Author Topic: Otherland  (Read 1289 times)

healix

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Otherland
« on: February 25, 2013, 07:22:15 PM »
While this is still in beta, has anyone checked this out? (It's based on the Tad Williams books)


Otherworld trailer


Otherworld website
Listen to the 'mustn'ts'. Listen to the 'don'ts'. Listen to the 'shouldn'ts', the 'impossibles', the 'won'ts'. Listen to the 'you'll never haves', then listen close to me... Anything can happen . Anything can be.

Captain Electric

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Re: Otherland
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2013, 05:40:00 AM »
Aha, well, hm. If they're truly creating the game they're talking up in their 'making of' videos, then I think a lot of minds will be blown. (Note: the linked playlist isn't organized in order, but you can see and watch the list to the right of the video if you like.)

However, this is Gamigo we're talking about, which raises red flags in a number of areas (for me). Games like Pirate Galaxies and Fiesta Online are published by Gamigo and seem to fair well in that "under the radar" sense. Meanwhile, a shot at "triple A" status (as Statesman would say) like Black Prophecy was allowed to slip and falter through their fingers. It was quietly closed around the same time as City of Heroes after bleeding its player base, if you ever wondered what happened to one of only two games to steal away the hearts of many Eve Online players over the last decade, if only for a fleeting moment. (The other being Perpetuum Online.)

Gamigo is also one of those Asian publishers that may be the most likely to purchase a Western license and then attempt to make it look as Eastern-influenced as humanly possible, leading one to wonder why they didn't just save their license fee budget and hit up an Eastern-based IP. As bigoted as that may sound on the surface, it's not. If you poured orange juice into my cereal bowl, I'd be just as bewildered at you. This is coming from someone who grew up with the Ultima series of games, not the Zelda series. When the Samurai Empire expansion came out for Ultima Online, I had the same reaction that Richard Garriott is said to have had. (Something like, "WTF?") My condolences to the more discerning WoW players out there, by the way. On the other hand, the 'making of' videos show an extraordinarily diverse and multinational development team. Even though they're based in Asia and have many native team members, that hasn't seemed to make a difference one way or another for another Asia-based studio, Mechanist Games (makers of City of Steam; on the other hand, CoS isn't published by Gamigo).

However, let me take a spin completely in the other direction here. I'm not always dissatisfied by Eastern influences--only when they're thrown into the mix purely to please marketing do I take exception. As we saw in City of Heroes, it's not bad to mix influences, but doing so often leads to lackluster results anyway. Here's looking at you, "City of Hero" in South Korea, a very short-lived version of our departed world, which led to less-than-stellar super heroic careers for Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit. But I do think such influences may have a positive impact on a game or story if that's what the author of the IP had originally envisioned. Bladerunner, anyone? (I'm talking Harrison Ford, not Pistorius.) We're talking about a near-future Earth, after all, or rather a virtual multiverse designed by that near-future Earth's residents. I haven't read the Otherland series, but I do have a sense of what's going on in the world around me and in what direction popular culture is heading. It's heading Eastward. It may take several decades, but in time, even bastions of Western fantasy like D&D will be gobbled up by that spread of influence. (E.G. a publisher like PWE gives a dev studio like Cryptic a mandate for a game like Neverwinter in order to attract anime fans, which then goes on to influence the source material at WotC. It's not that far-fetched.)

To change the subject slightly, overall I think many of Gamigo's games exist in the shadow of larger, more talented, more successful publishers and development studios. Grimlands's biggest problem is probably the existence of Fallen Earth. Similarly, Fiesta and Pirate Galaxies and Cultures Online are all replaceable by bigger, better titles. This shows so evenly across their network of games, almost as if this is Gamigo's niche and they know exactly what they're doing: being the Walmart of the MMO market. (In case you thought Cryptic held that title, Cryptic is actually very innovative when held in comparison to a real 'Walmart'.)

Otherlands could be Gamigo's chance to strike out and do something different (different as in "filled with quality and innovation"). But why would they start now?

I'll be watching just in case!  :)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 06:13:14 AM by Captain Electric »

Mistress Urd

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Re: Otherland
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2013, 11:29:24 PM »
hmm, its free to play....