Worried
I'm probably beating a dead horse with this, but I just read WW's new intro to Exalted. I knew there were a lot of similarities to DE, but there just might be enough of them for those folks to scream "likeness rights" when we finally publish.
This is from their site:
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What Makes Exalted Different?
And the Exalted Second Edition Lexicon of the Day
So, what makes Exalted different from any other fantasy roleplaying games on the market? First, there are its influences. Almost every fantasy game can directly trace itself back to that monolith of 20th-century fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Exalted, however, draws its inspiration from Western and Eastern sources both older and more recent. The first major influence are the ancient epics of the West and the East: The Ramayana, The Iliad, Journey to the West, The Arabian Nights, etc. All feature larger-than-life heroes capable of laying waste to nations and challenging the might of the gods themselves. The second source is pulp fiction. This genre includes the pre-Tolkien fantasy produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, which birthed Tarzan, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The final sources of inspiration for Exalted are Asia's over-the-top manga, anime, video games and wuxia films, which have only recently found a large American following. More than the rest, it is this last source that differentiates Exalted from its competitors.
The second way Exalted is different from other roleplaying games is in the power levels involved. In most games, a player's "heroic" character starts out as a complete wuss. He's lucky if he owns a rusty dagger and a loincloth, and he's possessed of all the fighting prowess of an asthmatic schoolboy. Exalted is different. Exalted characters begin the game as bad-asses - reborn heroes of old wielding powerful magic and weapons so massive mere mortals can't even lift them. These heroes are easily capable of challenging armies in combat and prevailing.
Finally, what truly sets Exalted apart is the strength of its setting. Creation is a fantastic place, a flat plane larger than the whole of our Earth formed by the confluence of elemental forces and the will of ancient primordial beings. Once an even larger and more fabulous place, all of Creation was nearly destroyed some 800 years ago by powerful forces arrayed against it. Just beyond the edges of the world, the Fair Folk bide their time, waiting for another opportunity to march forth from the formless Wyld to undo shaped reality. Just beneath the skin of the world, the necrotic lords of the Underworld plot to share the gift of Oblivion with all living things. And imprisoned within the infinite body of the Yozi known as Malfeas, the Demon Princes strive to escape their prison to wreak vengeance on the gods and the gods' champions. Meanwhile, in the Celestial City of Yu-Shan, even the greatest of the gods cannot tear their attention away from the seductive Games of Divinity although Creation teeters on the brink of apocalypse. That leaves the Chosen of the Gods, the Exalted, as Creation's only hope.
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OK, I know we've had this conversation before but I am getting a bit scared that we could be treading on WW's turf. Let's not forget that they (WW) sued the crap out of the Underworld folks, and won, when their movie used some elements from the world of darkness. And truthfully, that movie barley used anything that was original World of Darkness material. But, when I read their intro compared to ours, I see many similaritiess.
Does this mean we need to give up or call it call it quits?
Absolutley not. But I think the way that we market this game might need to shift focus. I'm not sure how, but if we package it in its current form we might run into some trouble.
Since we have recently decided to restructure elements of the game anyways, I don't see this as an impending threat that compromises the future of DE. We just need to tread softly and refocus our efforts.
Hit me back and let me know what you honestly think. I might be a little too paranoid. But, I certainly don't what to keep my worries secret.
Using RSS Feeds
I'm not sure if you know about RSS feeds, but it is a handy little trick that allows users to port news from various blogs to one central location. The advantages of this are obvious, the biggest being that you don't have to manually search each site for new posts.
There are a variety of programs floating around on the Internet you can use to view RSS feeds. I prefer using Google, because it requires no downloads whatsoever. The only requirement is that you have a Gmail account.
The first step is to find out the RSS address for the bog you want. In our case, Dreaming Eye's is http://dreaming-eye.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Write this down, or copy it in the Windows clipboard. You will be using this address to link Google to the posts. Now navigate to Google's homepage. From there you should see a Sign In link in the top right hand corner. Clicking on it will take you to the Google Accounts page. Simply log into your account, and you're halfway there!
Alrighty, new screen. You should see a Personlized Home link. Click it now. This will display a more user specific google homepage that lets you add various modules, weather updates, and RSS news feeds. Click on the Add Content button. A sidebar to the left will open. Enter the RSS address from Dreaming Eye (listed above) into the text box and click Go.
That's it! A pretty box appears in your browser that display the latest posts to the Dreaming Eye Blog. Further feeds can be added from other pages to increase functionality. And, since the settings are linked with your Google profile, the feeds are not stored locally. This means you can use this on any computer with an Internet connection. Very efficient indeed. Here's a picture of what my current Google homepage looks like.
