To a degree you're right with Tolkien, but it's the amount of copying what it's about, you can be inspired by other lore, writers or themes, or innovate on existing themes and tropes or plain copy elements. Tolkien revamped how elves, dwarves and orcs were looked upon, and the differences between the worlds and races of a Middle Earth, Azeroth, D&D and Warhammer are far smaller than between Tolkien's middle earth and the folklore that was Tolkien's inspiration.
It's not for nothing that Dungeons & Dragons and Tolkien's Middle Earth are seen as the foundation of much of contemporary fantasy genre, and that not older folklore tales are seen as its foundation.
you're really kidding yourself with that last part. maybe Fantasy 'games' get their foundation from DnD who in turn copied Tolkien but the genre of fantasy is not limited to video games, p&p games, tabletop games, ect ect ect...
Summerian lore and Arthurian legend (just 2 examples) are as much or more of an influence of fantasy as Tolkien. JRR might have the dwarf-orc-elf premise on lockdown but that by FAR is not the entirety of fantasy. Fairy tales never went anywhere either. and never at any point did they 'die out' and become reborn due to JRR.
if all we were talking about was 'games' then I could maybe agree with you. but sorry. the fantasy genre is way more extensive than the dwarf-orc-elf cosmetic that is so popular in games, whatever the format of the game might be.
also.... your last comment is spoken as if you have some kind of statistic to back it up and I can assure you that there is none.
Tolkien influenced the orc-dwarf-elf design. not fantasy in general. personally, being the fan of fantasy that I am, I find your assesment insulting. there is so many things you are leaving out.
maybe, your experience in fantasy is limited to the orc-dwarf-elf scenario so you just speak from what you know. whatever the case, I can assure you that there is alot more material out there that influences the fantasy genere. seriously, are you actually acting like H.P. Lovecraft had no influence on fantasy? get real.....
Have you actually been at bookstores in recent times and seen what comes out in the fantasy department? I have friends who're working for years at major publishing companies and are veterans in the speculative fiction (SF/F/H) publishing genre, and in discussions they've talked about the phenonemon how a large part of the fantasy literature market has devolved into formulaic writing, the fantasy equivalent of pulp romance novels or the pulp sciencefiction of the '30s, but then with Tolkienstyle elements.
I'm not getting into a pissing contest of 'who had the biggest influence' because frankly, I don't really care who had. I'm very well aware of Lovecraft's influence on the horror & dark fantasy genre, as well as the influence that Arthurian tales and gothic novels had. But don't try to wave away Tolkien's own influence just to make that point.
The publication of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien created an enormous influence on the writing of the field, establishing the form of epic fantasy and also did much to establish the genre of fantasy as commercially distinct and viable.
Dungeons & Dragons, which popularized the role-playing game (RPG) genre in the 1970s, features many races found in The Lord of the Rings, most notably halflings (another term for hobbits), elves, dwarves, half-elves, orcs, and dragons. However, Gary Gygax, lead designer of the game, maintained that he was influenced very little by The Lord of the Rings, stating that he included these elements as a marketing move to draw on the popularity the work enjoyed at the time he was developing the game.
Throughout the next two decades, the term fantasy became synonymous with the general aspects of Tolkien's work: multiple races including dwarves and elves, a quest to destroy a magical artifact, and an evil that seeks to control the world.
Oh, and next time, don't start to assume things about me when you're annoyed: I've read everything from Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith's Cthulhu Mythos books, I know how much Lovecraft was influenced by Poe and Lord Dunsany, and I'm familiar with all the subgenres in scifi, fantasy and horror in of the last fifty years (and yes, I also know what came before those)
never at any point did I say JRR had no hand in bringing fantasy to people. I said that he took what he did from old world lore, just the same as others before and after him. he was a hand among many in the world of fantasy. mainly, the dwarf-elf-orc premise.
you said he had more to do with the influence of fantasy in the modern world than old world lore. and regardless of what you link, that is foolish. Mythology is the source of it all and I gaurentee you more people have been inspired by tales that have existed for hundreds of years than something that one person did over 50 years ago.
don't make this into anything more than what it is. simply; my point that all fantasy derives from lore that has existed for hundreds of years. your links are funny, because you act as if i am downplaying what Tolkien did to expand the popularity of fantasy. that was never a part of my point. I think what he did was great but it is just a continuation of what was already growing and expanding for years. Mythology.
Hmm, Tolkien did something more than just introduce the elf-orc-dwarf combination, he popularised modern fantasy into a mainstream genre and introduced or highlighted a number of themes and tropes that have since been used in the works of many fantasy writers after him. Without Tolkien and his take on high fantasy and epic fantasy, fantasy as a genre would quite probably have taken a different path.
One correction, you said:
'Tolkien influenced the orc-dwarf-elf design. not fantasy in general. personally, being the fan of fantasy that I am, I find your assesment insulting'
'However, it was the advent of high fantasy and, most importantly, the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which finally allowed fantasy to truly enter into the mainstream'. It is difficult to overstate the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on the fantasy genre; in some respects, it swamped all the works of fantasy that had been written before it, and it unquestionably created "fantasy" as a marketing category'
But of course, I fully agree, there's very little real invention at all in literature, Tolkien was influenced and used fairytales, mythologies and other literature that preceded his, just as Lovecraft was influenced by others. So even if writers were influenced at first by Tolkien's works, in the end all fantasy works are influenced by the works before them, going back to the folklore and mythologies from centuries, sometimes even millennia ago.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The only thing this thread proves to ME, personally, is that there is probably an MMO out there for every type of player.
A lot of people like WoW-style. Some of them like WoW-style because it's the only MMO they've ever played, they're having fun, and they're not interested in exploring the rest of the genre. Others...choose various other games. Many things factor into why someone who has PLAYED multiple MMOs chooses one or two as their favorites and gives those particular games their money.
And lastly....no one else has the right to decide how any other person spends their gaming dollar. Period. Just because Player A loves Game X does not mean that I must, and vice versa.
Popularity proves nothing but popularity. And the fact that you may not like the designer flavor of the year in your clothes, or the developer flavor of the decade in your games, etc....doesn't mean you're WRONG and the masses are "right." It may simply mean that you are a different PERSON from Player A who likes Game X and that thankfully....Game Y exists for YOU. Player A can go play Game X until his ass falls off, for all I care. I'm just happy to have Game Y!! =D
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The next time someone says LOTRO is a WoW-clone, I'm gonna go on a murder spree and I won't be able to stop myself.
You see, Lord of the Rings Online is based on this set of fantasy books called "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." They were written about 40-50 years ago.
Then this game called "Warcraft" came out 16 years ago, and it was based quite heavily on these books known as "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." Eventually, Warcraft spawned two sequels and an MMO known as World of Warcraft, all still based quite heavily on this "Lord of the Rings" novel.
The dwarves from LoTRO, they look and act almost exactly like the dwarves from WoW!! They even have huge cavernous cities under mountains just like in WoW! That "Moria" place? What a rip-off of Ironforge! WRONG! The dwarves from WoW are lifted almost completely from Lord of the Rings! You know that stuff "mithril?" You have that stuff in WoW right? LoTRO has it too, so they must have ripped off WoW! WRONG! Mithril was invented by Tolkien and is found first in Lord of the Rings.
If anything, the game style that LoTRO uses is based on games like Everquest (oh yeah, the halflings from Everquest/Everquest II? Taken directly from Lord of the Rings. That's why they're nearly identical to hobbits in LoTRO.)
WoW is actually the LoTRO clone. I wish people would stop showing that they no nothing about anything when they say crap like "LoTRO is a WoW clone!"
So if wow never came out LoTRO would be exactly the same as it is now? I promise you it would be a totally diffrent game then it is now..
Wrong those spikes are why devs need to stop pushing out crap games that are broken and do not have the features advertised. The reason that WAR and AoC have those huge spikes is because we got a broken craptastic game that sucked ass. They hyped the living crap out of them and delivered on very few features that were the focus of the hype. The games that are solid have a normal curve to them, so the only thing that that graph proves is that if a dev puts out a half finished hunk of shit people will not stay subbed to it.
The next time someone says LOTRO is a WoW-clone, I'm gonna go on a murder spree and I won't be able to stop myself.
You see, Lord of the Rings Online is based on this set of fantasy books called "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." They were written about 40-50 years ago.
Then this game called "Warcraft" came out 16 years ago, and it was based quite heavily on these books known as "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." Eventually, Warcraft spawned two sequels and an MMO known as World of Warcraft, all still based quite heavily on this "Lord of the Rings" novel.
The dwarves from LoTRO, they look and act almost exactly like the dwarves from WoW!! They even have huge cavernous cities under mountains just like in WoW! That "Moria" place? What a rip-off of Ironforge! WRONG! The dwarves from WoW are lifted almost completely from Lord of the Rings! You know that stuff "mithril?" You have that stuff in WoW right? LoTRO has it too, so they must have ripped off WoW! WRONG! Mithril was invented by Tolkien and is found first in Lord of the Rings.
If anything, the game style that LoTRO uses is based on games like Everquest (oh yeah, the halflings from Everquest/Everquest II? Taken directly from Lord of the Rings. That's why they're nearly identical to hobbits in LoTRO.)
WoW is actually the LoTRO clone. I wish people would stop showing that they no nothing about anything when they say crap like "LoTRO is a WoW clone!"
So if wow never came out LoTRO would be exactly the same as it is now? I promise you it would be a totally diffrent game then it is now..
Turbine would have simply cloned the gameplay of whatever other game was popular at the moment.
If a company is willing to emulate wows gameplay they would just do the same with another game if wow did not exist.
Without Asian subs Aion is under 250k subs in NA/Euro if you do a little math on Xfire.
Basically it means in the west WoW clones sell dick.
All post WoW themeparks in the west are sub 250k.
Guess the devs need to try something else unless they enjoy spending 50+ million on developement to retain those subs.
While most "sandbox", "hgardcore" type of games do considerably less, somewhere around the 100k-250k mark I would guess so I think the op's point is entirely moot. If the devs spent the amount of money they spend designing theme park games designing obscure sandbox titles they couldn't even break even let alone have the chance to actually make money on a title.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Thats what cracks me up about so many people. Ive seen it a bunch of times, WoW fanboy hops on a new game, then bitches about it being a WoWclone /ragequit. A month or 2 later, another new game comes along and same WoW fanboy tries it out, bitches that its nothing like WoW and WoW is 50x better because it has/doesnt have this and this and this, /ragequit again.
Honestly i think we would all be much better off if all the WoW fans could make up their mind
Wrong those spikes are why devs need to stop pushing out crap games that are broken and do not have the features advertised. The reason that WAR and AoC have those huge spikes is because we got a broken craptastic game that sucked ass. They hyped the living crap out of them and delivered on very few features that were the focus of the hype. The games that are solid have a normal curve to them, so the only thing that that graph proves is that if a dev puts out a half finished hunk of shit people will not stay subbed to it.
Spot on. People may be pretty dumb but most won't pay for shit, even if it is painted gold (of course there are your fetishists).
Well we can definately see where all the EQ1 players went to. i find it ironic how just 6 months after the release of WoW that EQ1's subs drop drastically.
Nice to see Eve doing well, got to love it when something that is truely original makes headway.
Well I thought it was partially WoW and partially the release of their own EQ2, I mean the numbers they lose they pretty much get in EQ2 players.
yeah true, forgot it came out around the same time as wow.
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
People are tired of the "tried and true" WoW formula, and if they are not tired of it, they'll likely be playing WoW and no matter what you developers release, it's never going to be as good at launch so those players will stick with or immediately go back to WoW.
You have to offer us something different.
And the real funny part?
I bet Blizzard's MMO will be the next MMO to offer something that is truly different. Why not corner the ENTIRE MMO market all at once? It'd be brilliant.
I've had this suspicion for quite some time as well.
A lot of people seem to believe Blizzard's new MMO will be an improved version of WoW (mechanics-wise, anyway) since obviously it works and eleventy million people play it, but that's the exact same reasoning that's been behind every big flop in the last five years or so.
My gut tells me Blizzard's new MMO will draw more from games like EvE, Darkfall, and UO than from WoW. WoW took the existing theme-park model, refined it to near-perfection (at least for the time) and made it accessible. Nobody has done the same thing for a sandbox-style MMO yet and I think it could be just as successful.
Hmm, Tolkien did something more than just introduce the elf-orc-dwarf combination, he popularised modern fantasy into a mainstream genre and introduced or highlighted a number of themes and tropes that have since been used in the works of many fantasy writers after him. Without Tolkien and his take on high fantasy and epic fantasy, fantasy as a genre would quite probably have taken a different path.
One correction, you said:
'Tolkien influenced the orc-dwarf-elf design. not fantasy in general. personally, being the fan of fantasy that I am, I find your assesment insulting'
'However, it was the advent of high fantasy and, most importantly, the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which finally allowed fantasy to truly enter into the mainstream'. It is difficult to overstate the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on the fantasy genre; in some respects, it swamped all the works of fantasy that had been written before it, and it unquestionably created "fantasy" as a marketing category'
But of course, I fully agree, there's very little real invention at all in literature, Tolkien was influenced and used fairytales, mythologies and other literature that preceded his, just as Lovecraft was influenced by others. So even if writers were influenced at first by Tolkien's works, in the end all fantasy works are influenced by the works before them, going back to the folklore and mythologies from centuries, sometimes even millennia ago.
your last point up there was my ONLY point. glad to see we could come around and meet back where it started.
maybe my wording looked unfair regarding Tolkien, which caused this exchange to become something else than what I intended. Again, i love Tolkien for helping to bring fantasy to the mainstream and respect everything he did for fantasy, but in the end, I'm more into mythology than 'high' fantasy, which is what Tolkien formulated.
also, you are looking at the marketing aspect way more than I will ever choose to. I speak from experience and I can't remember how old I was when I learned about Greek mythology and King Arthur. Like The Beatles, its something I have just always known about. yet i didn't know who Tolkien was until junior high (when 'the hobbit' was read in class). Though I admit that Tolkien helped nudge me towards fantasy, he did nothing compared to the folklore of our own world. surely, in the billions of people who have lived on this world, I can't be alone on that.
it was fun talking with you though. one of the better conversations I have had on MMORPG.
Hmm, Tolkien did something more than just introduce the elf-orc-dwarf combination, he popularised modern fantasy into a mainstream genre and introduced or highlighted a number of themes and tropes that have since been used in the works of many fantasy writers after him. Without Tolkien and his take on high fantasy and epic fantasy, fantasy as a genre would quite probably have taken a different path.
One correction, you said:
'Tolkien influenced the orc-dwarf-elf design. not fantasy in general. personally, being the fan of fantasy that I am, I find your assesment insulting'
'However, it was the advent of high fantasy and, most importantly, the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which finally allowed fantasy to truly enter into the mainstream'. It is difficult to overstate the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on the fantasy genre; in some respects, it swamped all the works of fantasy that had been written before it, and it unquestionably created "fantasy" as a marketing category'
But of course, I fully agree, there's very little real invention at all in literature, Tolkien was influenced and used fairytales, mythologies and other literature that preceded his, just as Lovecraft was influenced by others. So even if writers were influenced at first by Tolkien's works, in the end all fantasy works are influenced by the works before them, going back to the folklore and mythologies from centuries, sometimes even millennia ago.
your last point up there was my ONLY point. glad to see we could come around and meet back where it started.
maybe my wording looked unfair regarding Tolkien, which caused this exchange to become something else than what I intended. Again, i love Tolkien for helping to bring fantasy to the mainstream and respect everything he did for fantasy, but in the end, I'm more into mythology than 'high' fantasy, which is what Tolkien formulated.
also, you are looking at the marketing aspect way more than I will ever choose to. I speak from experience and I can't remember how old I was when I learned about Greek mythology and King Arthur. Like The Beatles, its something I have just always known about. yet i didn't know who Tolkien was until junior high (when 'the hobbit' was read in class). Though I admit that Tolkien helped nudge me towards fantasy, he did nothing compared to the folklore of our own world. surely, in the billions of people who have lived on this world, I can't be alone on that.
it was fun talking with you though. one of the better conversations I have had on MMORPG.
While I do not doubt Tolkien has had a big impact on fantasy (more so high fantasy then low fantasy or fantasy in general). I would go on more to say King Arthur and the dozens of poems, stories, tales that way pre-date The Hobbit and LOTR have had a much greater effect on general Fantasy / Low Fantasy and RPG's in general.
Dofus? Seriously? Lol. I do like some of the classes there but I didn't think anyone would like the game. How funny would it be if it got to 1 mil+ subs over the years. Lol. It does have interesting classes though lithe the gamble where the battle can last for 3 rounds or 50 rounds depending on luck. Guess the class system is alright but lol, wouldn't excpet more than like 10k people to play it if that.
your last point up there was my ONLY point. glad to see we could come around and meet back where it started.
maybe my wording looked unfair regarding Tolkien, which caused this exchange to become something else than what I intended.
Yeah, your first post did give off the impression as if I had no base for the opinion I gave. But overall, I liked this conversation where an understanding is reached better than those discussions you also see on these forums (and others) that go on in endless flamewars where people are too proud or stubborn to see what the other party really is saying or to question some of their own statements they're making Ok, hugs around!
(I don't know how to add a 2nd quote with this weird post editor of this site, so gonna do it like this)
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Keep in mind though, most of those are Asian (Korean) subs. I estimate the US/European sub numbers to range between the 200,000 - 500,000.
Still, the game looks beautiful, it has one of the best char models and well-done char animations of any MMO around at the moment. The style design is Asian flavored, to the anime/manga side of things. Also, after L25 more and more the grind becomes recognisable that Asian MMO's often have more than western MMO's. Also, it's an oldschool MMO, don't expect any great innovations from it. Questing is 'get x number of this' and 'kill y monsters of that'. For the time I played, I had great fun and the flying and gliding can become addictive.
But Aion certainly profited from the polish that it got, being live in Asia for a year before it got released on the western market.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
yeah true, forgot it came out around the same time as wow.
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Again the famous 3.5 million of Aion. Nowhere to be found in official info from NCsoft.
What we do know is that 52% of all NCsoft income comes from South Korea ... and that South Korea has "around" 400K players on 42 servers.
The average US Aion servers apparently have 1.3 K concurrent users on average....Multiply that with 3 to 4 times the number of non concurrent subs and ... you have around 14 * 4.5 = 63 K subs for the US.
Double those figures to add EU... and it shows Aion has a max subscription base of under 150K in the west (in accordance with the 12% US revenu for NCSoft but that includes GW and CoH and other games). And btw a number everyone expected it to have for a grind based game these days.
So Aion west failed just as big as AoC and War. Perhaps they did just a little bit better, but I would't call under 150K western subs after 6 months a "big hit" either. Already now people complain that the 32 western servers (good for 300K concurrent users) are always half empty and want a server merge to get decent sieges.
So same story all over - as always.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
yeah true, forgot it came out around the same time as wow.
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Again the famous 3.5 million of Aion. Nowhere to be found in official info from NCsoft.
Here you go:
"May 20, 2009 - QVS International announced this week that it will be distributing Aion: The Tower of Eternity in Australia this September. Aion is a massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by NCsoft, and since its launch in Asia in March, has built up 3.5 million subscribers. The game apparently has 1,500 story-driven quests, with players fighting in an "epic celestial war", with a choice between two divine factions: the Asmodians and the Elyos."
And according to a report published in the Aion website, there are 3 million subscribers worldwide as of january 2010. In August 2009 NCSoft claimed that it had reached 4.4 million subscribers.
Of course, now the discussion can be started about whether any MMO game company is truthful about the numbers of their subscribers or if news on any gamesite can be trusted.
But this was the info I found with only a quick search. And no, I don't intend to go looking for other sources, because I'm just going to say that your 'evidence' is unreliable and fuzzy logic as well, when it comes to measuring sub numbers. As you said yourself, if you make a statement that is in contrast with what is generally stated, then back it up with official info or sources.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
yeah true, forgot it came out around the same time as wow.
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Again the famous 3.5 million of Aion. Nowhere to be found in official info from NCsoft.
Here you go:
"May 20, 2009 - QVS International announced this week that it will be distributing Aion: The Tower of Eternity in Australia this September. Aion is a massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by NCsoft, and since its launch in Asia in March, has built up 3.5 million subscribers. The game apparently has 1,500 story-driven quests, with players fighting in an "epic celestial war", with a choice between two divine factions: the Asmodians and the Elyos."
And according to a report published in the Aion website, there are 3 million subscribers worldwide as of january 2010. In August 2009 NCSoft claimed that it had reached 4.4 million subscribers.
Of course, now the discussion can be started about whether any MMO game company is truthful about the numbers of their subscribers or if news on any gamesite can be trusted.
But this was the info I found with only a quick search. And no, I don't intend to go looking for other sources, because I'm just going to say that your 'evidence' is unreliable and fuzzy logic as well, when it comes to measuring sub numbers. As you said yourself, if you make a statement that is in contrast with what is generally stated, then back it up with official info or sources.
The same nameless source of IGN.
NEVER confirmed by NCSoft. NEVER.
Besides the numbers of the Aion servers in the US are there for the grabs, not some free internt cafés in China.
They are clearly under 150K western subs as I explained above: you may count the individual servers if you want. The info is there for the grabs.
Again, back it up with official sources: You want to make a statement that Aion has only a few 100,000s subs? Then show me the NCSoft or gamenews confirming that, no fuzzy speculations.
You wanted to know where the 3.5 million subs were coming from? I showed you one of the news sources.
Now wasn't that nice of me? I'm actually expecting a 'thank you', but won't hold my breath for it.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
never at any point did I say JRR had no hand in bringing fantasy to people. I said that he took what he did from old world lore, just the same as others before and after him. he was a hand among many in the world of fantasy. mainly, the dwarf-elf-orc premise.
you said he had more to do with the influence of fantasy in the modern world than old world lore. and regardless of what you link, that is foolish. Mythology is the source of it all and I gaurentee you more people have been inspired by tales that have existed for hundreds of years than something that one person did over 50 years ago.
don't make this into anything more than what it is. simply; my point that all fantasy derives from lore that has existed for hundreds of years. your links are funny, because you act as if i am downplaying what Tolkien did to expand the popularity of fantasy. that was never a part of my point. I think what he did was great but it is just a continuation of what was already growing and expanding for years. Mythology.
Hmm, Tolkien did something more than just introduce the elf-orc-dwarf combination, he popularised modern fantasy into a mainstream genre and introduced or highlighted a number of themes and tropes that have since been used in the works of many fantasy writers after him. Without Tolkien and his take on high fantasy and epic fantasy, fantasy as a genre would quite probably have taken a different path.
One correction, you said:
'Tolkien influenced the orc-dwarf-elf design. not fantasy in general. personally, being the fan of fantasy that I am, I find your assesment insulting'
A history of fantasy states
'However, it was the advent of high fantasy and, most importantly, the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which finally allowed fantasy to truly enter into the mainstream'. It is difficult to overstate the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on the fantasy genre; in some respects, it swamped all the works of fantasy that had been written before it, and it unquestionably created "fantasy" as a marketing category'
But of course, I fully agree, there's very little real invention at all in literature, Tolkien was influenced and used fairytales, mythologies and other literature that preceded his, just as Lovecraft was influenced by others. So even if writers were influenced at first by Tolkien's works, in the end all fantasy works are influenced by the works before them, going back to the folklore and mythologies from centuries, sometimes even millennia ago.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The only thing this thread proves to ME, personally, is that there is probably an MMO out there for every type of player.
A lot of people like WoW-style. Some of them like WoW-style because it's the only MMO they've ever played, they're having fun, and they're not interested in exploring the rest of the genre. Others...choose various other games. Many things factor into why someone who has PLAYED multiple MMOs chooses one or two as their favorites and gives those particular games their money.
And lastly....no one else has the right to decide how any other person spends their gaming dollar. Period. Just because Player A loves Game X does not mean that I must, and vice versa.
Popularity proves nothing but popularity. And the fact that you may not like the designer flavor of the year in your clothes, or the developer flavor of the decade in your games, etc....doesn't mean you're WRONG and the masses are "right." It may simply mean that you are a different PERSON from Player A who likes Game X and that thankfully....Game Y exists for YOU. Player A can go play Game X until his ass falls off, for all I care. I'm just happy to have Game Y!! =D
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
+1
You make great posts
keep it up
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
So if wow never came out LoTRO would be exactly the same as it is now? I promise you it would be a totally diffrent game then it is now..
Currently Playing Path of Exile
Wrong those spikes are why devs need to stop pushing out crap games that are broken and do not have the features advertised. The reason that WAR and AoC have those huge spikes is because we got a broken craptastic game that sucked ass. They hyped the living crap out of them and delivered on very few features that were the focus of the hype. The games that are solid have a normal curve to them, so the only thing that that graph proves is that if a dev puts out a half finished hunk of shit people will not stay subbed to it.
Turbine would have simply cloned the gameplay of whatever other game was popular at the moment.
If a company is willing to emulate wows gameplay they would just do the same with another game if wow did not exist.
While most "sandbox", "hgardcore" type of games do considerably less, somewhere around the 100k-250k mark I would guess so I think the op's point is entirely moot. If the devs spent the amount of money they spend designing theme park games designing obscure sandbox titles they couldn't even break even let alone have the chance to actually make money on a title.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
true words.
the ragequit thingy was spot on
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bah! geeks and their information. We all know that Tolkiens work is based on northern europen folk lore. So suck it up.
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Spot on. People may be pretty dumb but most won't pay for shit, even if it is painted gold (of course there are your fetishists).
If Warhammer is sitting above 100k total subs, then I'm the bloody queen of England.
yeah true, forgot it came out around the same time as wow.
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Aside from it's rich game-play, this is enough for me to give EVE appreciation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q
I've had this suspicion for quite some time as well.
A lot of people seem to believe Blizzard's new MMO will be an improved version of WoW (mechanics-wise, anyway) since obviously it works and eleventy million people play it, but that's the exact same reasoning that's been behind every big flop in the last five years or so.
My gut tells me Blizzard's new MMO will draw more from games like EvE, Darkfall, and UO than from WoW. WoW took the existing theme-park model, refined it to near-perfection (at least for the time) and made it accessible. Nobody has done the same thing for a sandbox-style MMO yet and I think it could be just as successful.
your last point up there was my ONLY point. glad to see we could come around and meet back where it started.
maybe my wording looked unfair regarding Tolkien, which caused this exchange to become something else than what I intended. Again, i love Tolkien for helping to bring fantasy to the mainstream and respect everything he did for fantasy, but in the end, I'm more into mythology than 'high' fantasy, which is what Tolkien formulated.
also, you are looking at the marketing aspect way more than I will ever choose to. I speak from experience and I can't remember how old I was when I learned about Greek mythology and King Arthur. Like The Beatles, its something I have just always known about. yet i didn't know who Tolkien was until junior high (when 'the hobbit' was read in class). Though I admit that Tolkien helped nudge me towards fantasy, he did nothing compared to the folklore of our own world. surely, in the billions of people who have lived on this world, I can't be alone on that.
it was fun talking with you though. one of the better conversations I have had on MMORPG.
While I do not doubt Tolkien has had a big impact on fantasy (more so high fantasy then low fantasy or fantasy in general). I would go on more to say King Arthur and the dozens of poems, stories, tales that way pre-date The Hobbit and LOTR have had a much greater effect on general Fantasy / Low Fantasy and RPG's in general.
Dofus? Seriously? Lol. I do like some of the classes there but I didn't think anyone would like the game. How funny would it be if it got to 1 mil+ subs over the years. Lol. It does have interesting classes though lithe the gamble where the battle can last for 3 rounds or 50 rounds depending on luck. Guess the class system is alright but lol, wouldn't excpet more than like 10k people to play it if that.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Yeah, your first post did give off the impression as if I had no base for the opinion I gave. But overall, I liked this conversation where an understanding is reached better than those discussions you also see on these forums (and others) that go on in endless flamewars where people are too proud or stubborn to see what the other party really is saying or to question some of their own statements they're making
Ok, hugs around!
(I don't know how to add a 2nd quote with this weird post editor of this site, so gonna do it like this)
@Jamkull: you said
on another note, Aion isn't doing to shabby, just under 3.5 million subs. looking to try out that game soon, got a good deal on best buy, the game plus a 1 month sub card for 30 bucks. hopefully it's worthwhile...
Keep in mind though, most of those are Asian (Korean) subs. I estimate the US/European sub numbers to range between the 200,000 - 500,000.
Still, the game looks beautiful, it has one of the best char models and well-done char animations of any MMO around at the moment. The style design is Asian flavored, to the anime/manga side of things. Also, after L25 more and more the grind becomes recognisable that Asian MMO's often have more than western MMO's. Also, it's an oldschool MMO, don't expect any great innovations from it. Questing is 'get x number of this' and 'kill y monsters of that'. For the time I played, I had great fun and the flying and gliding can become addictive.
But Aion certainly profited from the polish that it got, being live in Asia for a year before it got released on the western market.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Again the famous 3.5 million of Aion. Nowhere to be found in official info from NCsoft.
What we do know is that 52% of all NCsoft income comes from South Korea ... and that South Korea has "around" 400K players on 42 servers.
The average US Aion servers apparently have 1.3 K concurrent users on average....Multiply that with 3 to 4 times the number of non concurrent subs and ... you have around 14 * 4.5 = 63 K subs for the US.
See Frolly post over here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/271754/page/7
And confirmed by Aion website in exact number of E and A: http://na.aiononline.com/livestatus/server/
Double those figures to add EU... and it shows Aion has a max subscription base of under 150K in the west (in accordance with the 12% US revenu for NCSoft but that includes GW and CoH and other games). And btw a number everyone expected it to have for a grind based game these days.
So Aion west failed just as big as AoC and War. Perhaps they did just a little bit better, but I would't call under 150K western subs after 6 months a "big hit" either. Already now people complain that the 32 western servers (good for 300K concurrent users) are always half empty and want a server merge to get decent sieges.
So same story all over - as always.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Here you go:
"May 20, 2009 - QVS International announced this week that it will be distributing Aion: The Tower of Eternity in Australia this September. Aion is a massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by NCsoft, and since its launch in Asia in March, has built up 3.5 million subscribers. The game apparently has 1,500 story-driven quests, with players fighting in an "epic celestial war", with a choice between two divine factions: the Asmodians and the Elyos."
Source: IGN
And according to a report published in the Aion website, there are 3 million subscribers worldwide as of january 2010. In August 2009 NCSoft claimed that it had reached 4.4 million subscribers.
Of course, now the discussion can be started about whether any MMO game company is truthful about the numbers of their subscribers or if news on any gamesite can be trusted.
But this was the info I found with only a quick search. And no, I don't intend to go looking for other sources, because I'm just going to say that your 'evidence' is unreliable and fuzzy logic as well, when it comes to measuring sub numbers. As you said yourself, if you make a statement that is in contrast with what is generally stated, then back it up with official info or sources.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The same nameless source of IGN.
NEVER confirmed by NCSoft. NEVER.
Besides the numbers of the Aion servers in the US are there for the grabs, not some free internt cafés in China.
They are clearly under 150K western subs as I explained above: you may count the individual servers if you want. The info is there for the grabs.
http://na.aiononline.com/livestatus/server/
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/271754/page/7 (post made by frolly and in game player of the game).
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Again, back it up with official sources: You want to make a statement that Aion has only a few 100,000s subs? Then show me the NCSoft or gamenews confirming that, no fuzzy speculations.
You wanted to know where the 3.5 million subs were coming from? I showed you one of the news sources.
Now wasn't that nice of me? I'm actually expecting a 'thank you', but won't hold my breath for it.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Doesn't matter how much is spent on development, if that money isn't *well* spent.
Look at Vanguard. Look at Tabula Rasa. Both MMOs that - while not "WoW Clones" - had tons of money thrown at them. Did it help them?
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops