Dragonlance: A property ripe for the pillaging

As a fan of Dragonlance for a sizable chunk of my life and a video game whore Ive always felt that Dragonlance never got its fair shake at video game success. Of course the holders of the D&D licence like to promote the crap out of Forgotten Realms with a game based in that world coming out every other week it seems. Never did give a fig about anything Forgotten Realms

A Dragonlance MMOG would be so awesome.

BTW there was an apparently horrible direct-to-DVD Dragonlance movie released last autumn.

Honestly....skip Dragonlance. Skip Forgotten Realms. I wish they'd come out with a Planescape MMOG. From there, you can eventually build an expansion realm for any of the other D&D properties that's only a planar gate away.

Back when I was playing D&D (having since moved away from such rules-heavy systems) I always wondered why some people were so fervently locked into one world or another. I had friends that were fanatical about the Dragonlance novels, and some about the Forgotten Realms novels (Drizt and all his wanker friends). I've read a few novels from both as well as the sourcebooks for both, and played campaigns in both. They both offer some good history, very well fleshed out worlds, and a rich depth of gaming opportunities. But I saw no reason to hitch my wagon to one horse and shoot the others.

Massively, as a blog supposedly devoted to MMOs, should realize that it's not the license that makes the game. Sure, it helps having a well known name to initially drive the hype machine, but ultimately it's the game itself that will make or break the game. Case in point: The Matrix seems like the perfect IP to make an MMO from-- parts of the story allow for a very convenient explanation of people popping in/out, connection problems, and a computer system that controls the world. Sounds like EVERY MMO, no? The Matrix, as portrayed in the movies, IS a big very advanced MMO. The hype was wild because of the large fandom of the movies. Yet despite OK reviews, the game really fails to garner much interest.

The game that gets the most coverage, the most devotion, and the highest amount of love from its fans? World of Warcract-- a game world that had, before this game, very little history and depth other than "orcs and humans beating on each other". I've heard the above headline a million times before-- "Hey you know what would make a good MMO?" ... Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Azeroth, Stargate SG-1, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, .HACK, Harry Potter, Warhammer, Star Wars, Star Trek, Wing Commander, etc. etc.etc. Any of these COULD make a good MMO. But it's not the IP that makes the game good-- it's the game that makes the IP good.

Posting a story like this is just like the millions of people who think they have a good idea for a video game and want to be called a "game designer" because they thought "You know what'd be cool?..." but don't have any desire to actually do the work, learn to code, or follow the project through. Just scour SourceForge and look at how many projects are labeled "Development Status : 1 - Planning" or even worse "2 - Pre-Alpha" when all they have is an idea and a few mock screens.

I have an erection right now.