Openedge left a comment to one of my Wizard 101 posts that implied Turbine might be working on a Harry Potter MMO. This isn’t the first time they have turned a popular property into an MMO; they did it a couple of years ago with Dungeons and Dragons, and last year with Lord of the Rings Online.
So given how they handled those two properties, what could we guess about a Harry Potter MMO?
They’ve shown with LotRO that nothing the players do can influence in the slightest way, the main story. The players cannot even play a part in the major elements of the story.
Since Slytherin and Gryffindor are the houses most involved with the story, players will belong to the other two houses, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Well, some characters came from Ravenclaw, so just Hufflepuff.
Hufflepuff, in the MMO, would be the house that provides servants and workers to the other house. Quidditch game coming up? The Hufflepuff wizardlings — the players — will be tasked with clearing the pitch of bears (it’s always going to be bears) and boars which have somehow crept in over the night, harvesting straw for racing blooms, and killing hundreds of insects looking for the perfect replacement wings for a worn out snitch.
The Hufflepuff players would also craft the pranks that the Weasely Twins come out with. And most importantly, they will fight Voldemort’s henchmen, the Death Eaters. The main boss mobs will all be Death Eaters that don’t appear in the books.
Every so often, you will hear news about Harry Potter’s adventures. It will be as if you were right there, in Hogwart’s, hearing about all the amazing things that happened, from someone (not you) who was there at the time.
Yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of how Turbine set LotRO in the midst of the War of the Ring but didn’t let players take part in it. They should have set it in a different time period. It’s all cyclical, anyway — first Morgoth, then Sauron. Couldn’t there have been a different evil in between those two that the players could band together to defeat, lest the whole of Middle Earth fall into darkness? Maybe really early, when Men first appeared?
SOE actually has managed to figure out a way around this. In DC Universe Online, the main heroes like Superman and such work with you as a team. You and Supes work together, but often he is called away for another emergency and it’s left up to you.
In the Harry Potter MMO, it could be set in the time when Harry Potter is an Auron and is guiding the players toward rooting out nests of Death Eaters and other evils which continually threaten the peace and stability of both the magical and Muggle worlds. Or even be set in other countries’ wizard schools, where they could have adventures totally separate, and perhaps grander than, the ones in Potter’s Britain.
Still, it’s hard to imagine Turbine coming up with a Harry Potter MMO that is anything more than a media tie-in game, like the ones written as part of the marketing push for every kid movie. Shrek Cart Racing. Etc.
Uh…
Ouch…
The hidden MMO that is in the works (at least from speculation) is open to interpretation. So far this has come up multiple times also.
But, if a company is willing to let Turbine have an IP based license, all I can say is whatever Turbines gives these guys in their drinks or is rolled up and smoking, MUST be real good.
Either that or maybe it IS the fact that Turbine is not willing to go their own way, and make it so “clone like” in nature.
Companies always like “Yes Men”.
All I know is Harry will look weird with a size 2 waist.
His enormous hands will make up for it 🙂
My guess is it would look something like this
http://men.style.com/details/features/landing?id=content_5746
But I could be wrong
/em claws eyes out.
I’m reallly not getting the distinction you are drawing between DC Heroes and LOTRO. LOTRO players get to go on a mission with Aragorn, and help Bilbo with a riddle game. How is that different than helping Superman?
As for companies liking “Yes Men”, I think what companies like is revenue. And I very much doubt that a Lord of the Rings property that didn’t have any of the familiar characters in it would do nearly as well. So, if you are going to make a persistent world, with the characters we know in them, then the players aren’t going to be able to affect what those characters do all that much.
As you get past level 20, you can start developing an agenda of your own, which takes you northward, and on a different track from Aragorn. Unfortunately, since we know who kills the Witch King of Angmar, we can’t be the ones to do it, even though he’s at the center of the evil of the North. We can’t throw down Saruman, either. Maybe that’s the disappointment you are expressing?
@Toldain
No restrictions is the big difference.
We know how the Aragorn based adventure will end.
The Superman adventure could go anyway.
Look at the Matrix Online where a major character death took place.
Yet, LOTRO, we know what awaits…so, really why do it?
Look at LOTR: Conquest to get an idea of how to approach that same license. The key is giving more choices.
I am sure Turbine has a lot of control out of their hands thanks to Tolkien’s Enterprise.
But, this limits the overall appeal of LOTRO, which has been shown by sales.
Now, if Turbine were to do the same thing with Harry, then I guess we know there will be lifetime subs and 9.99 a month deals all over the place again.
Personally, I love LoTRO. I love interacting with the characters from the book, but since the book is set in stone, how exactly would my involvement in their quest be interesting? I know everything that happens?
Where-as the little side stories in the game are interesting, because I don’t know what happens, and I can fail them a few times.
There’s no point what-so-ever having our characters help the hobbits through the barrow downs because our characters don’t show up in that part of the book and we know the hobbits make it through ok anyway. But, we can adventure in the barrow downs, take part in the lore of the world, and help the fight against The Great Evil by doing our bit elsewhere.
It’s fine not to like the game, but I don’t think you can blame Turbine for the fact that the book sets down in black and white what does and does not happen to the fellowship. I’ve done plenty of quests for Elrond, Gandalf, Aragorn, et. al. and it’s excellent fun.
@Openedge:
“The Superman adventure could go anywhere” ?? Granted I don’t play CoH, but I don’t get it. Superman is the classic hero that doesn’t die. He can’t die. Yeah, kryptonite, blah, blah, blah.
I guess that the stuff you mention is stuff that just doesn’t bother me. I like interesting tactics, well-written quest text, and Tolkien.
Well known character and stories from books or film are generally more problematic to translate, because there is a distinct start, middle and end of the story.
TV series or comic books with multiple stories continuing forever, with perhaps some story arcs covering multiple episodes are easier (although not easy) to match with an MMORPG context.
Exceptions would be stories from books where the major context is the bigger universe or context and stories in a book or film just reflect a small story in that universe or context.
“but often he is called away for another emergency and it’s left up to you.”
Dammit! I was in RFC (Ragefire Colu ) with Superman and he just left the group while we were in the middle! And he rolled need on the powered armor, he can’t even use it! I’m not grouping with him again.
lol… 🙂 It was actually Superman’s little brother and was totally not his fault.