Videogames

An Aside | A GAME OF THRONES MMORPG under development

By Aidan Moher November 14th, 2011
My thoughts on GAME OF THRONES

Via 1up.com:

The first game based on A Song of Ice and Fire, a real-time strategy game known as A Game of Thrones: Genesis, was released just over a month ago. An RPG known simply as Game of Thrones is also in development, and that’s not the only game in the works based on George R.R. Martin’s epic novel series — at least two more are on the way.

The first of these two, according to USA Today, is an MMORPG. It’s being developed by Bigpoint, the company responsible for the browser-based MMO Battlestar Galactica Online, among many other, lesser-known games.

[…]

The release of Genesis was met with surprisingly little fanfare, and reviews haven’t been especially kind. That has many fans worried about the prospects of the RPG given that developer Cyanide Studio was responsible for Genesis. With how little we’ve seen of the game, it would be unfair to pass judgment on it at this point. At the same time, it’s somewhat worrying that the screenshots seen in this story represent a big chunk of what we know at this point.

Does anyone think this will be good?

These days, even World of Warcraft is having trouble keep its subscriber base from falling (it’s lost nearly a million subscribers) and the pedigree of the development team doesn’t exactly inspire any confidence. With Game of Thrones becoming a world-wide phenomenon, what will it take to get the IP into the hands of a development team that actually has the chutzpah to do Martin’s work justice?

Mechanically, it also just doesn’t make sense to me. MMORPGs are known for their epic, large scale fights against ferocious, mystical beings. Beyond Dany’s dragons, those don’t really exist in A Song of Ice and Fire. So, you reach the end of an Epic Raid and fight… one of Tyrion’s turtles? At least we’ll be able to collect 15 lemon cakes for Sansa once we make it to Winterfell.

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