Warhammer 40k is enormously fleshed out, though it' a bit easier to create an entire universe where everything is just shitty at all times. It easily runs alongside Forgotten Realms on the sci-fi track vice the fantasy, but considering the universe lends itself to action and strategy games more than RPGs, I think Salvatore's playground probably has a bit of an edge. Obviously, Tolkien is the granddad of the world creating. You don't get much deeper than the world from a man who created whole languages, genealogies, histories for every piece and parcel of the ground and inhabitants that seemed wholly organic to the entire process - and their entire pantheon of gods and goddesses. Originally Posted by CrunchyB Probably Warhammer 40K or oldschool D&D universes like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. All have 100+ novels and dozens of source books. Unsurprisingly, Middle Earth is probably the most meticulously created and consistent fantasy world.

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SOIAF, Mass Effect or Halo don't even deserve a mention in this topic. Not a jab at those series (I adore ASOIAF), but it's hard to beat dozens of authors working for several decades.A Song of Ice And Fire definitely deserves to be in the thread. The mythology may not cover dozens of novels and universes, but the way it's crafted and how it continues to expand is so detailed and dense. The world of ASOIAF has, supposedly, 10,000 years of written history. Real Draw Pro 5 Serial Key here.

Let that sink in for moment. Most of our written history is lost to the mists of time and what survived is spotty and patchy at best until modern archival systems and methods. Not to mention we have multiple fields devoted to the study of our past. Meanwhile, GRRM honestly expects us to believe the Starks and Lannisters have survived 10,000 years of war and intermarriage. I mean the linguistic drift alone would render these two houses recognizable by the time of the books. Reason Core Security Keygen Idm on this page. And all formal education in ASIOAF is hands of a few dozen elderly polymaths. Nice try GRRM, but I'm not buying it for a second.

It is taking the tired trope of 'unchanging medieval society' to a ridiculous degree. If you want a really well thought out and rigorous world, try Le Guin's The Dipossessed or Kage Baker's The Anvil Of The World. The most enjoyable part of the mass effect games were going around to the various planets and reading the little descriptions for them. A lot of really fun and interesting background to be found there and made me wish I could actually go down and explore a lot of the planets. Nothing cones remotely close to star trek as far as lore though. Between 5 series and 12 movies the amount of information and detail is incredible. Add on stuff like star trek online and the non canon literature, the best of which tries to maintain a pretty strong level of consistency, and the amount of detail becomes mind boggling.

The reboot books that started with ds9 and are now in the midst of the typhoon pact storyline added a ton of interesting information about the trek universe ands it's various species like Orion, Breen, Romulan, Andorian and many more. A few years ago the novel 'the never-ending sacrfice' came out which focuses on cardasia and it's culture over an extended period of time. Besides being a fantastic read, it did more to make cardasians feel like a deep, complex, and interesting culture than 7 seasons of ds9 did. Originally Posted by Valhelm The Elder Scrolls is actually a far deeper universe than even less casual readers might be aware. For a couple months I regularly checked out the wiki, but saw no mention of the fact that Queen Ayrenn is, or that all mortals may That's because Michael Kirkbride was kicked out of the team or left the team by himself (not sure) after Morrowind, where he was one of the main authors.

Both linked textes were written by Kirkbride long after Morrowing and are therefore not official canon, but more fan fiction. Some people still take Kirkbride's word, so his textes often are called 'obscure lore'. Note, that Bethesda implemented his obscure text in Skyrim, tough. For sheer content, I think it's gotta be Star Wars. There have been certainly hundreds of entries into the canon, and a whole hell of a lot more is coming with the sequel trilogy. Seriously, think of a question about Star Wars and there's probably an answer for it.

Where was Grand Moff Tarkin born? When was the first lighstaber invented? What major event happened in 37 BBY? What's the name of Jar Jar Binks' mom? ASOIAF has a really well developed and intriguing world. There are so many mysteries and nuances that fans love to discuss.

This is heightened by the fact that the series will NEVER BE FINISHED EVER. The Malazan world immediately came to mind when i read the thread title.

That series has a ridiculous amount of lore and a crazy large world. Long running franchises like Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc also obviously have a ridiculous amount of lore to them. Originally Posted by Haly The world of ASOIAF has, supposedly, 10,000 years of written history.

Let that sink in for moment. Most of our written history is lost to the mists of time and what survived is spotty and patchy at best until modern archival systems and methods. Not to mention we have multiple fields devoted to the study of our past. Meanwhile, GRRM honestly expects us to believe the Starks and Lannisters have survived 10,000 years of war and intermarriage. I mean the linguistic drift alone would render these two houses recognizable by the time of the books.

And all formal education in ASIOAF is hands of a few dozen elderly polymaths. Nice try GRRM, but I'm not buying it for a second. It is taking the tired trope of 'unchanging medieval society' to a ridiculous degree.Except this is specifically mentioned in the fourth book. Most of the recorded history is stuff which was written down long after the fact, and is largely considered to be wrong and full of inaccuracies, with most of the in universe scholars believing it's been closer to 2-3,000 years than 10,000. So, it's actually not taking that tired trope, but rather dealing with the unreliability of recorded history in that setting.

Originally Posted by Haly The world of ASOIAF has, supposedly, 10,000 years of written history.I think the word 'supposedly' is the most important part here. Because, IIRC, these 10,000 years are only ever mentioned by characters who have an interest in picturing the(ir) history as being vast and long. I think there are already some hints in the books that the stories of the past world aren't always grounded on reality or at least much exaggerated.

We'll see if that is true, but for now I don't really fault GRR Martin for any of this – in fact, pretending to have a long history makes it more believable, in my opinion. EDIT: Meh, beaten by three minutes. Mass Effect surprised me with how full and rich the universe is that they've created. It really feels like there's a deep and complex history to the world.

I think if they were smart and put in the effort to expand beyond the games, they could very well turn the brand into something rivaling Star Wars or Star Trek. It's nice too because while it has obvious influences from both of those, it still feels very much like it's own thing, it's own unique universe. I also like that when you read about the science and tech and whatnot powering the ships and weapons and shields, they make it all sound like it could work somehow, and in very basic and understandable terms too. While it doesn't have the fan-added depth of something like Trek or Star Wars, Larry Niven's Known Space has been deeply explored and is full of fascinating people, places, and things. Niven's written dozens of novels and short stories set in Known Space, ranging throughout its timeline. In addition, the Man-Kzin Wars series essentially turned a series of wars in Known Space into a shared world anthology series, which runs a bout fifteen books deep. It's got Ringworld, Pak Protectors, booster spice, Puppeteers, stepping discs, flashlight lasers, organlegging, corpsicles, wire-heading, and General Products hulls.

Lots of good stuff there and it hasn't been muddied up by a bunch of bad movies. In terms of shear content, not much is going to compete with the large licensed properties like Star Wars or Forgotten Realms. I like well thought out, thematically consistent universes. One recommendation I have along these lines is Sanderson's Cosmere books. That includes Warbreaker, Elantris, Mistborn trilogy, 2nd Mistborn trilogy (in progress), and the Stormlight Archive (in progress.) Each book or trilogy is entirely self contained, but there is also a meta-universe that all these worlds exist in and they actually share a common origin and history and the laws of magic/physics are universal if different in application. Erikson's Malazan saga is definitely up there, we have HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of years of history!

I'd also throw Stephen Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' books out there, the three series cover thousands of years of evolution and cultural change with many different races and societies. David Weber's Honorverse is up there, it has migrated substantially from it's 'Napoleon in spaaaaaaace' origins.

Hard to compete with anything based around an RPG though. RPGs lay out the tiny details to add lots of depth but would totally bog down a novel. Malazan, for example, would benefit substantially from an RPG sourcebook as much of the lore in the books is scattered or unexplained, but the books have a sense of internal consistency that is key for great world building. Originally Posted by SquiddyCracker Well, aside from the culture itself, other civilizations and species aren't really developed throughout the series (there's like 1, 2 exceptions). They're introduced, briefly explained, and then dropped when next book pops out.Yeh, the Culture books are more jumping off points for whatever story Banks wanted to write with the idea of the Culture and its minds being the stedfast character of the universe. The books jump around time 10's to 100 to 1000's of years between Novels.

Not to de-rail, but for anyone thinking of reading the Culture novels or even for fans that haven't seen it before, there's a great old essay that Banks put on the newsgroups years ago that you can look at that explains what the Culture & its society is about. I personally like that there's just a general theme and framework for the series and the vagueness of the outside universe and scope of time the books play out in allows it to be unrestricted. I'd say the cultures world is 'developed' from a consistency of the society and its members point of view, but yeh, there's not exactly a large book of Culture canon that you could get with timelines and what-not like Star Wars or the Halo games. Neal Asher's Polity novels are a pretty well fleshed out universe, with two primary strands (Ian Cormac and Spatterjay) with some excellent short stories & novellas in between. As mentioned, the Revelation Space/Chasm City universe is nicely plumped with a strong, consistent timeline and multiple takes on the same universe.

His Blue Remembered Earth universe is shaping up nicely too - altho I still wish he'd go back to Revelation Space! Both of PF Hamilton's big sequences (Night's Dawn and Commonwealth) are fleshed out (and feature lots of badly written sexy flesh too), PLUS fusion powered trains driving through wormholes. I'd argue that the Culture itself is exceptionally well fleshed out, and that there is enough hinted at timeline stuff to warrant it's inclusion. Dune, obvs, only not the stuff his son pumped out (it should be noted as well that even between Dune & Dune Messiah Herbert messes with his own canon, altho I suspect that's deliberately done) Thomas Covenant - altho I found reading those books to be more a chore than a joy, not least because TC himself is up there with 'least likeable protagonist in literature'.

B5, Star Wars & Star Trek on the telly/Movies/books/trading cards/anything with a surface. Originally Posted by massoluk Anyone that suggested Song of Ice and Fire should be ashamed of themselves. That thing's not even in the same league as other suggestion in this thread.It gets alot of things right other overworlds lack. For example realistic competing religions within the world. Different folklores and legends from different regions. Realistic spread of knowledge according to geographical distances; realistic depiction of ancient medical and cooking practices. Also dragon as ultimate weapon of deterrence, gels with the world very well.

I would have liked it better if the White Walkers/zombies are less powerful. It would make the ASOIAF world even more realistic. Dragon Age Origin borrows alot of cool things from ASOIAF. Originally Posted by tino It gets alot of things right other overworlds lack. For example realistic competing religions within the world.

Different folklores and legends from different regions. Realistic spread of knowledge according to geographical distances; realistic depiction of ancient medical and cooking practices. Also dragon as ultimate weapon of deterrence, gels with the world very well. I would have liked it better if the White Walkers/zombies are less powerful. It would make the ASOIAF world even more realistic. Dragon Age Origin borrows alot of cool things from ASOIAF.I agree, there are some very good and realistic things that it does that others haven't.

Additional note, the world history book is supposed to be out this year.

Battletech Live Character Creation The character creation process is under way. Generation is completed using the Life Path, found in the MechWarrior Third Edition handbook, with a couple modifications: Characters are divided by timeframe. As you can see in the screenshot, the player can select a number of timeframes, from 2750 to 3062, and I’ll probably have a few beyond that year. The player creates the character, using the selected year as the target for when the character will be available for play. So, if a character is 35 years old and is set up for 3025, they would have been born in 2990. Characters will then be able to interact and with other characters from similar time periods and live through the events of the time.

Some sort of timescale will be put in place. Not usre if it will be 1:1 or accelerated, so that time passes for the character. For example, if a character is created for 3052 and goes about their career, and sometime later, another player creates a character for 3057, it’s possible the two characters could meet. The Inner Sphere map changes according to time period, and according to historical events, will be adjusted to match.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, putting regional information in place so that when a player chooses an affiliation, they can make an informed decision.