PC Gamer has an interesting interview with Bioware’s James Ohlen on the early discussions at Bioware around developing an MMO.

I’d always thought it would have been a little like the United Nations meeting for the first time, but apparently it was a core of three people. And according to Ohlen, those three tossed around ideas, including options if the Star Wars franchise wasn’t used:

“We had backup plans,” said Ohlen. “In all the design team was like three of us at that point, in total. So we were looking at doing a Lord of the Rings MMO, a Silmarillion MMO, a kind of a Gunslinger-esque Dark Tower MMO, a Game of Thrones MMO.”

Now, is it too much to ask for Bioware to develop all of those options – I mean how hard could it be? I’m not 100% sure on the Dark Tower option, but I’d definitely play the other three. A LOTRO competitor would have thrown in one hell of a competition dynamic into the MMO field, that’s for sure.

Over to you: if it wasn’t Star Wars, what lore-base should Bioware have used? Any commenters suggesting a Gilligan’s Island or Twilight MMO will be banned – but I’d back a Happy Days game.