OK everyone, listen up….fellowship has now been officially trademarked for the english language. Since it HAS been used before, it should only have beenused that one time! Now use group or gathering but make sure to ensure no otherbook has used that word.

Westeros has neither elves, nor dwarves, nor flashy fireball-flinging D&D-esque magic. So… yeah, no. The only vague inspiration I can see is the Night's Watch thing, but even that is remote. The Grey Wardens are more like Jedi or Spectres: super-honorable, super-privileged protectors against evil ("They remain legends, vigilantly watching for the return of their ancient foe, and stand ready to do battle once more when that day arrives"). It's childish. It's around the same level as Christopher Paolini when the author was fourteen (not that he's gotten any better at twenty-five, but never mind).

The Night's Watch was meant to be protectors, but what it is is a trash can for dumping criminals and disowned sons and nobody takes them seriously. Westeros is in a state of moral and political decay. Therein lies the difference between fantasy that's actually "gritty and mature" and fantasy that pretends to be.

Hint: A Game of Thrones was inspired by real world history.

Yes, and?

Martin's setting also has fire-breathing dragons, telepathic wolves and zombies. War of the Roses inspiration or not, I'm pretty sure those never showed up in "real world history." What was your point again? Do you have one?

I agree on the norm fantasy uses the "usual" stuff. Sometimes you'll come across something that isn't just good, it's also really different. It's happens every now and then.
Example:
Albion
Darksun 1 and 2 (I loved this world)
(Obviously) Planescape: Torment (Best weird world I've ever seen)

Those are the only "different" RPGs I can remember playing. Even those aren't that different but still they tried to get away from the usual dragons, elves and hobbit mixture.

Best weird movie I've seen in a long time has got to be Hellboy 2. It did some interesting and new things with "usual" fantasy themes. That movie was just awesome in everyway.

"Dragon Age - Fellowship of the Ring trailer"

;)

And Dark Sun and Planescape were not exactly hot selling IPs in CRPG land.

If a company wants to make a (non-modern) fantasy game and make money doing so, the most reliable way to do so is to take very familiar concepts. The designers have to try to find originality within the established tropes, which can be frustrating for people who would really like to make a game that is really different.

Sometimes one tiny side quest is the original bit we try to sneak into something familiar and comfortable.

Well said. I think The Witcher did a pretty good job of mixing traditional fantasy stereotypes with an original world type of setting, and did so successfully. Hopefully Dragon Age can manage the same juggling act.

This from the person who was all snarky about "Did the founders meet at the Rearing Stallion?". use your brain a bit.

People need to be able to identify with the protagonist in the story and have some connection with the setting. The farther you get away from what people know the less likely you are to have something that a lot of people like. I think that is one reason why quite a few cRPGers didn't like Planescape; you *HAD* to play TNO. It's probably also why a lot of women gamers don't like a lot of mainstream games where the protagonists are all male.

I think something like the Ars Magica semi-historical setting would make for a good cRPG.
http://www.atlas-games.com/arsmagica/
You have the historical context so people can better identify with it plus all the fantasy goodies.

VtM: Bloodlines?

The comfortable escapism one sees in Bioware games is fast getting obsolete and out of fashion in the world where people read their words instead of having them voice-acted out by famous celebrities. Just ask any fantasy reader worth his or her salt. It's tragic how outdated and mired in adolescent inertia the CRPG industry is.

Are you using yours? Hint: you failed to make a cogent point, and a weak attempt at an insult doesn't hide that, you know. Oh, sorry, are you trying to argue that DA has shown any hint of A Song of Ice and Fire (that's the series' name, btw; AGoT is the first book's title) inspiration? If so, where and how?

That´s a pretty absurd example, if you ask me.
P:T´s probably biggest achievement is exactly the fact how strongly people can identify with the story, more precisely with the questions it raises and emotions it provokes. And all that despite the unusual setting.

Now, if your last sentence was "I think that is one reason why quite a few cRPGers didn't play Planescape.", I´d probably agree with that.
There´s a reason why this game scores some of the highest cummulative user ratings on metacritic or imdb and such.


As for Dragon Age, I´m glad for the last Patrick Weekes´ post since it shed a bit more light on why this game seems to be such an unoriginal, uncreative, copypasted and insincere mishmash.

Morrowind is an example for a relatively successful CRPG that has at least some uncommon aspects, although the setting was quite "de-weirded" for release.

But Oblivion somehow proves the point. I'm not sure how a Cyrodiil as described in the original pocket guide would have worked, a jungle country with water ways as main traffic routes. I was disappointed, but I guess most people preferred it the way it turned out.

Morrowind was still pretty alien and weird, not your typical fantasy fluff.

See I think you guys post this stuff to get a rise out of people. It is rather absurd to base a game off a few screen shots, especailly when so many of yous ay graphics don't matter then in the next sentance bash graphics on games. I say wait until comes out before taking a hard stance one way or another. Comments like yours seem to be an immature lashing out at the big developer out there. It doesn't make any sense to lash out at this point.

The real name of the trailer is Join us. So neither the trailer nor its name has a mention of a fellowship, that's all thanks to Shacknews. I agree that some visuals and superficial details have similarities with LotR and some other fantasy worlds, but on the whole I can't see that it's a carbon copy of anything that's out there. It's not like PR talk is going to show all the aspects of the DA world and story. Checking out http://www.dragonagecentral.com/ is probably going to give one the most informed impression of the DA world at this point.