Obsidian Entertainment - Partners with Red Eagle on new Wheel of Time series

Maylander

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Obsidian Entertainment working on Wheel of Time

Not sure if anyone has posted this. If so, I've missed it. According to Norwegian gaming site gamer.no, Obsidian is currently working with Red Eagle (who secured the rights to do Wheel of Time games) on an RPG set in the Wheel of Time universe.

The article is here:
http://gamer.no/artikler/46199/obsidian-med-the-wheel-of-time/

Hardly any information is known yet, other than the fact that Red Eagle Entertainment chose Obsidian due to their ability to mix superior story telling with great RPG elements and mechanics.

Sounds very interesting!
 
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Well I hope it's a lot better than the other Wheel of Time game that was made.
You mean the first person "mage" game, right? That was pretty good tbh ! :eek:
 
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I liked the first game too! Very atmospheric, great music ... one of the better soundtracks I know. Those two things are often all I need in games to be happy. ^^
 
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I often thought the descriptions on combat and magic in WoT could be a great basis to try some new mechanics in a RPG.
WoT describes these combat stances with all those funky names, that Rand learns this could be a great basis for a tactical combat system where you need to learn these stances or figures, and match them to your opponent - combining elements of TB and card based combat systems.
The way "weaving" magic is described could also provide interesting ideas to handle magic in terms of creating or researching patterns or even a sort or real time weaving or puzzle solving (taking some cues from Arx Fatalis maybe) which would allow experimenting with effects instead of just simply learning fixed spells.
Oh well, daydreaming.
Hopefully Obsidian does something cool with the setting.
 
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What I'm really hopeful for is a character who pulls her braid 5000 times a game, like Nanaeve or whatever her name was did in the books. Those books have SO much repetition it was almost painful to read. The sad thing is, that when something new actually happened it was almost always very interesting. The guy milked a series that could have been finished in 4 or 5 books into 12, for the money. It's poetic justice that he died before finishing it.

Still, Obsidian won't be able to milk the game as much as Jordan did the books so it should be fun. Boiling down the books into the essences that made them interesting will be a good challenge.
 
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Ack! Good description on the braid pulling, not to mention the tea-drinking, meditating and chatting…I really grew to hate Wheel of Time over the course of the first nine(?) books—but I did love the concepts and the setting, and there were some memorable characters as well.

There's some discussion of this over at the Obsidian forums, though nothing official. The speculation in the thread is that Obsidian will have a purely secondary support role in the development with the Red Eagle people using/directing their resources. They also talk about 'games' not game, so who knows at this point.

Here's the pertinent thread:
http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=54224
 
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I didn't mind the repetition. I found the first book mediocre because it reminded me too much of LotR, but the others I enjoyed a lot for their magic, and like magerette said, concepts and setting. That reminds me that I should go and get the final book.
 
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I probably should put this on the front page. Thanks for the heads-up, Maylander.
 
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Red Eagle Games, who have the rights to produce games and films from Robert Jordan's fantasy novel series The Wheel of Time, have selected Obsidian Entertainment to partner with them on the first games for PC, XBox 360 and PS3. Here's an excerpt from the press announcement, via Blues News:
RED EAGLE GAMES SELECTS OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT AS GAME DEVELOPMENT PARTNER

Noted RPG Developer to Assist Red Eagle Games in Building Video Games Based on Robert Jordan's Fantasy Series "The Wheel of Time"
Malibu and Irvine Calif. - February 12, 2010 - Red Eagle Games and Obsidian Entertainment today announced they have entered into a services agreement which provides a comprehensive framework for Obsidian Entertainment to work closely with Red Eagle Games' in-house development team to create new video games for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 based on Robert Jordan's best-selling fantasy series, The Wheel of Time.

"The development team at Obsidian Entertainment has demonstrated time and again that they can successfully blend storytelling with technology to craft a superior RPG game experience," said Rick Selvage, Chief Executive Officer of Red Eagle Games. "Obsidian Entertainment is the ideal development partner to help Red Eagle Games take Jordan's beloved characters from the printed page to exciting new forms of interactive media."

"Obsidian Entertainment is thrilled with this opportunity to work with Red Eagle Games in developing games based upon The Wheel of Time series," said Feargus Urquhart, Chief Executive Officer of Obsidian Entertainment. "The Wheel of Time is a rich universe that lends itself to incredible gaming possibilities."
Red Eagle Games was formed in 2006, and the Company plans to publish a line of video games on all major platforms, including consoles, personal computers, handheld systems and wireless devices. The Company's Wheel of Time games will be available through retail channels around the world by the Company's distribution partner, Electronic Arts. Red Eagle Games' principals Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon are also producing a live-action motion picture based upon The Wheel of Time for Universal Pictures through their production company, Red Eagle Entertainment.

"Although Red Eagle Games is both a game producer and publisher, as a new company, we quickly recognized that we could benefit from supplementing small in-house technical and creative teams with a proven third party developer," said Larry Mondragon, Chief Operating Officer of Red Eagle Games. "Our alliance with Obsidian Entertainment is a perfect fit and will greatly improve the quality, cost and time-to-market for the first-generation of our Wheel of Time games."
"The Wheel of Time is one of the greatest and well-received fantasy series of all time," said Chris Avellone, Chief Creative Officer of Obsidian Entertainment. "Games set in Robert Jordan's universe have the chance to deliver on the epic storylines and the complex characters that the series is known for - and this is one of Obsidian's strengths. It's a natural fit."...
Thanks, Maylander, for bringing this to our attention in the forums.
More information.
 
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Now, this could be pretty good...they have alot of source material to use.
 
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Damn, I hope that this turns out better than the las WoT game I played.
 
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It was a loooong time ago that I read those books but seem to recall that i liked them. It seems like obsidian are getting better and better projects. I really hope this and FO:NV deliver the goods and so that they can develop new IP's and pick only the most interesting worlds for their games.
 
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Guess that's Obsidian booked for the next ten (or a hundred) years.
 
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From the press release it sounds like Obsidian might just be providing tech/know-how. But it's not clear, much like the genre of games isn't clear.

But more work for Obsidian = good.
 
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Didn't they make a shooter game based on this a long, long time ago? Vaguely remember playing a demo.
 
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