Development Info Obsidian joins The Wheel of Time

[Jason]

Tags: Obsidian Entertainment

According to <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62354" target="blank">Shack News</a>, Obsidian has signed on for an adaption of Robert Jordan's <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time" target="blank">Wheel of Time</a></b> series.
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<blockquote>Fallout: New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2 developer Obsidian Entertainment will join Red Eagle Games in working on its video game adaptations of Robert Jordan's acclaimed fantasy novel series 'The Wheel of Time,' the pair announced today.
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"The Wheel of Time is one of the greatest and well-received fantasy series of all time," said Obsidian chief creative officer Chris Avellone. "Games set in Robert Jordan's universe have the chance to deliver on the epic storylines and the complex characters that the series is known for - and this is one of Obsidian's strengths. It's a natural fit." Obsidian was founded by veterans of Fallout and Planescape: Torment dev Black Isle.
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Red Eagle Games has been planning to make a Wheel of Time MMORPG as well as tie-in games for the movies its parent company Red Eagle Entertainment is making.</blockquote>
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Now let's all get on our knees and pray to Jesus or Allah or Satan that Obsidian won't be going anywhere near that MMORPG.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.shacknews.com/">Shack News</A>

 

[Jaesun]

:shock: That was unexpected.

 

[deuxhero]

Can anyone sum up the series?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Can anyone sum up the series?

Setting is LotR + sci-fi/pa retro-medieval (the Wheel of Time turns and the ages pass. At the time of the books a cataclysim destroyed a futuristic sci-fi culture with magic. "Now" the world is medieval with some artifacts lying around, only female magickers are allowed because men with magic go crazy. An ancient evil threatens to destroy the world because it is evil and the whole world is at war.) As a setting it should be solid enough for a good game. As long as the writers better than Jordan.

 

[The Feral Kid]

So it is a MMORPG after all, and Obsidian is just doing some coding. Move along, nothing to see here.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Does anyone still care about WoT? I don't see how this game will sell. Unless of course its awesome but what are the odds of that?

 

[The Exar]

Does anyone still care about WoT? I don't see how this game will sell. Unless of course its awesome but what are the odds of that?

50:50

 

[Perfect Fool]

"The Wheel of Time is one of the greatest and well-received fantasy series of all time," said Obsidian chief creative officer Chris Avellone. "Games set in Robert Jordan's universe have the chance to deliver on the epic storylines and the complex characters that the series is known for - and this is one of Obsidian's strengths. It's a natural fit." Obsidian was founded by veterans of Fallout and Planescape: Torment dev Black Isle.

How can CA calmly lie through his teeth like that? TWoT is a generic, boring, longwinded pile of shit. I can read crappy books if I've got nothing better to do to keep myslef busy, but even I failed to get more than three books into that pile of crap before giving up.

Just to put it into context as to how well I can deal with awful writing if I want to, I once managed to struggle through a David Eddings series when I was a teeneger and I had to stay with my grandparents for a fortnight, so I can put up with some pretty apalling crap. Saying that Jordan's shit is "one of the greatest and well-received fantasy series of all time," is a slur on the genre (which, admittedly is not full of literary gold, but there is some worthwhile stuff about if you dig deeply enough)

edit: need an additinal LOL at Jordan apparently writing "complex characters". Can anyone name one of them for me, please? I must have missed them.

 

[Brother None]

Meh. I've seen worse fantasy pulp than WoT, but it's still just fantasy pulp.

Does anyone still care about WoT? I don't see how this game will sell.

I thought the IP was still pretty popular.

 

[crakkie]

I would also like to make one additional clarification. We are not licensing our WOT development rights and stepping back from the process of building these video games. Quite to the contrary, Red Eagle Games will have an internal development team of its own. However, rather than staffing up a 200 person studio from scratch, we decided some time ago that for our first games it would be far more prudent to hire a small in-house team (e.g. positions such as Art Director, Game Designer, Story Writer, Software Architect, Quality Assurance Director, etc.) and rely on a third party developer to provide the majority of developers and their associated overhead and infrastructure. In this way, we will be providing technical and creative direction to our external developer.

 

[MetalCraze]

So it is a MMORPG after all, and Obsidian is just doing some coding. Move along, nothing to see here.

With Bioware starting to work on SWTOR it was only a matter of time before Bioware Junior will follow.

 

[Sartar__]

A proper WOT RPG on the computer would be awesome. It is a very different world to the standard ones in fantasy games. It's not Medieval, doesn't have Elves or Dwarves, has a large number of cultures over large distances and has a lot of politics. The concept of magic and prophecies surrounding The Dragon are interesting.

The first three books in the series are well recommended.

Unfortunate that it is only a MMO.

 

[Erebus]

Don't forget to mention the WoT has plenty of naked women being held on a leash or whipped. That should bring in the buyers.

 

[Tardvapor]

...or at least the Goreans.

 

[Ausir]

Read the fucking thing. This isn't a MMO. They plan to make an MMO in the future as well, but for now they're making a single-player game with Obsidian.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/96804-r ... games.html

 

[Sartar__]

Thanks. It doesn't say what kind of game they want to make.

Selvage said in an interview that the game company will make a series of games that will be co-launched with the movies. In addition, Red Eagle Games will make a massively multiplayer online game based on the Wheel of Time universe.

“We’ve got a huge running start with this property,” Selvage said. “We expect to have a game based on every movie, and we expect no less than three movies, though that depends on how well each does.”

But why choose Obsidian?

 

[Pseudofool]

Sounds like the developmental details will still be left up to Obsidian, which I think will be a good thing. Obsidian does a lot of small things well to develop narrative and character, IMO.

 

[Jora]

But why choose Obsidian?

Obsidian is the most qualified company in the industry to develop an RPG.

 

[.Sigurd]

But why choose Obsidian?

Obsidian is the most qualified company in the industry to develop an RPG.

Hahahah

 

[Forest Dweller]

Holy shit, that's about the last thing I was expecting.

 

[Andhaira]

You guys are missing one thing: The games will be built around the movies.

That means the games will be like the LOTR games by EA for the LOTR movies. In other words, action games.

They will suck.

 

[Jaesun]

In before Skywa... oh fuck it nevermind.

Also apparently it is an Action/RPG... like our beloved Mass Effect 2.... r00fles!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Ok, this shot straight to number one on my 'anticipated games' list. I can't imagine how Obsidian could play to their strengths any better.

For those who aren't away, the WoT books are an interminably long series of novels, the first and best few of which range from completely mediocre to kind of decent for pulp fantasy. The series just goes on and on like a US tv show (i.e. just keeps going as long as it sells vs the UK model of having a fixed run with a pre-planned beginning, middle and end). Ultimately it either never gets completed, or kind of gets half finished in a petered out way.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Obsidian can 'not finish' a game better than other developer I know of. They can set up a whole lot of intricate characters, with plans about how their character stories will intersect and meet for a coherent over-arching theme, and then not get around to implementing it and leaving the material on the cd for a bunch of modding groups to slowly add in pieces until interest eventually runs out many years later.

And it will be entirely faithful to the source material!

The only way this could be any better would be for some really good developer to do a series of AWESOME Dune games, then go broke and sell the licence to a company that tries really hard but just ends up turning the next 5 Dune games into consolised shit.

 

[Lesifoere]

A++ Azrael, will lol again.

(Oh shit, I just noticed the Valentine's Day Codex header.)