*IMPORTANT* To middle-earth or not to middle-earth

[darkgod]

Hullo all, as we are nearing a non-beta I plan to try to make the game known as much as possible in the future, trying to get as many players as possible (obviously!).
There is one thing that is alays annoying me in the back of my head, the legal problems I had with mccaffrey's estate for pernangband, I do not want to have the same trouble with tome. The tolkien estate is keeping quite quiet about such things usualy but still the risk exists and I think if we ever need to change the settings it's best to do it now than in two years when the game has a huge following and many various plots.

The thing is, T4 being set in the fourth age is already quite disconnected from Tolkien's work, so such a change would be obviusly quite painless to do now.
The bad side is that, well, I really like the middle-earth setting, but we can get roughtly the same in a custom setting too.

PS: If we decide to change, ToME can not mean the Tales of Middle-earth anymore, so the "Tales of ..." is open to suggestions :=)

[Mithril]

If one does not want to go to the trouble of creating a new generic fantasy setting that will be unfamiliar in any case then one could use a world map based on ancient Greece or the Mediterranean area. Then one already have a familiar setting and mythology. The Maze and the Minotaur would be on Crete, the Ancient Elven Ruins and the Greater Mummy Lord would be in Egypt, the Trollshaws and Old Forest would be in the forest that once covered central Europe, Bree could be Athens, Minas Tirith could be Rome, Mount Doom could be Carthage or Persia. The Far East could be transformed to the Far West = North America.

[darkgod]

No way I absolutly loathe "real world" settings. It's unfun, it's .. well .. known!
Also I'd even an even harder time explaining the existence, say, of archmages in egyt than in a custom setting made for them

[Mithril]

OK. Here is another idea. A randomly generated world map for each game. All the towns and dungeons will be there but their location as well as the shape of the land will vary from game to game. For the same reason as the same dungeon map is not used in different game iterations. Exploring the world map is more interesting if it varies from game to game.

Also, here are some links and tools for creating settings:
http://hiddenway.tripod.com/world/

[darkgod]

Random world map is something I had though off, but this becomes hard to do once you have quests in that say "go to the entrance of foobar located south east of the plains of pokpok"

But I still have some ideas for it that where going to be included anyway, jsut not for middle-earth's map ...

[Mithril]

Random world map is something I had though off, but this becomes hard to do once you have quests in that say "go to the entrance of foobar located south east of the plains of pokpok"

But I still have some ideas for it that where going to be included anyway, jsut not for middle-earth's map ...

The message problem could likely be solved by the game keeping track of the randomly generated locations using a coordinate system and using this in messages such as "go to the coordinate X,Y", or with a little more effort by calculating which town is nearest and the distance there, "go to the entrance located Z days traveling time northwest of the town XYZ".

[darkgod]

Yes I know but this not reduce the feeling of playing in a real world though, because it feels random.
What I prefer is to have a fixed map with fixed groups of people on it and then have random encounters of places, people, ... to make exploring worth it too.

[Gwai]

After having Tome2 for so long and not having any troubles with Tolkien's estate, I have to say I can't see any troubles with T4. That and Middle-Earth still draws many of us. I see leave it as it is, truthfully.

[Narsil]

What? Replacing Middle Earth for other world, probably another D&D-like crap? No way. ToME is AFAIK only roguelike set in Middle Earth, and that's a great advantage.

[Mithril]

Yes, a random map will most likely not be as good as a hand-crafted one. But on the other hand one quickly get used to the same map so it becomes less interesting.

With a randomly created world maps the game could be quite different each time. Like if in one game the world created is an archipelago where the player frequently must travel by boat and mainly encounters sea monsters on the map. In the next game it is mainly mountains with open areas connected by narrow passes. In the next it is largely a desert. In the next the land is located around a central large sea. And so on.

[darkgod]

Gwai & Narsil, I know but then I also have found some mods for The Elder Scrolls and others that have been shut down by the tolkien estate too.
So I'm thinking nothing happened to tome2 mostly because nobody knows about it, which I intend to correct for tome4 :/

[Susramanian]

Those things that annoy you in the back of your head... they never stop on their own. When you finally make them stop, you always wonder why you didn't do it sooner and save yourself years of aggravation.

Change the setting to something original and then you can look on your creation and say, "That is mine. All of it. Behold my awesomeness." If you're worried about losing people by ditching the Tolkien stuff, remember that you'll also be gaining people who currently want nothing to do with yet another tired old LoTR adventure.

As for when to do it, there's no hurry. It can be gradual, as long as it's all cleaned out by the end of beta. Stay focused on gameplay for now, and just make sure that any new content is non-Tolkien. This will actually make it easier to go back and change the old stuff. If you want perspective to help you edit a story, write the sequel, then go back and edit the original. You'll have a much better idea of what you should have said to begin with. The Far East is almost entirely devoid of Tolkien stuff right now. Keep it that way, develop it into something detailed and original, and then go back to the Middle Earth part of ToME and alter things to better mesh with your shiny new Far East creation.

[yufra]

I enjoy the Middle-Earth setting. I am not familiar with property rights etc, though... maybe it is worth reaching out to the Tolkien estate and asking them directly? Anyone with legal experience in this realm?

[darkgod]

Yeah I agree sus, there is indeed no rush to do it if I want to do it.

Yufra, I dunno, the few times I have heard about people contacting authors for such things the authors always answered along the lines of "stop right now" :/

[yufra]

Well if J. R. R. Tolkien actually tells you "stop right now" I would take it as a great honor, and maybe rename the mummy lord after him

Kidding aside, I understand. I think Sus's comments are right on, that if you are concerned about it then it is better to deal with it now rather than have it haunt you and possibly bite later. Tales of... hmm...