OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Just announced so no real information but we'll be seeing an official game on the Greatest Fantasy Series Ever(tm). If they do it as a TBS game it could be cool, but knowing that this will be a mainstream title we'll probably end up with an action game (or worse, a MMORPG!!).

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

I never heard of Cyanide Studios, so I took a look at their site. It appears they've made mostly sports management games, though they also have a few H&S titles. Could go either way in those genres, though a blend like Total War or something would be cool too.

Either way, wouldn't get your hopes up too high on this.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

"A Song of Ice and Fire" by the way ;)

The boardgame is great. It's the closes one can get to Dominions in boardame form. It's called "A Game of Thrones" and is totally worth a look if you want a Dominions style strategy game you can play in a few hours with your friends.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Eh, frankly I thought the author was a dumbass for killing off so many good characters. He even admitted as much after the third or so book when he realized that he had no likeable protagonists left. Poor story planning...

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

The opposite: killing supposedly central characters makes reading the books exciting because once you know anyone is up for grabs, reading through a sword fight, assassination plot or whatever is actually interesting b/c the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. And I think there are a large number of fascinating characters in his books so it ends up not being a problem.

The issue with most so-called action series is exactly this immortal protagonist syndrome. I mean 3/4 of the movie/book are usually battles but if you know Bond, Conan, Drizzt or whoever is going to win then what is so exciting? Especially in book format - at least in a movie you can argue the special effects/action sequences are worth watching for their own sake. I say let the heroes die once in a while to keep things interesting!

:dagger::dagger::dagger:

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Killing off the "unkillable" characters is exactly what made this series so great. Unfortunately, Martin seems to be pulling a Jordan, he seems to have lost his inspiration/genius for the series. The last book was nowhere near as good, and the next one has been in progress for like 5 years...

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Like all good things, it can be taken too far. If characters you gets attached to start dropping like flies, you stop getting attached to them.


It seemed like Martin was trying to avoid the stereotypical "do the right thing and it'll all work out" (Which isn't really all that typical of fantasy, anyway) but wound up just inverting it into "no good deed goes unpunished."

At least that's my vague memory. I last looked at the series quite awhile ago. Gave up after the second (or maybe the third?) book.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

I liked it initially, but the world was so grindingly unpleasant and perverted that I eventually said the Eight Deadly Words[1] and walked away. It's not that killing off characters is bad, it's just that you have to stop writing once all the likeable characters are dead, and label the series a "tragedy." Right now it's like some horrible Left Behind variant.

-Max

[1] "I Don't Care What Happens To These People."

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Tyrion, Jamie, Sandor Clegane, Dany, Varys, Petyr...there are a ton of cool characters left. I think the last book was weak mainly b/c the editors made Martin hack it in two. But I am starting to get impatient with the next volume. They need to chain him to the desk instead of letting him run around signing books and licensing content.

In the mean time read the Malazan books...

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Oh boy. I was also very excited with the first books of Ice&Fire. I agree that the latter were on the decline.
And then, I discovered the Malazan series (there was this thread here about good fantasy books that domnions players liked, I got tons of useful info from there as well).
W/O exaggaration this is the best I have read so far. It is both witty and deep and has good action sequences and great battles and deep interesting characters and what not. I'm in the midnight tides now - Its somewhat slower in pace but still interesting since it closes lots of gaps.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Most probably the game would be a whatever clone for general consumption, with theme-specific graphics and names database.

My favorite low fantasy series, though.
BTW GRRM haven't disposed of any viewpoint characters yet. All of them are still there (if not necessary alive) save one who should surface in the fifth book.

I read the Malazan series too, I liked that but to that I'd prefer Bakker (The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, The Thousandfold Thought). At least he is already finished with the first trilogy.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Maybe I should give it another shot then--I may have quit too soon and/or gotten the wrong impression. I'd like to see something nice happen to Arya for a change, though.

I like the Malazan books but Toll the Hounds seriously confused me at the end.

-Max

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Yeah, it's one of my favorite fantasy series, but he is definitely suffering from the Jordan syndrome now. I kind of blame it on the publisher though. I am sure they are telling him "hey, we've got a winner here. Stretch it out for three more books." That's what Jordan's publisher did to him, before he died.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Tyrion, Jon, Daenaerys are all likeable characters who were viewpoint characters from the beginning and are still alive.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

"
I read the Malazan series too, I liked that but to that I'd prefer Bakker (The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, The Thousandfold Thought). At least he is already finished with the first trilogy.
"

Sorry for OT question, but would you care to elaborate on that?- Perhaps I'll read him after I'm through with the malazans.

Oh and I'm somewhat alarmed by the admission that toll the hounds was found to be confusing. Already I'm sometimes struggling to makes sense of the happenings (as of midnight tides), I shudder to think it can get even more complicated.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Max - actually Arya is evolving into one of the coolest characters, apprenticed to a quasi-mystical group of deadly assassins (oh yeah - femme fatale!)

I love the Malazan books but also find sections confusing and actually am re-reading the series now. There is an amazing amount of philosophy and humor woven in and some of the dialogue, like Bugg and Tehol, is classic.

I enjoyed the first book by Bakker but the series dried up for me and I barely got through it.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

I thought Arya was the ugly one and her older sister, Sansa, was the little hottie (who the ultra-scheming Petyr is probably looking to marry once he gets his checkers all lined up just right).

IMO, the development of Arya is highly improbable for a kid her age. You can't help but feel sorry for her given what she's been exposed to, but many of her reactions to adversity are rather incredible. When she went berserk on the Tickler in that one tavern, it made me smile - but how likely is it that a malnourished kid her age would do something like that? Also, hooking up with the Faceless Men - hmmm.... I guess it's fantasy, so anything can happen.

Yeah, I like Arry, but my vote is for Jon Snow or the seemingly deceased Sandor Clegane.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Absolutely love the books. Can't wait enough for 'dance with dragons';) But a game? Eh...

P.S. And Arya just pissess me off...

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Did you guys know that HBO is making it into a mini-series? That should be interesting. They've done some good stuff... Rome in particular.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Yeah, thats going to probably force me to get HBO - or maybe I can just wait for the series to come out on netflix...
damn.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Bakker is less confusing than Erikson. Not having dozens of plotlines definitely helps. Bakker is philosophizing more, that might be a reason some people don't like him that much. I'd definitely give the series a try.
Fourth book in the series was published few months ago in hardcover.

About SOIaF.
IIRC there were theories that GRRM envisioned the series to be more stretched out in novel-time, e.g. letting all the different kids grow up to some extent. This was thrown out of the window IMO when he started killing characters (that would be sacrosanct in 90% of the fantasy literature) at an alarming rate and he had to replace them.
Thus the current state of the series with too many teenagers in important positions that acts as if being 5-10 years older.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

But GRRM seemed to forget to age his characters through the books.

It's a while since I read the first ones ( I haven't read the latest as i was waiting for the seconfd half to appear so I could read them both together). But IIRC the cahracters were only a few months older by the end as they were at the beginning. Lots of things had happened but he never seemed to push the time forward. The children were all the same age at the end as at the beginning....

I really liked the killing off of main characters at first. And it certainly makes the fighting tense. But after a while it did reduce the enjoyment of the story. Especially as he fell in to another trap. That of making bad/evil characters clever and worldly wise while the good characters were all naive and quite frankly rather dim. What was worse was if a character became good he lost all sense to become some hopeless honourable romantic. Oh dear....

I enjoyed reading the first books while I was reading them, but at the end I was left feeling that I really no longer cared. I dare say I will get the next books (and probably reread the first ones) but there are better series. I prefer Erikson by a margin. And while Jordan's series had a lot of faults I am far sorrier that I won't find out the ending to that series than I would be if I never touch GRRMs series again.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

FYI: You can find out the ending to Jordan's series. Brandon Sanderson is finishing it, based on Jordan's notes. Who knows if it'll be worth reading, but even a plot summary would be nice, just to see how it was supposed to wrap up.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Ugh, probably as "nice" as when Frank Herbert's son tried to finish his father's Dune series :P

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

There's nothing bad about Sanderson. IMHO he is better writer than Jordan was. I hope his style would match the novel, though.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

Well, the big difference between finishing the WoT and "finishing" Dune is that Herbert was done with Dune so the new books were just an attempt to cash in. Jordan was working on the ending, knew he was dying, and left copious notes. So, regardless of the quality of the writing, it should follow the basic plot Jordan had intended and clear up a lot of the questions and mysteries set up in the series.

Re: OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game
 

My biggest problem with A Song of Fire and Ice is that the plot twists and scheming got rather too convoluted and too likely to work, which isn't helped by the large number of characters. Ultimately, some things should be more simple.

I found there's a sort of disconnect between the action and the time frame as well. There have been so many battles - with considerable casualties - in such a short space of time, and add on the reality of deaths by disease and so on, it's hard to believe any of the antagonists could still have a military force left capable of more than besieging a cottage.