[citation][nom]Marcus52[/nom]Umm. LotRO was't exactly a screaming success story.I don't see a game coming out of the series. Frankly, I think a series that really captures the books will be difficult, and falling short would be a disaster.As far as comparing King's work to Tolkien's - why? They are different works. Quality wise, I think the Dark Tower series is well written, and I'll be honest here I think Tolkien gets more reverence than he deserves. Great story, well written, one of my favorites, but he doesn't belong at the top of a pinnacle, he belongs at the top along with a number of other fantasy authors.Tolkien's work didn't start the "high fantasy" genre, whatever that even is. I was reading great fantasy works by authors pre-Lord of the Rings long before it came out. Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard were closer to the starting authors of the genre, and all 3 left marks that show up to today. Tolkien influenced a wave of authors as well - but I certainly wouldn't call what most of them put out "high fantasy", I'd call it "schlock written with Dwarves and Elves" or "Hardy-Boy level writing extended to 3 or more books instead of one". In some ways, Tolkien's work was a blessing for publishers and a curse on authors and readers who would have been better served with shorter works rather than padded-out trilogies.Speaking of padded-out stories, I think one of the things that shows King's skill as a writer is his ability to carry on a story for 7 books that for the most part doesn't feel padded. At least, I was in to it so it didn't usually for me, and I think that's high praise because it's easy for someone like me who's read literally thousands of books in his lifetime to see the "bones" of a story even if not formally trained as a writer. I always felt progress was being made on a long journey.The Dark Tower series was a memorable read for me, and I put it up there among the better works. I've never read anything else King wrote, not being into the "horror" genre, but if that series is an indication of his quality, I'd say the movies don't do him justice.Back to the MMORPG LotRO - the game was a big "fail" in my book, because it did not reflect the books at all in the way it played. Sure, it had the names and and stories, but that doesn't make for a universe and experience. It's a good game, but it is not Middle Earth and should never have tried to be. A MMORPG based on the Dark Tower series would of course not be about Roland, but would be the universe he was in and the players in it. I think it would be much more do-able than the Middle Earth world, but I remain very skeptical - capturing the feel of someone else's fantasy work is extremely difficult. Turbine failed with LotRO, and Funcom failed with AoC. Good games, failed at creating what they were supposed to create. It is far better, in my opinion, to create a MMORPG universe that doesn't have to apologize for compromising to turn something in to a game that wasn't written to be one to begin with.[/citation]
are youa total idiot ... sure other fantasy books were around beofre LoTR what peoepl mean when they say that LoTR spawned the high fantasy era , woudl more correctly mean that is brought fantasy novels to the main stream , not to mention it inspired milestones into days culture ,such as, dungeons and dragons , and many other pen and paper RPG systems. and it cerianly inspired and or had influence on most fantasy novels written after it's time suchas the conan novels