactly. Take the world that WoT is most often compared to, LotR. There are certainly lots of parallels - Middle Earth is huge, there are lots of different nations with their own history, traditions, culture, and appearance, and the author crafted each with an incredible attention to detail. However, reading through the books (never mind watching the movies) in LotR doesn't give NEARLY as much a feel of the setting as WoT does. In WoT I can imagine the parts of the cities, the look of the farms, and the speech of the people - even for specific settings that were never visited. Without reading a lot of the LotR background, I've found this not nearly as easy to do. It's just not as immersive.
There's a lot more to this comparison, but I think I'll stop here.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes but LotR added a lot of that story in notes, appendices and additional books that weren't part of the main story.
I read all 11 books ... and I'll probably read the 12th but since I read the 11th I've read all of GRR Martin's 'A song of fire and ice' series which completely blows away any other fantasy series I've read before or since and WoT really suffers in comparison.
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LotR doesn't give NEARLY as much a feel of the setting as WoT
well...I think that Tolkien was leaving it up to your imagination....because he could have told you several thousand more pages....but didn't want to.
Re:Closure (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking of which... the third (and last) Mistborn book just came out in hardback. If you have never read anything of Sanderson's, do yourself a favor - go out and buy the first one. Make sure you have some cash left over, though, because, if you are anything like me, you will be back in the bookstore the next day, after having stayed up all night to finish, buying the other two (and anything else of his you can get your hands on).
Mistborn is the best low-fantasy I have ever read, and it's close to the top of my best fantasy in general list.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes it will - RJ had already written the ending and several other key elements before he died, as well as dictate the overall plot of the book.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you've read Wheel of Time, you should try Song of Ice and Fire.
couldn't agree more. If you've read WoT in total or part (esp in part) and not SoIaF you should really pick it up.
my favorite thing about that series is how he leaves all the pieces in play...you can't just assume that someone won't die because they are a main char.