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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Otherland MMO Announced 142

Posted by Soulskill from the will-it-have-another-MMO-inside-it? dept.
Eurogamer breaks news that German games publisher DTP Entertainment will be making an MMORPG based on Tad Williams' Otherland series of books. As anyone who has read the books will know, this could be an interesting new spin on virtual worlds. Quoting: "For want of a better soundbite, let's call it the first cyberpunk MMO: a virtual world about virtual worlds, in which your avatar is an avatar, the NPCs play NPCs, and you explore a multiverse in which you might be in realistic historical surroundings one minute, and cartoon fantasy ones the next. Everything changes, even your own appearance, and nothing is even pretending to be real. ... You start the game as one of those consciousnesses in a place called the Land of the Lost, a nightmare scenario which you're trying to escape. You'll run, be killed, and reborn in a 'baby' state as a simple, low-rent sim (though we suspect the game won't be using that term, for obvious reasons) - a blank, featureless avatar that can be male, female or even neither."
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Otherland MMO Announced More

Otherland MMO Announced

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  • I may have to pick up a book or to and get familiar with the story line.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Entiex ( 1376325 )
      I may as well, any chance at playing a cyberpunk themed MMO thats actually good (As opposed to say, Neocron) is one that I don't want to miss. And if I play it, I want to know the lore. That and the whole concept of this world itself is making me want to pick up the books anyway.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The Otherland series is one of the best I've read in the virtual world genre. Not quite sure if it counts as full on cyberpunk though.

        I've been waiting for someone to make an MMO from this series, it begs for it.

      • Make sure to give both the books and the MMO the benefits of the doubt. I am prepared to accept if the publishers wind up with only a mediocre translation.

    • Re: Book or Four! (Score:5, Informative)

      by TaoPhoenix ( 980487 ) * <TaoPhoenix@yahoo.com> on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:53PM (#25224637) Journal

      I will be replying the daylights out of this thread since I really liked the series.

      It is a tetrology of 4 books, all gorgeously detailed! I really liked that a crucial feature is two AFRICAN characters as lead heroes! One from a modern province, and one a classically trained Bushman.

      Tad W. does a brilliant job of showing how the Old Bush Ways could provide crucial insight into our modern era.

      I hate MMO's, but I'll probably have to get my own little corner of this one solely because of the books.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        I really liked the books, but I think they will translate quite poorly to an MMO. Still, it's worth a look. And Tad W need to write more!

    • > let's call it the first cyberpunk MMO

      Let's not. That would be The Matrix Online, which I need not point out was simultaneously the most "perfect" choice ever for an online avatar game while ending up a total flop.

      Building encounters with a bunch of street thugs, level after level after level.

      And not enough outfits, either. At least City of Heroes has a ton of sexy stuff you could wear on your girls, and it was all available at level 0.

      It's interesting that Matrix Online had a way to "hack" things to

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) *

        Actually Anarchy Online had all that stuff a loooong long time ago (up to and including a scary overabundance of gender non-specific sexy clothes for your virtual crossdressing needs).

        A pretty good MMO actually, for it's era...It's still around, and they've actually been pretty busy with expansions lately, but the core product is pretty dated. The major flaw of the game was twinking, imho, because everything was based on character stats, and there were ways to increase your stats dramatically out of proport

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by illegalcortex ( 1007791 )

      Be prepared to spend the next several months or possibly years on it. I read all the books back to back and found them in dire need of editing. Some posters will probably jump on me and claim it was all about depth, but there was quite a bit of fat in every one of those books. Things that took far too long to develop and had an insane level of verbosity. Just like this post is getting to be...

      • Eh, you were being nice. I got about 2/3 of the way through the first book, to the point where the plot literally began to repeat itself almost verbatim from what had happened earlier, and shortly after the guy who was playing the Diablo-Hardcore-Mode MMO where you die once and you're gone forever died because of some weird portally bullshit, and I gave up. Nothing interesting happened in all those pages, only bare mentions of the "Otherland," whatever the fuck that ended up being... ug, it was horrible. Ju

      • I agree about the fat (pretty much the whole of book 2), but I still loved the books and thought it a wonderful series. The characters were rich and very well developed, the story filled with questions and great twists (that all get answered), and there were certain sections of pure brilliance. But yeah, it could be cut down to half the length and still do quite well, I think. As for the game, I guess it's nice, but I've been praying (to FSM) for them to come out with a movie since I first read it. I gues

        • Book 3 was no picnic, but at least it got the plot moving a bit. But even in book 4, I remember being sick and tired of the House and couldn't wait for them to move on. That's one of the really frustrating part of the books. He has these wonderful and amazing environments, but he doesn't have enough plot to go around. Oh, he has enough WORDS to go around. He can definitely write page after page of stuff without actually having anything move forward in the story. So you just wind up sightseeing while w

    • It's a series of books that are not easy to just pick up and read through quickly. They tend to be long, and very dense.

      I say this having been a long-term, avid Tad Williams reader. I picked up his very first novel while in High School, 'Tailchaser's Song'.

      IMO his newest series is the best, even better than 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn'. The Otherland series was good and inventive but I think it tended to drag.

  • Wake me up when a mutant is using hypnotic mind-control to make me believe I'm actually in the game. Until then I don't think this is going to be a particularly compelling MMORPG.

    • Wake me up when a mutant is using hypnotic mind-control to make me believe I'm actually in the game. Until then I don't think this is going to be a particularly compelling MMORPG.

      SPOILER TO FOLLOW


      Hint to the mods, this is a reference to the books. You eventually find out a psychic mutant is the one responsible for getting the people stuck in the virtual worlds. As for whether it'll be a good MMO or not, well, hard to say. Its greatest strength looks to be its biggest weakness, that is, it's so open ended it's going to be hard to motivate the players.

  • You forgot to answer the most important question.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) *

      You forgot to answer the most important question.

      No, I think the summary answered that already. It implied that this should be sufficiently different enough from WoW that I could enjoy both games.

      I played LotRO and it was feeling too much like WoW so I quit. Same with Warhammer. Buggier versions of WoW. I have high hopes for this as it sounds like the concept, classes & lore will be far enough away from WoW to provide me with entertainment.

      This is going to shock and appall you but there can be multiple successful MMOs. You might think y

      • Re:But will it be a WoW killer!?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)

        by orclevegam ( 940336 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @04:03PM (#25224767) Journal
        I think we need to have something cleared up. I keep seeing people refer to the "lore" of Otherland, but that kind of misses the point. Otherland doesn't really have "lore" in the same way that things like WoW, LoTR, Warhammer, or even StarTrek do. The basic premise of the book was that the internet has evolved to the point where everyone interfaces via a direct neural interface and it's experienced as a immersive 3d world with avatars etc., but that something weird is happening and some people are getting "stuck" in the virtual worlds. This is similar to the premise of .Hack, but very different in other ways. Anyway, there's really only 2 bits of "lore" I can think of from the books that could conceivably be brought across. The first would be the major antagonists from the book, which is a fat man and a skinny man that hunt the characters across the various virtual worlds (always wearing an avatar that matches them in some way, for instance the fat man as a toad and the skinny man as a praying mantis). The second item would be the use of certain gestures to perform various actions, such as moving fingers in a very specific pattern to open a portal to another world. It's important to note however that in the books when the characters get sucked into the virtual worlds and lose their ability to log out, the worlds also stop responding to the standard gestures.

        Anyway, the important thing is, that for the purposes of something like this MMO, Otherland isn't really a single world with lore, rather it's more of a meta-world in which the players randomly get dropped into one of many worlds each with their own lore.

        • so there's no coherent universe, history, storyline? sounds like a really shallow book if that is true.

          • Re:But will it be a WoW killer!?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)

            by orclevegam ( 940336 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @04:24PM (#25224999) Journal
            There is, but all that occurs outside of the virtual world this is going to be based on. The storyline is also not applicable, as in the books the main characters are investigating why people are getting trapped in the virtual world and once they themselves become trapped attempting to work their way out of it. As several others have already commented, the virtual world parts of the book are really very shallow because it's mostly about them attempting not to get killed long enough to make it to the next world. I would say it's comparable to trying to convert something like Portal into an MMO. There's a story there, and I don't think anyone would argue it's a pretty good story, but it's sort of a one shot thing. Sure the gameplay mechanic could be carried over, but the story itself is no good for an MMO setting. Likewise the over-arching story from the books, what made them good, is no good for an MMO setting.
            • The way you describe the getting stuck in worlds and having to change worlds reminds me of that movie with John Ritter where he buys Cable from the devil. He gets sucked in and tries to survive all the different channels going after the remote to escape.

              Stay Tuned [imdb.com] is the name of it.

            • The storyline is also not applicable, as in the books the main characters are investigating why people are getting trapped in the virtual world and once they themselves become trapped attempting to work their way out of it.

              Hmm, that part of the story line sounds applicable to me. A virtual world that is very difficult to log out from sounds like a dream come true for a paid-subscription gaming company! :-)

        • This makes me want a DonnerJack mmo.

        • Actually the are dozens of Lore inside the Otherlands. One Lore set is a Pelio-American/Mayan society that advanced so far as to outpace European encroachment, that is to say that the dominate power in the world is in fact a modern Mayaian empire. Another uses a modified OZ storyline where Scarecrow, Tin Man, And Lion are warlords and the Dorothy is a messiah like figure of myth (this lore then branching out to many other aspects of the areas) Otherland is a separate "internet" more like an "internet2" s

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by fireboy1919 ( 257783 )

          The basic premise of the book was that the internet has evolved to the point where a few people can interface via a VR interface and it's experienced as a immersive 3d world with avatars etc., but that something weird is happening and some people who are connecting to a very specific location, eventually dubbed Otherland, are getting "stuck" in the virtual worlds, even though they aren't using neural interfaces.

          Fixed that for you. Did you even read the series? Your description is way off.

          Otherland isn't

        • "The basic premise of the book was that the internet has evolved to the point where everyone interfaces via a direct neural interface and it's experienced as a immersive 3d world with avatars etc."

          That's not quite correctÂâ" the book (actually a four-tome series) is set in the near-future, and there's no such thing as direct neutral interfaces. They just use VR goggles and body suits suspended in special tanks.

          Since the book has the protagonists making there way across many completely different an

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by makomk ( 752139 )
            IIRC, that's not quite true. In the books, there are direct neural interfaces, they're just way out of most of the character's price range.

    • You forgot to answer the most important question.

      42

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by doti ( 966971 )

      Wrong. The most important question is:

      "Will it run Linux?"

      Hmmmm.. no, sorry! It is:

      "Will it run in Linux?".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mmalove ( 919245 )

        Or, will it run on linux, AND run linux?

        Kinda like how in a few fantasy games they poke fun at themselves by having the characters play video games.

  • Boss: Okay guys, we have to come up with some better ideas for this new MMO.

    Producer 1: I think we should go for the most realistic historical surroundings!

    Producer 2: That's boring! How about a cartoon fantasy world?

    Four hours later

    Boss: You still haven't made a decision.

    Producer 1: Oh yeah we have. We're gonna do both!

    Boss (disheartened): Both?

    Producer 2: Yeah! It'll be a completely open world, totally unfocused! A sandbox! The user makes the choices!

    Producer 1: With open-endedness! And it'll be lik

  • OMG! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jethro ( 14165 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:34PM (#25224367) Homepage

    Oh my GOD, that is the most awesome news I've heard all week!

    No, wait, the other thing. Yet another MMO, cause, you know. There's totally not enough of those around.

    Wake me up when... eh, I'll wake up when I'm ready.

    • MMOs are the money makers in today's gaming industry.

      Who is to blame? Perhaps ourselves for saying "programming as a 'service', not as a product" so they decide to host games for a decent cost.

      It is still a maturing market, and most MMOs customer support SUCKS, meaning the service itself isn't service. It's more like, programming for a server.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jethro ( 14165 )

        MMOs were supposed to be The Future of The Internet 15 years ago. I am personally somewhat tired of them. And of hearing about a new one about to come out and how great it'll be, etc. It's kind of old news by now.

  • Reminds me of an Onion piece (Score:5, Informative)

    by Facegarden ( 967477 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:37PM (#25224403)

    The onion did a piece on "World of World of Warcraft", where players play a character sitting in a lonely basement playing warcraft. The "your avatar is an avatar" part reminds me of that, though technically they imply different things... and actually that statement doesn't imply much...

    http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play [theonion.com]

    -Taylor

  • It was a decent story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:43PM (#25224463)

    Those were some good books, but the "it's all a dream" aspect of the setting can lead authors into self-indulgences. Essentially, there are no rules for the world. That was the major problem with it. Also, since "it's all a dream", a lot of the drama seemed false. The real characters were interesting but most of the time spent with the dream characters is just that many more pages of inconsequential stuff.

    The "no rules for the world" quality would destroy an MMO. You can't just change the rules all the time or all the players will just hang out in the part with the most advantageous rules.

    • I dunno about that, not everyone plays to farm, some like an interesting game with a challenge.

    • Life's a Dream.

      It is by Dream alone I set my life in motion. It is by the juice of green tea & absinthe that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by Dream alone I set my life in motion.

    • As with all fantasy the rules aren't concrete physical ones, but instead the rules of the "human experience." AKA: If the characters aren't realistic it doesn't work, and tha tis the only bound on fantasy.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by MikeUW ( 999162 )

      I read the Otherland books as well, and I really liked them. I didn't find the dream/VR stuff so inconsequential, because (in the book) they had real-life consequences in various ways (including death).

      As for the game having 'no rules for the world', I wouldn't take this to mean there would be 'no rules', but really that there will be different 'worlds' or simulations that play by different rules that can be defined to fit that world's purpose, which is how things really went with in the book.

      Each world in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kohath ( 38547 )

        When there are no rules, the real-life consequences don't add suspense. There's always a magic way to escape any problem or difficulty. Part of the connection with the audience is lost when the author can just change the rules to save the characters.

        The real characters seemed to care too much about the dream characters sometimes.

        And then the real characters crossed the river and nothing that happened in the last 100 pages made any difference to the rest of the story.

    • Re:It was a decent story (Score:4, Informative)

      by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) <slashdot AT stefanco DOT com> on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @07:17PM (#25227063) Homepage Journal

      It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare. Then another one, and another one, and another one. Then you got separated from your friends. Then the devil seized control of the system and it got worse. No rest for the weary.

      And then they charged your credit card.

  • It sounds rather neat, I may have to go start reading the books. I never played Second Life, mostly due to the entire island owned by the bloody furries. Nor did I play The Matrix: Online because it seemed so bland.

    This, on the other hand sounds very interesting.

    • You must be kidding. Furry areas are a very small part of what there is in SL.

      Not sure what you mean by "the whole island", if you mean the mainland, then certainly not.

      • Furry areas are a very small part of what there is in SL.

        How do they compare to the flying penis areas?

        • Griefers seem to be getting tired or something. Lately I see much less of that sort of thing than there used to be.

  • So, any fans of the SF/Fantasy genre out there who can say why Otherland? Why not Steven Erikson's Malazan Empire? Robert Jordan's Wheel of (too much) time, Tolkien, or Terry Pratchett for that matter? What makes Otherland more suitable than the others?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bieeanda ( 961632 )
      Because, unlike the other properties you list, Otherland is strongly focused around the kind of ultra-immersive MMO that some gamers have been slavering for since Bill Gibson coined the term 'cyberspace'. They're basically trying to take an extant virtual world, and create it in real life, without having to go through all the annoyance of sorting out what canon bits to put in.

      ...Which is why it's going to fail spectacularly. The novels are a decent read, but the 'cyberspace' aspects of it are as shallow a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by faloi ( 738831 )
      Otherland at least maybe fills a lesser used niche. We already have Tolkien (Lord of the Rings Online), and the others are still essentially standard fantasy settings.

      MMOG's attempting to fill a sci-fi niche have been fewer and further between, and have (for the most part) been failures. Or at least they're not getting the subscriber base as fantasy MMORPGs.

      Personally, I'm looking forward to the rumored WH40K MMORPG...and I wouldn't mind a good Shadowrun MMORPG. Or even a Dresden Files based MMORPG.

      • 40K and Shadowrun are both great fictional settings, but I think they would make poor MMO's due to the permadeath issue. Permadeath is poison for MMO's, but absolutely necessary to keep the thematic feel of those settings.

        Shadowrun, for example, loses a lot of steam when death is merely an inconvenience. What's the big deal about getting betrayed by your teammate when it just means you spend 5 minutes running back from the hospital? Yeah, Trauma Teams, sure, but that only goes so far before you have to a

        • True, until a developer realizes that you can store progress on an account seperate from characters. Many faces, same soul. I know, I know, lots of problems, etc. I don't think any of those problems are insurmountable though.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jefu ( 53450 )
      Otherland is set in the near future and the characters in the novel enter a set of virtual worlds in order to combat the bad guys. So you have not only possible play in a virtual "real world" but also play in any of a number of (related) virtual "virtual worlds".

      Disclaimer: I read the first book in the series and decided not to go any further and in the first book the main characters are just getting going in the virtual worlds.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Tolkien? There's a game called Lord of the Rings Online.

      People say it's good and they think they should really play it sometime. But they keep playing WoW instead.

  • after RingTFA, my questions are the same as the article writers: how is any of this stuff more than changing the name of common MMORPG elements? Like, you get "code" that "alters the fundemental reality of the world" from killing monsters, doing quests, trading, balhblah. Maybe I am being skeptical (along with the author of TFA), but it sounds a lot like other games where, say, you have to grind monsters to drop spell components, or gear, balhblah. I like the sounds of "leveling up" changing into "learning

  • Ugh... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Krater76 ( 810350 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:54PM (#25224639) Journal
    I'm not knocking the content since it sounds like a neat idea but maybe put up a story when they are farther than the "will be making" phase. Like when they hit the "have funding" and "are in development" phase. Otherwise this is less newsworthy than the pseudo-cancelled (pseudo because it was never truly started) Halo MMO.

    I think I "will be making" the first Super Mario FPS. Maybe I should create and post an announcement so I can get on the front page of slashdot?

    • I think I "will be making" the first Super Mario FPS.

      http://www.freewebs.com/mariodoom/ [freewebs.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ned84 ( 1376481 )
      They kinda are in development. They've found an engine, are pushing for 2010 release, they claim to be around 15% complete and the screenshots are looking pretty sweet... it's all in the article. All in all, i'd say they've made a fair bit more progress than your Mario FPS ;) I understand with MMOs you never know until they launch, but I for one find this plenty newsworthy.

  • Can you get out? (Score:5, Funny)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @03:54PM (#25224651) Homepage Journal
    I mean the whole point of Otherland was that people got trapped there ... does that just mean they wont cancel your credit monthly if you quit?

  • Yet Another Windows-Only Title? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Given the fast raise of OS X marketshare in colleges and universities, where the actual gamers are, I still find it incredibly short-sighted that companies continue to insist on making Windows-only games.

    Dual-booting is not an option since Macs don't come pre-installed with Windows, and people don't want to pay for yet another OS, split their hard drive in two partitions, etc. We buy Macs to use OS X, there's no actual need to buy a "gaming OS" on top of all that.

    Does Windows has a higher total marketshare?

    • I knew this post would come up, the Mac fanboys always make at least one of these when anything vaguely referencing a new game is posted. The argument is always "it's gaining marketshare!" - yeah, call me when it has. If it would make them money, they would do it. Obviously the marketshare isn't there.

      When Final Cut Pro and all the other Apple software runs on Windows, maybe that argument will have merit. When running a game that doesn't run on OSX means dual-booting a $100 OS, but running specialized Apple

    • Sorry, but if they are going to be dividing their resources, I would rather them go towards making he game better rather than port it to another OS. Just because a game comes out for the PS3 and not the 360 doesn't mean I have to get angry, and a windows license is cheaper than a PS3 anyways.

      Another significant problem is the only macs without integrated graphics cards are the mac pros, although the imacs are decent. The majority of increase in mac marketshare is in the laptop line, which isn't really suita

  • no joke? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CaptainNerdCave ( 982411 )
    this series is one that has begged to made into a long rpg or mmo-something. it is very appropriate for this era and i think it could be exciting to play if there are as many worlds to it as the actual series.

    what it must have is some aspect of a hidden "otherland" built into it... but not mentioned or even hinted at by the makers.

  • In a strange way, the slashdot summary actually sounds a lot like second life.

    • It sounds like a game about Second Life, where you get to play being Ordinal Malaprop or Cubey Terra, for people who don't have enough skill... I mean telemorphic ability... to be Ordinal Malaprop or Cubey Terra.

  • Uh Oh (Score:2, Funny)

    by morgauo ( 1303341 )

    haven't tried any MMOs, They look too addictive.

    I won't play this
    I really like the books.
    I won't play this.
    I won't play this
    I won't play this.
    I won't play this
    I won't play this.
    I really like the books.
    I won't play this
    I won't play this.
    i really like the books.

    i will play this.

  • You know how it is with these MMO designer types: "Confident, cocky, lazy, dead." My God. Why is that quote still taking up space in my head?
  • They made tried to make "The Street" from Snow Crash?
  • "let's call it the first cyberpunk MMO: a virtual world about virtual worlds, in which your avatar is an avatar, the NPCs play NPCs.."

    If that's the defintion of a cyberpunk MMO, then .hack beat them to it by a six years.
    • The first Otherland book was published in 1996, the first .hack franchise piece started in 2002. If chronology is a good means of inferring who beat who, then Tad Williams beat .hack.

    • If that's the defintion of a cyberpunk MMO, then .hack beat them to it by a six years.

      The Otherland books predate the .Hack series by quite a bit.

      And I don't think there was ever a .Hack MMO... I played the PS2 games, and saw part of the anime, but I never heard of an MMO.

  • At first I thought it said Outland [berkeleybreathed.com] MMO... Oh well.

  • The Books... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acvh ( 120205 ) <geek@msci[ ]s.com ['gar' in gap]> on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @05:44PM (#25225977) Homepage

    like many other SF/Fantasy series, Otherland started strong, but it became obvious in the second volume that the author hadn't thought it all through and just started making it up as he went along (ala George Lucas).

    there should be an exception to copyright rules that would let someone step in under these circumstances and write the sequel that the initial story deserves.

    as for the online game aspect, why should we expect it to be anything other than one more level grinding bore with pretty graphics? when it's gotten to where character classes have generic descriptions (tank, etc.) no matter what they are supposed to represent, all that's left is changing the pictures.

    MMOs have become a lazy way to make games.

    • You're on crack.

      That's somewhat akin saying 'The Fellowship Of The Ring' started out strong but by 'The Two Towers' it was obvious the author had thought nothing through and just started making stuff up.

      The series of books ended up being being a rather intricately woven series of completely different stories that all ended up revolving around each other, most of the characters never coming into contact with each other and yet having profound effects on the others story lines. Hell, some individual stories d

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by acvh ( 120205 )

        Absolutely not. I never once thought that an event in The Two Towers or Return of the King was tacked on to fill pages. In fact, the genius of Tolkien was the "illusion of depth" that made everything feel very organic.

        In Otherland, as well as countless other series, what begins as a solid idea, breaks down when the time comes for the author to make more money.

        As for the "making it up" comment, I am sorry that you missed the point. Obviously it's all made up; but it's also apparent when an author isn't worki

  • No, don't make a game based on "Otherland". Create "Otherland".

    Outside of the neural interfaces I think we have the computing power or cloud power to create an environment that is like Otherland. Personally, I would say Second Life is already there, but it's too focused on just being a better chat room IMHO.

    They need to create a place where anything goes within a certain constraint of game physics / tools with a couple of core rules.

    Take something like the old world MOOs where there are central places creat

  • One of the main characters in Otherland is a seasoned MMO player who spends all his time gaming, and only stops playing the game when another sneaky protagonist hacks his game to send him on a quest outside of the game, but still in virtual reality. One of... I emphasize, ONE OF the virtual worlds they all get to is a 100% accurate, realistic, and living ecosystem simulation of Middle Earth, of the Lord of the Rings variety. ONE OTHER of the virtual worlds is a 100% accurate, realistic, and living ecosyst

  • Ever since I read the series I have done periodic checks of the web to see if anyone has setup a version of the Treehouse even just as a forum.

    Either no one has "borrowed" the idea and run with it, or they have and stuck close to the origins in making it super exclusive and very hard to find.

    It will be interesting to see how this concept is translated into the game. Maybe it will be where the actual game developers hang out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by LES.. ( 1366 )

      It's a shame you never checked out the website on the fly sheets of all the Otherland books. You might have found the Tad Williams mailing list which took on the ideas of the Treehouse.

      Sadly the lyst lost support from Tad's then publishers and moved to yahoo groups where it slowly declined. This decline was made worse by Tad's shadowmarch project which formed its own message board community. The old mailing list now serves mostly as a means of notifying old friends about new births.

  • 90% of them are horrible implemented with bugs on release. No story beyond starting area. Terrible concepts of everything. Horrible non immersible worlds with instanced zones...

    The more hype, the more they suck. Leading to huge failures after launch. Most people quit, and many are so disenchanted they return to WoW, even if they had quit the game before!

  • The console .hack games were simMMO. I guess this is the next level of recursion?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by argent ( 18001 )

      This seems more like Sim Second Life. Instead of actually learning to code and create stuff, you'll be building up your coding "telemorphic capacity" so you can "craft" stuff.

  • Maybe I'm really really stupid and can't quite grasp what's happening in the MMO market but it seems to me that successful MMOs are based on original IP while soso or downright sucky MMOs are based on licensed IP. Also I thought it is quite obvious what the next big MMO needs to have: player generated content done RIGHT. So how's about this, game devs: do an MMO with player generated content and a minimal (just enough to provide a 'theme' to the game world) IP as far as story and background goes. MMOs and s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by argent ( 18001 )

      That would be Eve Online, except for the complete lack of player generated content and the way the players might as well be ship AIs or Shells (as in The Ship Who Sang) since they never actually interact except through the ship.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DerWulf ( 782458 )
        Yeah, actually you are right, EVE is a step in that direction. It's also the only MMORPG where third parties croncicle the "histories", woes and intrigues happening in the community. This is where the future is at and I guess if EvE weren't so hardcore it would have a much broader audience because of it too.

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