Then maybe the game can take place before his time. Roland was the last gunslinger to reach the Tower, we don't know if he was the first or not.
And I just got another gameplay idea: Your gunslinger training will serve as the tutorial levels, and the final test against your teacher chooses your starting perks. You can pick from a wide variety of weapons to battle him with, with each granting different perks. If you fail and are sent West, your starting perks are randomized.

I have been waiting for a series or a game based on the dark tower. It would make for a very interesting IP transistion. Now, I have yet to read the finale and I the series seems to be getting a little tedious towards the end. IMO the drawing of the three was the best of the lot.

I don''t know why but the earlier books seem much more interesting than the later books.

Example being The Gunslinger. It is a great book from beginning to the end. Not only that but the setting is so interesting.

Then after I read the wiki for The Dark Tower series and learn about the different planes, different realities, the omni-world, and all of the other stuff. It lost that "touch" for me.

Maybe the books make the concepts much more interesting, I don't know. But however The Gunslinger could've be a standalone novel and I would love it all the same.

I write creative fiction myself and IMO the initial novels were written back when King was young. And when your young there is a certain degree of angst that is so very evident in King's earlier novels - take 'the stand' for example which I think is his finest work yet. Essentially a young writer embodies within himself a persona that can be deemed as being 'rebellious' since he has something to show to the world. You can actually feel the adrenalin rush through your veins when pen your first words - it's a moment of revelation t for both the author and the the world at large.

As we grow older you no longer experience those heated conflicting emotions that mold your writing. The vision falters, your hand trembles and the pen quivers; it's never quite the same really. Reckon that is what happened to Lucas too. That is why I haven't read the last one yet because I fear that it does not fulfill my expectations....I should probably get to it though just to lend myself a sense of catharsis.

My favorite has always been The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass. It has that western charm, yet not quite in the western world. After that it is a tied between The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three and The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. Then followed by The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger.

I actually have not finished reading the series. I somehow lost my interest about one-third of The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. I mean to finish it someday, and then continue with the next two books (or three now, as there was a new one released in April this year), but again my free time is not as much as it used to be. It might be years before I actually do finish reading, I am afraid. Especially since I prioritize gaming in my free time nowadays.

I am creative writer as well and I agree that as you get older you lose that fire and passion of the youth, which gets replaced by change that must happen. And I think that is a reason why epic series that are spread across decades lose their touch sometimes. The author changes because of life, and with that change comes with it lose of something in exchange for something else. So by the the time the last book of a saga comes out, and it is twenty or thirty years later, the author viewpoint has change quite a bit which affects the outcome of the resulting books.

IIRC, this was one of Stephen King's first published pieces so yes youth and ego were in high amounts back then.

Some of my favorite music in my youth

SPACEMAN by BABYLON ZOO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yG_rGErj8U

Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man (intergalactic Christ)
Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man (intergalactic Christ)

Pungent smells they consummate my home
Beyond the black horizon
Trying to take control
See my girl she shivers in her bones
The sun and zenith rising
Trying to take us all

There's a fire between us
So where is your God
There's a fire between us
I can't get off the carousel
I can't get off the carousel
I can't get off the carousel
I can't get off this world

The sickening taste
Homophobic jokes
Images of fascist votes
Beam me up 'cause I can't breathe

Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man

It's time to terminate the great wide world
Morbid fascinations television takes control
Decimation different races fall
Electronic information tampers with your soul

There's a fire between us
So where is your God
There's a fire between us
I can't get off the carousel
I can't get off the carousel
I can't get off the carousel
I can't fall off this world

The sickening taste
Homophobic jokes
Images of fascist votes
Beam me up 'cause I can't breathe

Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man

Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man (intergalactic Christ)
Spaceman I always wanted you to go
Into space man (intergalactic Christ)

Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaceman
Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaceman, Spaceman,
Spaceman... Spaceman...
Space... Spaceman

I try to set aside time every day to read a little of my novel (currently eye of the world, FANSTASTIC READ) and play some games. which is easy to do becuase i'm currently in between jobs.

and of course, i have a shrine to stephen king, and i pray to it everyday, asking for the king to return. just kidding i'm a christian.

The problem with a Dark Tower RPG is that you are playing a set character, in a set world, with a set narrative. I always hated licensed MMO's for the same reason, it's the characters that make you love a story, but yet in these games, you play as a nobody, occasionally interacting with NPC versions of the characters you know and love, but never really feeling part of the world.

I don't want to be Roland, nor do I want to be a blacksmith in Midworld, or a street thug in "our" world from the Dark Tower, walking past "the Rose". I want to be in Stephen King's USA, with the other worlds of King's intruding, just like the Omniverse presented in the Dark Tower.

Playing as a known character in a story is boring, and simply an exercise in fan service/worship. Playing as a nobody in that story doesn't immerse the player. But playing in that world, where the plot (preferably original) is one you make, with known events and characters simply being window dressing would work for me.

I guess what I envision would be a delicate balance between licensed re-enactment MMO-style gameplay, and Fallout 3/NV.

I'm thinking an rpg like fallout, with turn based combat and everything. Stephen can write some stuff in to make it scaryer, and flesh out the plot.

OR:

betrayal at krondor. something like that, but horror instead of fantasy. what was so great about that game, was that the descriptions were written by a real author, so it was like playing a game and reading a book at the same time. a really good book, and a great game to boot.

Nah not Steven King. It would start of s**t and then only get worse.