Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Utnayan said:

Put them back down. RA Salvatore has been a sell out for the last few years.

I wish Schilling luck though. Hopefully he will understand what needs to be done in this genre.

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What, exactly, has he done that made him a sell out? Specifics please.

Besides working for WOTC? Well, he killed Chewie too.

Ignoring my own jokes though, he isn"t exactly the most original or able of authors and hasn"t written a good novel for a very long time. Just more of the same over and over with invincible characters that keep coming back to life.

His Drizzt stuff is "ok" but Im not a real huge fan of it because Drizzt as a character is too powerful. I can accept the too powerful thing but then you add in the whole tormented boy scout thing and it just gets cheesy. The latest series with Drizzt was much better I thought because its darker then the others I think. Also I dislike Drizzt cause I grow tired of seeing the 10000000 different versions of him every day. I cant even take Dark Elf rangers in EQ2 serious anymore because they all RP drizzt in some way or another... /sigh

Now... Artemis Entreri on the other hand I think is a great fucking character. He is overpowered too but he isnt a boy scout like Drizzt and I think his character has a shit ton more depth. Seeing him struggle with his choosen way of life is great. Its interesting seeing such a cold hearted killer start to find some form of humanity over the years.

/nerd off

Lorrac said:

No, utnayan hates salvatore because he is actually working on games while ut argues in forums about games.

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hahah

Wow, Ut"s throwing down the gloves - actually called the designers that post here dispshits. Quoting for posterity.

Salvatore is a sell out because he doesn"t know when to stop. He keeps selling the same tired and old stories based on the same tired and old characters. As noted, he hasn"t written anything decent for years, and banks on his name from previous work to make money today -- while fanboys jump all over the name.

If you would like to see an Author who is worth a shit, see David Eddings -- who doesn"t whore out his characters for cash.

Similar to Peter Molyneux today. A good designer back in 1995. He hasn"t done shit for 11 years and continues to disapoint time and time again. Selling on hype and his name, while the game always falls on it"s ass.

I love some of these replies though. Considering some of the dipshits here posting that design games know less about their own product than Draz knows about common sense.

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Utnayan said:

If you would like to see an Author who is worth a shit, see David Eddings -- who doesn"t whore out his characters for cash.

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He doesn"t whore out his characters for cash, but his wife writes too much of his material now. His quality of writing has gone way down from his first series.

I was a huge fan of his. Ate up everything he wrote, but my past few experiences with him have left me feeling "meh" but, oh well.

You know whats so great is the Ignore List under user CP, I"m suprised some of you guys haven"t put Utnayan on it yet. So nice being able to shut him up and not a damn thing his retarded ass can do about it.

Thoruk said:

He doesn"t whore out his characters for cash, but his wife writes too much of his material now. His quality of writing has gone way down from his first series.

I was a huge fan of his. Ate up everything he wrote, but my past few experiences with him have left me feeling "meh" but, oh well.

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So true, I couldn"t even finish the last book I started (The dreamers iirc) since I found it boring and written like shit, it felt like I was reading some novel from my little brother...
But maybe Ut is a blind fanboy eh?

I loved The Belgariad and The Malloreon, but that"s about it. I find Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb or Martin much better than Eddings.

And for the obligatory Wikipedia quote

David Eddings" first books (which were general fiction) sold moderately well. Later he switched to the much more successful field of epic fantasy. However some of his more recent series, namely those after The Malloreon, received fairly widespread criticism from readers and critics alike due to the fact of his "Re-hashment" of storylines and characters. Eddings, in a recent interview with sffworld.com, said "I don"t take orders from readers".

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Yeah, complaining about Salvatore rehashing and then bringing up Eddings as a paragon is a bad move. Pretty much all the fantasy authors of the 80s were just getting let off the hook because fantasy was such a new field (it resurging in the last few years of the 70s) and now they all look like one-note, Tolkien worshipers compared to the newest authors (save for Pratchett), especially a lot of the up and comers the last couple years.

Utnayan said:

I"m an idiot because I don"t know when to stop. I keeps selling the same tired and old rants based on the same tired and old grudge.

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Fixed it for you.

Now, Terry Brooks is someone whom I would say has maintained his level of writing. Undoubtably, his Shannara series was fantastic, Word of the Void was great (because it was a good step outside of the fantasy genre) and Kingdom of Landover was a good series as well. Of course, he has his books that I did not enjoy, but I would still maintain him to be a good author.

Salvatore might whore out his characters but Im failing to see how that makes him any less of an author? I do think his characters are a bit over the top but he can still put together a pretty damn good story. If Drizzt and company were toned down a little bit his stuff would be pretty classic I think.

If nothing else he did in fact create one of the most famous/loved fantasy characters out there. Most people, even those that dont read fantasy will of heard the name Drizzt before. He has the ability to take something simple and turn it into gold. Their MMO might be really good. /shrug

Edit*

It could be far far worst and we could get the author that wrote the Elminster stuff doing MMOs instead hehe. I dont remember his name, I only read one Elminster book but if you want to talk about over the top garbage.. that would be it.

dble post

Ed Greenwood =/

I love me some David Eddings... up until the end of the Tamuli, his works from then on have been lackluster. A game with his style in it though, wouldn"t be the best in the world. If people have an issue with "overpowered" characters, David Eddings is as close to a Marvel writer as most fantasy authors (sans Greenwood. I fucking hate Forgotten Realms =/) can hope to be. I mean seriously, Belgarath and Sparhawk? They worked with Gods to defeat other gods, and usually end up being superior anyway. He"s a good author, but for a mmorpg? Can"t see it going well.

Terry Brooks would be a better choice, though I would prefer a dark fantasy mmo with Moorcock at the helm. Anyone who has read any of the Eternal Champion novels knows the man doesn"t deal with omnipotence without making it the most tragic shit possible. <3 Elric and the Von Beks.

/disagree on Terry Brooks. Elfstones was decent. I think his stuff after got progressively more mediocre just like Salvatore and Eddings. Most authors seem to be like music groups - they put out solid material for a while, but eventually start fucking up. Most authors eventually have the literary equivalent of a "Black Album" where everything before that was genius, but everything including and after that is just mediocre at best, if not downright bad.

Very few authors (or bands) avoid this and continually put out material of utmost quality. But there are some.

Michael Moorcock is no exception either IMHO. The main Elric books are masterpieces, I wasn"t into the later stand-alone Elric books he added at all though.

"The challenge is not simply in publishing a game but in publishing a game that changes the landscape of the online marketplace," said Schilling. "Our company motto is "If you can"t do it better than it"s ever been done before, work for someone else.""

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Hehe so they are basically promising a revolutionary MMOG that changes the online market place? BTW McFarlane on your art team doesnt mean good game art unless you have 3D artists that can actually execute his designs. You could have Leonardi DaVanci as your concept artist but still have shitty 3D modelers.