Rings of Power

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Nobody is. But there's the question of how much genuine continuity there will be between this series and Tolkien's work, in much the same way that other recent adaptations of popular IPs have played fast and loose with the originals.

e.g. if this series was to Tolkien as, say, Star Trek Discovery is to Star Trek in general then that would be unfortunate. Like how STD started out, supposedly in the TOS continuity but some ten years earlier, and proceeded to completely retcon a ton of stuff about the Klingons, invent a 'magic' go-anywhere 'Spore Drive' based on transdimensional fungus of all things, break with all previous ST storytelling by having a specific lead character (who's also a Mary Sue) rather than an ensemble cast, retconning said Mary Sue into Spock's family (very much the sort of thing you see in fanfic!), and other such stuff including some wildly inconsistent technologies and ship design details (some of which reached Galaxy Quest levels of sheer pointless silliness). The list of continuity problems is lengthy; I'm not even a Trekkie but it made me facepalm, like I knew it was bad but it was way worse than I'd imagined.

So that's an example of what can happen when people try to 'modernise' an IP and have no respect for the original. A mess.

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Yes, that is a risk, and for most part, I think all Tolkien fans will be watching out of it. Straying too far away from what it should be will be the factor which determines how popular the series is within that audience. Perhaps the producers don't particularly care what that audience thinks about it and are willing to take the risk that a new audience that do not lean so far toward the writing of Tolkien will be enough to make it successful. And perhaps they will be right and it will be enough to make the series a success. At the end of the day, all it has to do is gain enough audience to make the money and it will be successful. The question, would be it be better, or more successful if it follows strict canon probably isn't a factor, as long as it's a success in it's own right. They don't really care who is watching and who is enjoying, as long as the numbers are there and it makes money.

Those those think they've taken a step too far will see it exactly as you say - a mess, and they will forever be lost as part of that TV audience.

We have no control over the making of these things, we only control whether we watch them or not. As I said earlier, I'll know by the end of the first episode if it's for me or not. If anything makes me facepalm, that will be the end of that. I'll still love the books though, and still enjoy the movies, and still play this game.

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Originally Posted by Daeborn

I have played Lotro almost since launch, and I love this game. But we all know its one unsub away from being discontinued, and Im afraid the amazon tv-serie is going to be the haybale that broke the camels back.
Does anyone else have any feelings about this?

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After reading most of the responses in this thread, I think I understand your concerns.

Adaptation, often doesn't work so well.

I am in the process of re-watching GoT on the streaming service. I am one of those that read the books before the series started.
I have to admit that the series was amazing. Very good television. But there was so much lost in the translation. So many decisions made by the TV characters that seem to make no sense.
While reading the books, the reasons for decisions could be deciphered.
Not so with the TV presentation.

I am concerned that since the Amazon production folks have no narrative to guide them, it could be much worse than my GoT example.
They will be taking "lore" from appendices and "letters" to try to create their own narrative. And they are expected to create a "hit".
With no JRRT guidance.

It could stink.

But I disagree that it will weaken the IP.
The IP is Professor Tolkien's words. And he had superlative words.

His words are now sacrosanct. They cannot be damaged by television.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

And that'd be because there's a bit more information going around than is in the trailer. Also, don't try to misrepresent everyone who has the slightest concern about an adaptation as being 'hardcore', 'strict' or other such malarkey.


Oh really. So you're saying that the TV viewing audience couldn't get behind a strong female character unless she's going around wearing armour and fighting? Is it 'current' that strong female characters all seem to fall into that stereotype nowadays? And that what should be a strong male character (Elrond) appears to be being having his thunder stolen in favour of Galadriel? We've seen her described as 'angry' and 'full of piss and vinegar', whereas this character was originally imagined as a powerful Elvish Lady who'd studied under Melian the Maia, should be married and with a young daughter,by the time we're talking about, and who could probably cow most people just by giving them a hard look. Almost as if the writers don't give a damn about the actual character and just need a cardboard cutout of a female lead to go be angry at people and fight Orcs, Trolls or whatever.


So the game's even more daft when it comes to hobbits (and I've said so myself before) and has obvious gaming tropes like powerful mages and shape-shifters turning up all over the place. But it's a game, and that's what the mass audience wants from a game. The bar is a lot lower, and we have to like that or lump it. How does that make a TV series look better, when we already know the bar can be set an awful lot higher for that? Stick to the topic, you're engaging in whataboutism there.

When I dismiss something as fanfic it's alluding to the sort of bad writing that give the genre its generally poor rep. Like in this case, shoehorning Galadriel into the role of action hero (and never mind her prior characterisation or back-story).


Or it could be bad enough that it puts a dent in the IP's rep and puts people off it.

I
You're barking up the wrong tree there because I've said often enough that I liked the LOTR movies (and in this very thread, at that). It's not that you can't find people that fanatical about the books but I'm not one of them. I don't call everything else fanfic, just things where the writing seems dodgy in some way as if it were just fanfic rather than professionally written.

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Look, I don't wish to get into a bun fight with you because it is fruitless as you nor I know anything about what they intend to do and how they intend to flesh out their stories. You have a focused opinion and I in turn have an open mind based on may factors.

Firstly, there is a single reason why Amazon have purchased the IP rights - MONEY... Why do they think they can make money? Maybe it is the 30 odd Oscars that the first three Jackson films gained and the nearly 3 billion dollars that the three films have grossed.
The Jackson Lotr films were exactly what they were. Great movies. Were they a great re-telling of Tolkiens writing? Absolutely not !! But, does that matter, you even said yourself that you accept the films for what they are. Then you get the Hobbit trio which I cannot bring to even watch a second time and frankly I only watched the last film to see how they showed 5 armies... It was a joke... but those films also grossed similar 3 billion dollars.

Now if Jackson can go from plausible trio of films and then make completely implausible trio of films and the money returned is the same, it is really a no brainer to Amazon and whether they butcher the back stories or not possibly isn't going to make any difference to the outcome of the first series.

Where I hope they have learned from the Jackson sextet is that TV shows and their longevity are a completely different beast than a short run movie franchise. To keep on getting a return on investment they need it to be popular to the masses and build in complex and diverging story lines and very little of this will be anything from current lore.

So, the standpoint I am looking at this from is that this isn't a work of Tolkien and it isn't even an adaptation. It is a mostly made up story based in the Tolkien world and using its historical figures that will give some familiarity to the movie fans.

Whether they fundamentally change the characters back stories to make one of them current to 21st century role model ideals is neither here nor there because it isn't trying to be a representation of Tolkien writing.

I will as Arnenna said, give it a go and if it turns out like the Hobbit series did in comparative terms, I will probably not watch it but I will go in with an open mind as I did with GoT and StD - both of which are good and bad in equal measure and I can watch both. (well maybe not the last couple of GoT seasons again)

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Originally Posted by TearMaker

The Jackson Lotr films were exactly what they were. Great movies. Were they a great re-telling of Tolkiens writing? Absolutely not !! But, does that matter, you even said yourself that you accept the films for what they are. Then you get the Hobbit trio which I cannot bring to even watch a second time and frankly I only watched the last film to see how they showed 5 armies... It was a joke... but those films also grossed similar 3 billion dollars.

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But there was a significant difference between PJ's approach and Amazon's. PJ had a couple of rules of thumb he applied for the LOTR movies. First off, pretend that these things were once real (which was Tolkien's own conceit of presenting it as him retelling a tale passed down from ancient times) which was what gave us the great artistic direction the LOTR movies had (generally speaking, although PJ had a habit of over-exaggerating the physical size of things for effect). Secondly, leave the politics at the door, just play it straight.

What are Amazon doing? By appearances, just going for a generic approach and making a thing out of bringing politics into it. They're not 'keeping it real', as it were. Nobody who cared about Tolkien's work would try to do the Second Age based on just what's in the Appendices, so it's just plain greed rather than artistry or genuine love of the material. (Much like how the Hobbit movies ended up a a trilogy and so had to be padded so much was because the studio wanted that, not because PJ & Co. did).

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Whether they fundamentally change the characters back stories to make one of them current to 21st century role model ideals is neither here nor there because it isn't trying to be a representation of Tolkien writing.

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It matters because the idea of forcing an 'ancient' world to be representative of the world as it exists now is fundamentally broken. Note that GoT did not do that, and that (at least in its early seasons) is the mark to aim at when it comes to fantasy TV series. And in any case, messing with established characters like that is never a good principle. If they can't tell their story without doing that then their story probably sucks (cf. what the last set of Star Wars movies did to Luke Skywalker as a character, just to clear the stage for Rey). Besides, the whole point about the stereotype of the strong female who goes around being angry and fighting is that it's way overused and hackneyed at this point, especially if they push established male characters into the background to make her more prominent.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

the whole point about the stereotype of the strong female who goes around being angry and fighting is that it's way overused and hackneyed at this point

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It's the same as the stereotype of the "strong" male. Goes around being angry and fighting... does the entertainment industry know how to show any other kind of strength, regardless of gender?

The Rings of Power is likely to have a few distinguishing features. It will be very high budget - certainly far higher than the Wheel of Time season and higher than Game of Thrones.

It will be subject to at least some oversight from the Tolkien Estate to keep changes from the books within reason. Unlike, obviously, either Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time. Plus the sure knowledge that a LOT of people watching the show will have read the books and will be upset by major variations. By books of course I include the historical background books mostly since not much in the actual trilogy deals with the First or Second Age in any detail.

I suspect that EG7 is entirely correct and a lot of people will try the game after seeing an episode or two - assuming that there is an advertising push for the game. What is far less certain is whether they will stay. Monetization has been revamped, new player experience is a work in progress with many changes already (including experiments on the legendary servers) and server performance may be the big issue. With a high level of probability new servers to be rolled out - either to coincide with the show or slightly afterwards after game population starts to move upward again. So we will see.

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Originally Posted by istvana

The Rings of Power is likely to have a few distinguishing features. It will be very high budget - certainly far higher than the Wheel of Time season and higher than Game of Thrones.

It will be subject to at least some oversight from the Tolkien Estate to keep changes from the books within reason. Unlike, obviously, either Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time. Plus the sure knowledge that a LOT of people watching the show will have read the books and will be upset by major variations. By books of course I include the historical background books mostly since not much in the actual trilogy deals with the First or Second Age in any detail.

I suspect that EG7 is entirely correct and a lot of people will try the game after seeing an episode or two - assuming that there is an advertising push for the game. What is far less certain is whether they will stay. Monetization has been revamped, new player experience is a work in progress with many changes already (including experiments on the legendary servers) and server performance may be the big issue. With a high level of probability new servers to be rolled out - either to coincide with the show or slightly afterwards after game population starts to move upward again. So we will see.

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You clearily not followed news about this tv serie. There will be no oversight from Tolkien Estate (after death of Tolkien son they don't care). They are squeezing 4000 years into onle lifetime of human. So it will be massive dissaster.

as long as Lotro focuses most of its resources on being a good game rather than being faithful to certain narrative cannons, the game will be fine.


it's a game after all, not a book.

if it tries too much to become a book at the expense of important gaming features, it will lose interest from the gaming community.

and after tolkien's story loses its trend, it will be a game with a good story that not many people are interested in. and a game that's very dated and no gamer cares about trying it.



take WoW for example.

WoW lore had been destroyed in multiple pieces over the years but the game is still intact because people enjoy it, and it's still one of the most popular and played games after 18 years.

if WoW's main attractor was its story, it'd be a dead game.

because blizzard destroyed the brand over the years through a bad movie and bad re-launch for Warcraft 3

therefore, if WoW's main attractor was its story, it would remain as a poorly executed game with a story that barely no one cares about. which means that it'd die as a game.

part of Lotro focusing most of its resources on being faithful to certain narrative cannons rather than being a good game are many:


for example:

not having an entertaining, intuitive and fun PvP experience (because devs didn't know how to reconcile lore with game to create an engaging, intuitive and enjoyable PvP experience).

another example is the game becoming a single player offline RPG over the years by stacking tons of content through mid-game experience (because story > gaming experience).


i'm sure there are many other aspects but those two seem relevant for any mmorpg nowadays.

"You clearily not followed news about this tv serie. There will be no oversight from Tolkien Estate (after death of Tolkien son they don't care). They are squeezing 4000 years into onle lifetime of human. So it will be massive dissaster."

That there is less oversight than might have been the case in the past seems certain. That there is none at all - OK that is your opinion. That the show will be a disaster - it may be so it may not be so. Personally I expect it to be a success given all the money spent on it and all the hype. A success measured in the only way that matters - ratings not the reviews of critics or the happiness of Tolkien fans.

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Originally Posted by istvana

"You clearily not followed news about this tv serie. There will be no oversight from Tolkien Estate (after death of Tolkien son they don't care). They are squeezing 4000 years into onle lifetime of human. So it will be massive dissaster."

That there is less oversight than might have been the case in the past seems certain. That there is none at all - OK that is your opinion. That the show will be a disaster - it may be so it may not be so. Personally I expect it to be a success given all the money spent on it and all the hype. A success measured in the only way that matters - ratings not the reviews of critics or the happiness of Tolkien fans.

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that's true.

also, there's all sorts of Tolkien fans.

not everyone takes tolkien's work as religious stone tablets.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

What are Amazon doing? By appearances, just going for a generic approach and making a thing out of bringing politics into it. They're not 'keeping it real', as it were. Nobody who cared about Tolkien's work would try to do the Second Age based on just what's in the Appendices, so it's just plain greed rather than artistry or genuine love of the material. (Much like how the Hobbit movies ended up a a trilogy and so had to be padded so much was because the studio wanted that, not because PJ & Co. did).

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As long as greed still pays the bills, then it will always prevail.

I still admire your tenacity for Tolkien and the Lore, and I always will. But, sometimes we just have to accept beforehand, that something isn't likely to meet our expectations. I seriously doubt you will enjoy this new TV series. I'll be surprised if I will too. However, what they make over there, will never taint or tarnish what Tolkien wrote, because it's timeless and immune to those that love it.

Think of it like a vast ocean, and somewhere somebody throws in some rubbish. Sure, they are making a mess over there, but here, where I like to be, the ocean is just as beautiful as it's ever been.

This series can only affect the true Tolkien fans if they are part of it. We all, each of us have the choice to ignore that part of the ocean and celebrate the ocean we have that nobody can take away. If this game ever becomes a dirty part of the sea, I just wouldn't swim here anymore. Not an issue, they can't dirty the book, that will always be the same beautiful place.

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Originally Posted by spaltung

part of Lotro focusing most of its resources on being faithful to certain narrative cannons rather than being a good game are many:

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So a game whose sole unique selling-point is that it's an adaptation of some popular books tries to play along with the IP it's adapting, to appeal to people who like it? Well I never.

And no, they don't stay all that faithful to canon and never have done. Also, for a game that's supposedly no good according to you, damn strange it's still here after all this time. Not sure how you think being more generic would help either, since then there'd be nothing to distinguish this game from all the others out there. There's only one thing that does.

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not having an entertaining, intuitive and fun PvP experience (because devs didn't know how to reconcile lore with game to create an engaging, intuitive and enjoyable PvP experience).

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And you don't know either. The problem's built into the setting (it's very one-sided, the Enemy are really just a foil for the Free Peoples) so it's not just about lore but really everything about the setup.

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another example is the game becoming a single player offline RPG over the years by stacking tons of content through mid-game experience (because story > gaming experience).

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There's been a major shift in player behaviour across the entire MMO genre towards playing solo and away from grouping. I don't like that trend because I can remember the old days when things were a lot more social, but the mass audience has changed and so it's not at all surprising LOTRO has gone along with that.

This game's always been story-driven because it's an adaptation of one of the best-known fantasy stories of all time. It's what people expect from it. The devs wouldn't keep on with that if it wasn't the case and I rather suspect they know their audience better than you do.

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also, there's all sorts of Tolkien fans.

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And then there's you, no fan at all, whose sole idea seems to be to throw Tolkien overboard despite the LOTR IP being the sole reason for this game's existence and the sole thing that keeps people interested and keeps it alive.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

There's been a major shift in player behaviour across the entire MMO genre towards playing solo and away from grouping. I don't like that trend because I can remember the old days when things were a lot more social, but the mass audience has changed and so it's not at all surprising LOTRO has gone along with that.

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In addition to this, the entire MMO genre shifted to mainly solo play at least a good solid 15 years ago. It's been like that a good, long while. I agree with Rad when he says the main audience has changed, and LOTRO saw which way the wind was blowing.

This is nothing new.

The Amazon Series of LOTR just could be some random fantasy series, they just paid 250kkk for using the name(s). Thats it....

I am looking forward to watching the new series.

I have little expectations as regards the tie in to the main story because it has little to go on and so I will take it for face value and if it is entertaining I will watch it. If it is not entertaining I won't watch it.

All this guess work back and forth is a complete waste of energy on something that is all conjecture and guesswork.

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Originally Posted by LabadalofDorlomin

I am looking forward to watching the new series.

I have little expectations as regards the tie in to the main story because it has little to go on and so I will take it for face value and if it is entertaining I will watch it. If it is not entertaining I won't watch it.

All this guess work back and forth is a complete waste of energy on something that is all conjecture and guesswork.

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YES! What Labadal said ^^^^ exactly! (including attempts to speculate on its impact on the game!)

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

So a game whose sole unique selling-point is that it's an adaptation of some popular books tries to play along with the IP it's adapting, to appeal to people who like it? Well I never.

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folks also liked Warcraft story, that's why WoW became so popular in the beginning.

then, the game became a bigger thing than its lore.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

And no, they don't stay all that faithful to canon and never have done.

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depends on how religious you're around Tolkien's work.

Lotro seems to be the most faithful game to LotR books out there.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Also, for a game that's supposedly no good according to you, damn strange it's still here after all this time. Not sure how you think being more generic would help either, since then there'd be nothing to distinguish this game from all the others out there. There's only one thing that does.

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i didn't say the game wasn't good.

i said the game could be way better than it is now, because it had been focusing time and resources on the wrong things.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

And you don't know either. The problem's built into the setting (it's very one-sided, the Enemy are really just a foil for the Free Peoples) so it's not just about lore but really everything about the setup.

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i actually tried to think my way through the issue,

and i've came up with the solution that SSG came with for "time-travelling" through stories.

a beorning character can travel to Mordor Besieged or Moria's entrance through reading a book and help Isildur and his sons at Mordor, or Thorin at Moria's entrance.

because he's doing it fictionally, through reading a book.

the same way any character could read a book about a past battle written by someone from sauron's side and then another book about the same past battle written by someone from free people's side and engage in both fictional sides from a past battle on sauron's side or free people's side and PvP through it (depending on which book the player is reading, the player will locate himself in a different fictional side from the past battle).

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

There's been a major shift in player behaviour across the entire MMO genre towards playing solo and away from grouping. I don't like that trend because I can remember the old days when things were a lot more social, but the mass audience has changed and so it's not at all surprising LOTRO has gone along with that.

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there's a difference between creating more solo content and making group content irrelevant.

most mmorpgs nowadays have solo content and group content equally accessible.

Lotro has solo content as default and group content left to rot with many sticks on the wheel to make it very hard to engage with. so, most players get to lv 140 after many months of playing without being able to go through any form of group content.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

This game's always been story-driven because it's an adaptation of one of the best-known fantasy stories of all time. It's what people expect from it. The devs wouldn't keep on with that if it wasn't the case and I rather suspect they know their audience better than you do.

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i doubt they do.

i mean, they really messed it up with Helm's Deep by changing endgame radically in a vacuum. many players weren't pleased by it and left the game. it generated tons of loses.

and now they're hiring new people to handle better new content releases and players' expectations.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

And then there's you, no fan at all, whose sole idea seems to be to throw Tolkien overboard despite the LOTR IP being the sole reason for this game's existence and the sole thing that keeps people interested and keeps it alive.

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i doubt that.

i've already pointed out that a huge game like WoW doesn't rely on its lore to be successful, like it used to. because the game became bigger than the lore.

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Originally Posted by spaltung

folks also liked Warcraft story, that's why WoW became so popular in the beginning.

then, the game became a bigger thing than its lore.




depends on how religious you're around Tolkien's work.

Lotro seems to be the most faithful game to LotR books out there.




i didn't say the game wasn't good.

i said the game could be way better than it is now, because it had been focusing time and resources on the wrong things.




i actually tried to think my way through the issue,

and i've came up with the solution that SSG came with for "time-travelling" through stories.

a beorning character can travel to Mordor Besieged or Moria's entrance through reading a book and help Isildur and his sons at Mordor, or Thorin at Moria's entrance.

because he's doing it fictionally, through reading a book.

the same way any character could read a book about a past battle written by someone from sauron's side and then another book about the same past battle written by someone from free people's side and engage in both fictional sides from a past battle on sauron's side or free people's side and PvP through it (depending on which book the player is reading, the player will locate himself in a different fictional side from the past battle).




there's a difference between creating more solo content and making group content irrelevant.

most mmorpgs nowadays have solo content and group content equally accessible.

Lotro has solo content as default and group content left to rot with many sticks on the wheel to make it very hard to engage with. so, most players get to lv 140 after many months of playing without being able to go through any form of group content.




i doubt they do.

i mean, they really messed it up with Helm's Deep by changing endgame radically in a vacuum. many players weren't pleased by it and left the game. it generated tons of loses.

and now they're hiring new people to handle better new content releases and players' expectations.




i doubt that.

i've already pointed out that a huge game like WoW doesn't rely on its lore to be successful, like it used to. because the game became bigger than the lore.

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World of warcraft video games were here before the books. The books were based on the game, not the other way around, and they were not hugely successful when compared to the work of Tolkien. The game built the stories, not the literature. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings alone has sold 150 million copies. Compare that with the 14 million World of Warcraft book and its very easy to see that this game is based on a fictional masterpiece and why WoW, isn't and never was. Its a game that tried to branch out into the book market and it didn't take off, probably because the game's players weren't there for any particular story other than what the game fed them. If World of Warcraft had published firstly as a book, 70 years before the game launch, with a reading audience of 150 million people, they would have had to stick to the story or it wouldn't have worked. World of Warcraft books are a mere 16 years old, compared with the writing of Tolkien which began 85 years ago. The fan base of the two pieces of fiction are miles apart, both in expectations and number. Anything based on Warcraft will attract people who are into the video game primarily, because the game came first. Anything based on Tolkien will catch the readers first and foremost because the book came first, 70 years prior, followed by the movie fans and then by video game players who are in if for the game, not anything to do with the story or who wrote it. They are the smallest proportion of the player base.

For the purpose of this thread though, and back to the topic it raised. I don't think this TV series will have any effect on the true Tolkien fans that play this game. If its entertaining, they may watch it, if its ridiculous over the top fantasy, they probably wont, but they will still come here for their real LotR fix (meaning as close to the book as they can get), which is based on a book that they love and cherish. If the producers ever stray too far away from that, they will lose their main audience.

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Originally Posted by Arnenna

World of warcraft video games were here before the books. The books were based on the game, not the other way around, and they were not hugely successful when compared to the work of Tolkien. The game built the stories, not the literature. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings alone has sold 150 million copies. Compare that with the 14 million World of Warcraft book and its very easy to see that this game is based on a fictional masterpiece and why WoW, isn't and never was. Its a game that tried to branch out into the book market and it didn't take off, probably because the game's players weren't there for any particular story other than what the game fed them. If World of Warcraft had published firstly as a book, 70 years before the game launch, with a reading audience of 150 million people, they would have had to stick to the story or it wouldn't have worked. World of Warcraft books are a mere 16 years old, compared with the writing of Tolkien which began 85 years ago. The fan base of the two pieces of fiction are miles apart, both in expectations and number. Anything based on Warcraft will attract people who are into the video game primarily, because the game came first. Anything based on Tolkien will catch the readers first and foremost because the book came first, 70 years prior, followed by the movie fans and then by video game players who are in if for the game, not anything to do with the story or who wrote it. They are the smallest proportion of the player base.

For the purpose of this thread though, and back to the topic it raised. I don't think this TV series will have any effect on the true Tolkien fans that play this game. If its entertaining, they may watch it, if its ridiculous over the top fantasy, they probably wont, but they will still come here for their real LotR fix (meaning as close to the book as they can get), which is based on a book that they love and cherish. If the producers ever stray too far away from that, they will lose their main audience.

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I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. Just a small correction though, Tolkien began writing his legendarium over a hundred years ago, not eight-five as you stated. He wrote The Fall of Gondolin in an army barracks in England in 1917, while recovering from the trench fever he contracted in the Battle of the Somme.

I plan to watch the new series, hopefully with an open mind and judge for myself whether or not it's worthy of sticking around for. I have serious reservations, given some of the things I've read, but you never know, it might surprise.

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Originally Posted by Wolfhelm

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. Just a small correction though, Tolkien began writing his legendarium over a hundred years ago, not eight-five as you stated. He wrote The Fall of Gondolin in an army barracks in England in 1917, while recovering from the trench fever he contracted in the Battle of the Somme.

I plan to watch the new series, hopefully with an open mind and judge for myself whether or not it's worthy of sticking around for. I have serious reservations, given some of the things I've read, but you never know, it might surprise.

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True, I was aiming for published date though, from a standpoint of when the audience appeared. 150 million copies ranks the Lord of the Rings up there in the top five best selling books in the world and figures for the Hobbit over a million copies ranking that in the top ten. Not Bible numbers, but massively impressive and influential over future adaptions.

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Originally Posted by Arnenna

True, I was aiming for published date though, from a standpoint of when the audience appeared. 150 million copies ranks the Lord of the Rings up there in the top five best selling books in the world and figures for the Hobbit over a million copies ranking that in the top ten. Not Bible numbers, but massively impressive and influential over future adaptions.

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How many people who own a bible have actually read the whole thing, cover to cover, not many I'd think ;)

To address the original poster's concerns, I don't think that if the series turns out to be a flop that it will necessarily lead to an exodus of players away from this game. On the other hand if it is a huge success it may actually create some renewed interest in the whole LOTR franchise, causing people to take another look at the Peter Jackson movies, or for those who haven't seen them to do so for the first time. Who knows it may even inspire some people who haven't done so in the past to read the books, and some of this interest may even lead some people to this game.

Phineas T. Barnum famously said that all publicity is good publicity, so we can only hope that works in this case.

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Originally Posted by spaltung

folks also liked Warcraft story, that's why WoW became so popular in the beginning.

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No, it was because the IP had been established by the RTS games prior to that and Blizzard had a huge existing fanbase for those and its other games. The story there is just broadly-appealing generic fantasy which is changed or retconned whenever convenient, it's entirely secondary and subordinate to the game. There were some few people who had a thing about the story (RPers, for example) but in my experience there was no fuss about it at all from regular players. You could tell that because from time to time Blizzard simply changed it and there were precious few comments on it. I never saw the point of debating changes like that, as the story only existed to serve the game and was comic-book stuff. Not like here.

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depends on how religious you're around Tolkien's work.

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Not at all. The game simply isn't all that faithful to canon, and you being vague about the details doesn't change that. It's just more so than LOTR games usually are.

e.g. right off the bat with SoA: Angmar coming back (canon says it was completely destroyed a thousand years before, having served its purpose of destroying the North-kingdom). Men living further west in Eriador than canon allows for. The Enemy having designs on Eriador at all at that point, as it was irrelevant and could have been dealt with later. Playable Shire-hobbits. Pseudomagical effects from songs, rather than it depending on who's doing the singing. Ordinary Men using magic. Anyone other than Maiar using destructive battle-magic such as fire and lightning. Player-characters in general having what are effectively superpowers. All the sort of thing that happens because it's a game.

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I said the game could be way better than it is now, because it had been focusing time and resources on the wrong things.

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You might have noticed that people aren't exactly rushing to agree with you when it comes to what they could have done differently.

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the same way any character could read a book about a past battle written by someone from sauron's side and then another book about the same past battle written by someone from free people's side and engage in both fictional sides from a past battle on sauron's side or free people's side and PvP through it (depending on which book the player is reading, the player will locate himself in a different fictional side from the past battle).

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The "imagining yourself there" conceit is wobbly to start with and doesn't hold up for adversarial multiplayer. And the bad guys were more for burning books than writing them. Nor would most characters want to read 'evil' books or associate themselves with them if they did. Opening yourself up to the Enemy's lies doesn't exactly come recommended, does it?

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there's a difference between creating more solo content and making group content irrelevant.

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Seems to be a matter of where they can afford to apply the limited resources they have. Most games this age would be in maintenance-only mode and not be getting content updates.

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i doubt they do.

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I said better than you do. I certainly wouldn't be so arrogant as to think I knew their business better than they do.

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i doubt that.

i've already pointed out that a huge game like WoW doesn't rely on its lore to be successful, like it used to. because the game became bigger than the lore.

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All you've done is draw a false equivalence between WoW and LOTRO. WoW is 100% a game IP and drew on the past success of other games within that IP and Blizzard's other properties and their reputation with their huge existing fanbase. LOTRO is based on a classic, much-loved literary IP and drew on the huge fanbase for that; it's not as if Turbine had vast numbers of fans itself in the way Blizzard did. If you're adapting something that's popular in its own right, you need to stick to that thing more closely than if it's just something you're making up yourself as you go along. That goes double for something like LOTR where a highly detailed background is part of what makes it popular.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

No, it was because the IP had been established by the RTS games prior to that and Blizzard had a huge existing fanbase for those and its other games. The story there is just broadly-appealing generic fantasy which is changed or retconned whenever convenient, it's entirely secondary and subordinate to the game. There were some few people who had a thing about the story (RPers, for example) but in my experience there was no fuss about it at all from regular players. You could tell that because from time to time Blizzard simply changed it and there were precious few comments on it. I never saw the point of debating changes like that, as the story only existed to serve the game and was comic-book stuff. Not like here.

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Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 weren't MMORPGs, so, playerbase is different.

not all gamers like all forms of gameplay.

saying that WoW success relies on WC1, 2 and 3 is not accurate because many WC players are not into MMORPGs, but strategy games like Age of Empires.

in fact, DOTA, DOTA2 or League of Legends are more on the WC1, 2 and 3 side than WoW is.

if you want to prove that a game success relies on other games you should take in consideration its playerbase first and the kind of game for each playerbase.

if we are talking about lore, none of those things matter. and that's why Wrath of Lich King was one of the most successful expansions ever created. because everyone wanted to see the Fall of the Lich King (most players wanted to kill Arthas, and that's lore related).

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Not at all. The game simply isn't all that faithful to canon, and you being vague about the details doesn't change that. It's just more so than LOTR games usually are.

e.g. right off the bat with SoA: Angmar coming back (canon says it was completely destroyed a thousand years before, having served its purpose of destroying the North-kingdom). Men living further west in Eriador than canon allows for. The Enemy having designs on Eriador at all at that point, as it was irrelevant and could have been dealt with later. Playable Shire-hobbits. Pseudomagical effects from songs, rather than it depending on who's doing the singing. Ordinary Men using magic. Anyone other than Maiar using destructive battle-magic such as fire and lightning. Player-characters in general having what are effectively superpowers. All the sort of thing that happens because it's a game.

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again, it depends on how religious you're around the story.

female dwarves have beards after all.

there are no aestethic differences between male and female stout-axe dwarves.

there's no PvP.

there's no content squish to make gameplay fit contemporary times.

there are many races that cannot engage in many classes.

this is why WoW Vanilla was about lore, because it had many restrictions that were based upon lore.

for example, players weren't able to be Paladins unless they were humans or dwarves.

players weren't able to be shamans, unless they were taurens.

this meant that Horde side wasn't able to have paladins, and Alliance side wasn't able to have shamans.

this kind of differences were erased over the years in favour of gaming experience. so, now, any player can be a shaman or paladin doesn't matter if they're human, dwarf, tauren, etc.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

The "imagining yourself there" conceit is wobbly to start with and doesn't hold up for adversarial multiplayer. And the bad guys were more for burning books than writing them. Nor would most characters want to read 'evil' books or associate themselves with them if they did. Opening yourself up to the Enemy's lies doesn't exactly come recommended, does it?

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that's all part of your interpretation. there's all sorts of interpretations that could validate or invalidate that argument.

for example, someone might have a REASON to read a book, that's part of something bigger than himself.

it's all about context and motives, and character arc. if you want to create an RP in which your context and motives do not allow such a thing, that's part of your own imagination and you can RP it.

there's a black book of mordor after all.

even a numenorean or angmarim can write a book about a past battle against free people, and they're Man after all, so they write stuff and communicate through language. it's all about context and motive.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

I said better than you do. I certainly wouldn't be so arrogant as to think I knew their business better than they do.

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i don't think it has anything to do with arrogance. so, i agree to disagree.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

All you've done is draw a false equivalence between WoW and LOTRO. WoW is 100% a game IP and drew on the past success of other games within that IP and Blizzard's other properties and their reputation with their huge existing fanbase. LOTRO is based on a classic, much-loved literary IP and drew on the huge fanbase for that; it's not as if Turbine had vast numbers of fans itself in the way Blizzard did. If you're adapting something that's popular in its own right, you need to stick to that thing more closely than if it's just something you're making up yourself as you go along. That goes double for something like LOTR where a highly detailed background is part of what makes it popular.

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again, that's false.

if WoW relied on another game IP and not its lore, then, the game audience should be the same.

because gamers are not gamers for every game.

on the opposite side, people interested in lore might engage in all forms of games.

if i like to play Fornite and Fornite launches a card game based on Fortnite, that doesn't mean i will play it because i'm a gamer and i like to play Fornite.


the same goes for WoW.

a WC1, 2 and 3 player might be more inclined towards League of Legends or DOTA1 & 2, because those are strategy games like WC1, 2 and 3.

WoW is a totally different form of game that has nothing to do with strategy games.

Warcraft lore is based on tons of myths that are relevant to western civilization, they took a lot from Star Wars (Anakin is Arthas), and Star Wars took it from CG Jung and Joseph Campbell (psychoanalysis and anthropology), WC also took stuff from Tolkien, so, lore was well designed at the beginning. it had powerful symbolic representations.


in fact, WC creators used to play with these symbolic representations, which meant that lore was a huge deal.

if you check the WotLK trailer before launch the whole presentation is about Arthas' father talking to young Arthas who was the promise of Alliance and was supposed to become the king of Lordaeron, before he ends up killing his mentor and his father (and becoming the Lich King). so, they're playing with both meanings metaphorically to create a powerful narrative argument.

WC in the past it was all about lore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCr7y4SLhck

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Originally Posted by spaltung

Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 weren't MMORPGs, so, playerbase is different.

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/whoosh

Blizzard had phenomenal success in getting their existing player-base to try WoW, and an awful lot of them liked what they saw, because the gameplay was engaging. The brightly colourful cartoonish world too (because everyone was used to that from the RTS games). Not so much the story. And from there, positive word of mouth went everywhere and before you knew it seemed everyone was playing it. But it all started out with their legions of existing fans.

I remember that because I was there. Hardly anybody was bothered about lore because it was expendable and Blizzard would change it in a heartbeat whenever it suited them. People looking forward to fighting a familiar villain from WC3 in WotLK is not the same as them being interested in lore, he simply represented a cool bad guy for us to fight. Plus there was the Death Knight class, and a bunch of other gameplay innovations. So the real draw in that expansion was gameplay, the new dungeons, raids and so on.

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again, it depends on how religious you're around the story.

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No, simply on how much you value it for itself. Which lots of people do, because the story was what drew them in the first place.

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female dwarves have beards after all.

there are no aestethic differences between male and female stout-axe dwarves.

there's no PvP.

there's no content squish to make gameplay fit contemporary times.

there are many races that cannot engage in many classes.

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Because it's based on LOTR and so people expect a solid resemblance to the source material, not just WoW with hobbits. Yes, WoW originally had race-limited classes and a couple of faction-limited ones too. in accordance with its own lore (e.g. Night Elves wouldn't have anything to do with arcane magic) but of course Blizzard eventually trashed that and went any race, any class and that's the thing: its lore is expendable. Although I hated that particular change and it was one of the things that put me off, but that's just me. You haven't seen LOTRO doing the same because its story is the fundamental reason it exists. It simply matters more. Having hobbits going around zapping Orcs with lightning would be so daft as to make the rest of the game look stupid by extension.

Middle-earth as a setting only has one detailed faction that could be made playable in PvE, the Free Peoples, and the story is very one-sided towards it (so there's no way to make the Enemy playable on an equal footing) and lacks an equivalent of the numerous other neutral or hostile NPC factions WoW has. WoW's story allows for Big Bads that both Alliance and Horde can go fight. Without at least two playable factions, you can't have FvF PvP. FFA PvP was never an option here because nobody in their right mind wants to have Elves ganking hobbits or vice versa.

As for a content squish - what has that got to do with this? That's purely about game mechanics and nothing else.

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this is why WoW Vanilla was about lore, because it had many restrictions that were based upon lore.

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Not really, it was often simply for flavour and was skin-deep. Like playing a Warlock, there was a quest or two that made the point about them being kinda evil and nobody liking them and then it was never, ever mentioned again. The thing you're forgetting is that having such restrictions for flavour is entirely normal in MMOs and Blizzard naturally assumed they should do the same. It's not to their credit that they got rid of them, either, it was cynical: a great way to drive sales of character race changes. And without that flavour, it's less differentiated and more blandly generic, with race being reduced to a cosmetic choice. More fool you if you think that would work here, or should even be considered.

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that's all part of your interpretation

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No, just you neglecting the story again (because you haven't read it and don't value it). For starters, no Elf would read some evil book and imagine themselves on the side of the Enemy. It'd be utterly against their nature for them to associate themselves with Sauron & Co. in any way.

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i don't think it has anything to do with arrogance. so, i agree to disagree.

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I'm going to put it plainly then, if you think you know the devs' business better than they do then that'd be unbridled hubris and arrogance.

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Warcraft lore is based on tons of myths that are relevant to western civilization

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No, it's just generic fantasy that'll cheerfully borrow anything (including Tolkien tropes) and it's entirely derivative; all been seen elsewhere before. I laughed out loud when I first saw Blackrock Mountain and saw a volcano with a great big door in it. Hmm, whatever could they have been referencing there? When Tolkien was writing, his work was highly original and became a hugely influential classic that brought fantasy into the mainstream, whereas WoW is just a mishmash of popular fantasy and pop-cultural references and Warcraft started out as a ripoff of Warhammer.