Fantasy Worlds you want to see in Video Games

[Zephen_Descarte]

Not sure if this is more for the Games forum, but feel free to move it. Posting here cause I'm talking about fantasy specific.

What fantasy worlds do you look forward to seeing in games? I know Feist is pairing with some mud developers to make a graphical game based upon his books. There's a few WoT games out there, but what else do people think would be ripe or fun to "play" as, as well as read?

Personally, I'd love to be able to play a game as the Gunslinger, and now LOTR is being made into an MMORPG like World of Warcraft. What books do you think are really suited for gameplay?

[Werthead]

Well, there are a few games around already:

The Wheel of Time: an action game, a first-person shooter with some RPG elements to it, released in 1999 and based on the at-the-time revolutionary Unreal engine. It was a fun game with some fantastic artwork and architecture. However, the game wasn't canon (it took place in one of the Portal Stone parallel universes) and it didn't fit the material very well. The original plan had been for an ambitious RPG, but the budget for the game was slashed and they had to turn it into an action game.

The Riftwar Cycle: Two games have been made. The first, Betrayal at Krondor, is pretty old (1993) but widely considered a classic RPG with a good plot and some great characters. If you can track it down online, it's free and legal to download. Feist adopted the game into a truly terrible novel, Krondor: The Betrayal. The sequel, Return to Krondor, has better graphics but is cheesier with weak combat.

The Discworld Chronicles: Three games have been made. Discworld and Discworld II are classic adventure games in the LucasArts/Monkey Island mould. Discworld Noir is a 3D adventure similar to Return to Krondor, but with a better script.

Shannara: a pretty lame adventure game, not really worth bothering with.

A Song of Ice and Fire: no official game is in development. However, you can download two fan-created adventure mods for the game Neverwinter Nights (one set on the Wall, the other in the Riverlands). Tactical maps based on Westeros have been created for Europa Universalis II and WarCraft III, but not full conversions. A full conversion mod is under deverlopment for Medieval II: Total War, which will allow the player to take control of one of the Seven Kingdoms and try to conquer the rest. This mod probably won't be complete for 18 months or so, but a good team of people are working on it over at the Westeros board. They have GRRM's approval (although accepting this can be withdrawn at any time) and have also been granted permission to use some of the official art based on the series, meaning it should look pretty good when it finally emerges.

Middle-earth: Obviously tons of stuff are out there, going back to the ancient text adventure The Hobbit released in the late 1970s. The recent highest-profile games based on Middle-earth are The Battle for Middle-earth I and II, The Lord of the Rings Online (which is now available) and various cheesy action games based on the movies.

[algernoninc]

J V Jones - Sword of Shadows - this one i would like to see made into an RPG, in the style of Oblivion or Jade Empire. Talking of Jade Empire: does it have any connection with Barry Hughart Master Li Books? i found a lot of similarities, nor only in names [Henpecked Li ]
Also I think Temeraire by Naomi Novik has some potential for an interesting game, but the rights to the francise might be expensive.

Talking of already established names in the game industry I think the Harry Potter movie companion games are well known.

[Werthead]

Peter Jackson has optioned the Temeraire books, and they're made into films we can expect tie-in games as well.

[Phellim]

Discworld series: I know some have been made before, but there's such a large selection of novels to adapt and they would look amazing with a more modern touch (better graphics, game physics, map size) as an RPG.

Riftwar Saga - Feist

The Stand by Stephen King: I know it's not technically fantasy, but there are elements of magic to it, and Randall Flagg has been shown as a Magician in other books by King.

Legend - Gemmell: It was a great story, but not written very well. It seems better suited as a game than a novel.

[hippokrene]

I'm looking forward to Dragon Age by BioWare, it's a fantasy setting the company developed.

[Werthead]

I'm looking forward to Dragon Age by BioWare, it's a fantasy setting the company developed.

Definitely. The level of grittiness in the series is apparently inspired by GRRM, which sounds promising. Plus BioWare and their various partner companies created the two greatest RPGs of all time: Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II.

[Wulfa_Jones]

A MMORPG based on the world of Conan is shortly being released.

They've decided to make it more "adult" and also introduce a more interactive combat method that I don't think will really work for a keyboard and mouse game.

Maybe James Barclays Raven series could make an interesting game... a squad based combat game - giving the player the ability to have a few of the characters of screen at the same time running on the AI and being able to switch to playing different characters to solve different situations. This all came from how the Raven re-position themselves when in combat situations, so I think picking options like which mages will cast the defensive and offensive spells and micro management stuff like that would make a pretty cool game. I don't think it would work as a WoW type game, but maybe have online support and having other players rather and AI control the characters.

[fathazza]

Well, there are a few games around already:




[B] A full conversion mod is under deverlopment for Medieval II: Total War, which will allow the player to take control of one of the Seven Kingdoms and try to conquer the rest. This mod probably won't be complete for 18 months or so, but a good team of people are working on it over at the Westeros board. They have GRRM's approval (although accepting this can be withdrawn at any time) and have also been granted permission to use some of the official art based on the series, meaning it should look pretty good when it finally emerges.

Now that is good news... can't wait for it to get completed
wonder if they are putting dragons in it

[Werthead]

Now that is good news... can't wait for it to get completed
wonder if they are putting dragons in it

No. The game engine doesn't allow for it. However, Dany's invasion is being considered as a later expansion to the basic game. If that's the case than the dragons will probably appear as ancillaries or traits (granting Dany's army immense bonuses).

[JBI]

There was an attempt at making a Wheel of Time game. The game of course was mediocre, and didn't follow any of the plot of the story. The game was designed as an FPS thing, where you play an Aes Sedia who cannot channel, and relies on Ter Angreal for channeling. Of course, the game pretty much flopped. I have played it and it wasn't "that bad", but it was by no means great.

In order for a good game to be made out of any of these things, you will need a huge budget (as seen with World of Warcraft) and a fan base big enough to buy enough copies at the beginning.

[Werthead]

I have always been bemused by the lack of success of Wheel of Time-related products. The RPG - despite being quite well designed and fun to play - didn't sell very well and Wizards of the Coast dropped it. The PC game didn't sell very well and plans for sequels and expansions were dropped. The very promising Rome: Total War mod based on the game stalled due to lack of interest. The collectable card game was also dropped after poor sales. Even New Spring and The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time apparently sold poorly compared to the main sequence novels (although well enough to stay in print). The comics adaption was only successful because of the lengths the Dabel Brothers went to promote and market it. The on-off movie/TV adaption seems to have stalled, yet again. Yet this is the biggest-selling epic fantasy sequence since The Lord of the Rings with an estimated 30-35 million copies in print. Very unexpected.

Yet Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar books have had quite a few big-selling spin-offs (the Dabel Brothers comic adaption is doing well, the PC game Betrayal at Krondor was a best-seller and had a moderately successful sequel) and George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire has been even more successful, with a top-selling board game, a best-selling comic adaption (also from the tireless and possibly omnipresent Dabel Brothers) and what was for a time the biggest-selling collectable card game after Magic: The Gathering, and still one of the best-selling four or five today, not to mention much more concrete plans for the TV series going ahead. Terry Pratchett's Discworld spin-offs have also been highly successful.

I can only conclude that Robert Jordan's representatives (Red Eagle Entertainment) have not been as on the ball as might be desired in marketing these products.

[JBI]

Like I mentioned before, for these things to work, you need a huge budget, and a whole lot of promotion.

[Papazak]

I would like to see David Farland's books made into a game.

It would be exciting "choosing" town folk and having the ability to control your subjects and Army through telepathic commands.
Also having an almost invincable elemental/golem/green woman to wreak havoc on your enemies would be nice.
Drawing great runes in the earth to destroy giant bugs! Sounds like a blast!
Flameweavers that turn into gigantic raging elementals when they die can destroy a small village in their mindless need to feed the fire!

[Werthead]

Oh yeah, the Westeros mod for Medieval 2 is now in early Beta-testing. Only two factions - the Starks and Joffrey's forces - are complete along with the map of Westeros, but it is now possible to give the game a whirl. You need a copy of Medieval 2: Total War.