I was up writing a game design for the fun of it (a hobby, as I''m sure it is for most of you), and began realizing how Blizzard had so monopolized the market for Tolkien fantasy rts''s. Maybe I''m just ignorant, but I can''t remember any very popular ones without the name Warcraft attached to them.

I always just saw it as: one company makes a game that lots of people like; no other company makes a similar game that does as well. In this case, I think that it is probably a lack of knowledge of other games. Also, I don''t see how you come to the conclusion that they have a monopoly on tolkien fantasy. Their first game: warcraft didn''t any where near as well as their other games. When they released Warcraft 2 and it did well, it was a solid financial decision to make an expansion. That was all like six to eight years ago. The making of the new battle.net edition makes sense and probably didn''t require too much effort on the part of Blizzard.

The reason Blizzard makes very popular games is probably related to the fact that they have high expectations, seem to rather make a game for themselves, then sell it rather than making a game for profit, and seem to know how to make games, although it seems to take them a long time.

I should also mention that I remember reading an interview with the producer that worked on Diablo, and I think he mentioned the fact that they wanted to keep Warcraft and Diablo separate and so didn''t make a traditional RPG in the place of Diablo.

I don''t see how they might have a monopoly on Tolkien Fantasy.

Hey, Diron! Welcome to Gamedev.

It''s funny, actually, I''ve never considered Warcraft to be Tolkien like. I guess the game does feature goblins. trolls and stuff like that. But it just doesn''t have the same magical quality found in The Hobbit.

That''s not to say that I don''t like Warcraft. Well, actually I''ve only played Warcraft 2. I liked the game very much. But it seems very different from the Tolkien tales.

Honestly, I would really love to see a game which could capture that magical Tolkien charm. But I doubt anyone will ever accomplish this. I''m torn between wishing for a game like that, and hoping that noone ever gets the Tolkien license. A game based on Middle Earth would have to be truly great.


Jonathon

quote: "Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries of educationalizing our youths." -George W. Bush

I was up at 5 am and I suppose monopolize was a bad choice of words. I think they have a reputation for that sort of setting (orcs, dwarves, etc.) that could make another rts featuring those races be considered a rip off despite the fact that orcs and the lot aren''t created by Blizzard.

huh...Back in 1995 i got a Lord of the Rings RPG style game for my tenth birthday. it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 and came on a CD-ROM--whcih the back of the game''s box hailed as a huge technological advancement--it is probably one of the worst games I have played. Just thought I might throw that out there.

Tolkien... did he INVENT rpg? Did he INVENT fantasy?

Nope. He just created a very popular fantasy world that inspired others to do the same. But he took a lot of his elements from ancients myths and legends. Fantasy has been thousands of years in the making.

Okay, with that cleared up... Blizzard = Tolkien RTS? Tolkien RTS = Blizzard?

I played a demo of Kohan a few weeks ago. Fairly decent, although not enough to make me want to buy it. The Warhammer titles were probably my favorite RTS games ever. Warcraft was fun, but that type of gaming is just not me.

I''m sure there are tons of fantasy rts games out there that are NOT part of the Blizzard ''monopoly''. The Warcraft engine just seems to be a popular one, so it''s no wonder that it spawned a series of follow ups. But how many did Blizzard really make?

I really don''t think that Blizzard has ANY sort of a hold on the fantasy rts market. Not at all. Not a bit.

Woohoo... I''m on day 4 on my C++ in 21 days course. %Another two weeks and I''ll be a master programmer!%