Westeros

Straight from HBO come a press release touting the second season, and providing title, credits, and summary information for the first half of the season. We already have all the titles, but now we see the first of the two episodes Vanessa Taylor has written—episode 4, “Garden of Bones”—and learn a bit more about the breakdown of episodes.

There are some mild spoilers, which I’ll be following up a little bit with commentary between episode summaries.

Having fallen behind a fair bit due to various things going on, we’re now working to get our screencap gallery up to date, with our usual commentary covering details connected to the books, to the production, and more! First up, we’ve gotten very nearly 100 images together from the latest two trailers, which you can find starting on this page of the Previews gallery, with the first image being this one from the “Seven Devils” trailer.

Next up? The four new character  featurettes, as soon as we can get to them.

Lots of Jon Snow here, his character featurette joining the others that HBO have busily putting up on Youtube. Including what I believe is our first look at Ben Crompton as (that’d be the third person with the short beard between Sam and Jon in one or two shots) and Robert Pugh as Craster:

We’ve learned this recently, but sat on it for awhile… but it seems the cat is out of the bag, so to speak! Last season, David Benioff & Dan Weiss, Bryan Cogman, George R.R. Martin, and the incomparable Jane Espenson wrote the ten episodes of season 1. Espenson wasn’t able to write for this second season due to her other commitments (including as a producer on Once Upon a Time, which recently had a sly reference to the show in an Espenson-penned script). Some assumed that that meant that the four remaining writers from last season would cover all the episodes…

But not so! In fact, two episodes of this season are written by Vanessa Taylor, who’s an HBO veteran and has extensive producer credits (which may explain why she’s a co-executive producer on this season of the show, joining director Alan Taylor in getting that credit). Among her prior projects? Co-producing HBO’s Tell Me you Love Me and executive producer on the Washingtonienne pilot from 2009, as well as a writer and co-producer on J.J. Abram’s Alias.

As to what episodes she wrote? One wonders….

Today is a good day, as HBO has decided to release a mass of new videos over at its official Youtube channel for Game of Thrones. Not only is the HD version of “The More You Love” now available, but three character featurettes—focusing on Joffrey, Daenerys, and Renly, and their supporting cast (yep—lots of Natalie Dormer as Margaery and Gwendoline Christie as Brienne!)

See them below:

Cyanide’s Game of Thrones RPG is nearing release, with its publication (both in North America via Atlus and Europe via Focus Home Interactive) set for the middle of May. We’ve been covering the news of the game over the course of the last months, including the most recent news regarding a free art book with pre-orders, but I have to say, the good folks at the Podcast of Ice and Fire have gotten a real scoop: an interview Aram and Scott from Atlus to discuss the game. Good stuff—Amin and Mimi are gamers and they (and their forum members) ask the questions many gamers would like answers to.

Make sure to give it a listen!

And from late last month, here’s another of the taste of the game, with a look at another new location: the seat of Castlewood, where part of the game plays out.

Wow. Yet another new trailer, this one seeming to take its thematic focus on the topic of love.. and containing our first looks (in the show) of Ygritte and what I do believe is Yara

Asha. Plus a magnificent cityscape of King’s Landing, looking much nearer to how I suspect many fans envisioned it now that its architecture is more along the lines of continental Europe. Very interesting…

Thanks to Massively, we’ve gotten quite a few more details concerning Bigpoint‘s officialy licensed Game of Thrones massively multiplayer roleplaying game. They had a chance to sit down with some of the developers of the game during the San Francisco Game Developers Conference, and certainly got some interesting details out of them that expand on our previous report.

Details of the game’s combat system are expanded on, as are its skills-based system. One of the most important points for many players when considering a free-to-play MMO is the fact that there’s a fear players with deep pockets can “buy” their way to the top of the pile… but Bigpoint insists that the game is not balanced that way, and skilled players are always going to trump less skilled players, regardless of what perks the less skilled players have. It’s probably true that when looking between players of equal skill, those bought-for perks are going to give them the edge… but it’s at least a good move to make sure those perks don’t destabilize competition across all levels of play.

The territory-gain system sounds interesting, with three classes of battle—ranging from 20 v 20 fort battles to big, 50 v 50 castle battles to secure a territory for your side. The voting for a Hand each week, on the other hand, does sound sort of strange on the face of it. Who will vote, and how is this mechanic explained in terms that make sense? It’ll be interesting to learn more as the game develops. On the whole, this seems very much a combat-focused game with a secondary political element (which seems largely to be about deciding when to jump ship to a different faction), but it seems to have potential according to what Massively and other gaming sites who were at GDC have to say.

We’ve also added a sub-section in our gallery for the MMO, with the six high-resolution images that Bigpoint has released so far. The game uses hte Unity engine, which provides very robust graphical performance inside the browser, and it certainly does look quite good from these images.

Thanks to the scores of people who commented on our two posts regarding Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (pre-order:  US Paperback, US Kindle, UK)!

The copy of the book, signed by Professor Jacoby, has now been won: congratulations to Natalia Nznk! The response on this contest was so great, we’re putting our minds towards a few others in the future.

Remember, the book is out next week, hitting shelves on May 13th.

The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is in full swing, and massive online game developer Bigpoint is there to give journalists an early preview of their progress with the licensed, Game of Thrones MMORPG. With an Iron Throne on hand to draw attention to their close ties with HBO’s successful fantasy series.

Here’s what we’ve gleaned from two reports, from Games Radar and MMORPG.com, each of which has a new screenshot of the game:

• Based on the television series, it takes place shortly after the end of season 1 as the war for the throne begins. There are three (initial?) factions: Stark, Lannister, and Baratheon. You can also avoid picking a faction for awhile, but there are benefits to having one… but you and your guild (representing a minor house) can always jump ship to a different faction if it benefits you, which is touted as one of the means of playing out the political aspects of the game.
• The game is a sandbox-style game focused on PvP (that’s player vs. player) action and warfare. Players can take part in ranked 5 on 5 duels, or battle for control of castles and fortresses in the massive, open-world sandbox. From what Games Radar reports, the combat is action-based, with players able to earn “cards” that allow them to summon NPCs like Jaime Lannister to help your side out in a fight. Games Radar found these mechanics clunky, but Bigpoint noted this was still quite early in the process.
• Using the Unity graphics system, this is a browser-based game… but it’s indicated that the graphics look really amazing for this sort of game. That said, it’s clear from comments that hardcore gamers are dubious of browser-based, free-to-play games.
• The game is skill-based rather than class-based, but you can specialize your character down the route of melee, ranged, or commander skills (which allow you to provide positive modifiers to allies and negative modifiers to enemies).

All in all, sounds interesting, and we’re going to try and keep atop the news as the game approaches its beta in the Fall. Bigpoint has also launched the official site for the game, where you can presently sign up to indicate your interest in receiving news updates concerning the game. They also have an official twitter account.

A couple of days ago we announced a contest to win a copy of Blackwell’s forthcoming Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Pre-order:  US Paperback, US Kindle, UK), and there we promised an interview with Professor Henry O. Jacoby, editor of the book and one of its contributors.

You can find it below, as we ask him seven questions (starting to feel like a “thing”, having seven questions!) about his work, the book, and some of his thoughts on questions that concern the series. And after you’ve read it, please feel free to leave a comment… not least because your comments will be entered into the pool for winning a copy of the book!

Gosh, it feels like the actors have been through a junket or three at this point! Here’s a few more interviews that have popped up onto our radar in the last couples of days:

Using the infamous refrain of the ironborn devotees of the Drowned God, “What is Dead May Never Die” turns out to be the title for the third episode of season 2—and the first not penned by David Benioff & Dan Weiss. Instead, this one’s written by story editor Bryan Cogman, who wrote last season’s fourth episode, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things”.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet it’ll be giving us our first, in-depth look at the Iron Islands…

For the titles of the first two episodes, see our earlier post.

For awhile now, we’ve been sitting on some information regarding one of the upcoming, Ice and Fire-related things that George and we are involved in. But now, in the last days, things have been moving quite quickly, and it’s time to pull back the curtain.

Some have seen a listing for a product named Maps of Ice and Fire at Random House’s sites. But this is not, in fact, the final title. We can exclusively reveal that the final title is The Lands of Ice and Fire, which will be a boxed collection of posters featuring quite a few different maps, covering everything from the Seven Kingdoms we all know and love, to the lands Across the Narrow Sea… including the fabled Yi Ti, the lands of the Jade Sea, and the mysterious Asshai-by-the-Shadow. There’ll even be maps of a city or two.

This will be the most accurate and complete maps of the world of the setting ever published, featuring lands and places that we’ve never even heard of before—including long-dead kingdoms, half-forgotten cities, and more. I’m not presently certain as to who the artist(s) is/will be… but I’ve been looking over George’s own, hand-drawn maps (we’ve been asked to help proof them and do some of this and that for the final product—and no, don’t ask us for any details!), and suffice it to say, there’s plenty there to fire the imagination for any artist.

The poster collection is due to be released on October 30th or thereabouts, and you can pre-order it now.

Last month, we reported on the forthcoming release of Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Pre-order:  US, UK), part of the Blackwell Pop Culture and Philosophy series of popular philosophy books.

This week, we’re offering readers of Westeros.org a chance to win a copy, signed by editor and contributor Henry O. Jacoby.

All you need to do to enter? Leave a comment on this post, and we’ll select a winner at random! The winner will be announced on Friday, and the book will be dispatched soon after.

Keep an eye out in the next day or two, as well, as we’ll have an exclusive interview with Professor Jacoby and a chance to improve your odds of winning the signed copy by leaving a comment on the interview as well.