I beg to differ.

Beggars cant be choosers!

In my mind, these are still fanfics. I have no patience or respect for anyone who creates stories in someone else's world. Be they professional or be they not, they still suck ass.

What if said stories give the writers the experience and confidence to create their own unique universe?

It won't give them the experience or confidence to make a good unique universe, so no. Still bad.

See all the reasons I gave before as to why this is. Also, the other dozen rants I've made about said subject.

Clearly, almost all television serials and films are, by that logic, crappy fan fiction.

And it shows.

In some cases. But it hardly counts as "fan fiction" just because they don't have the original writers. Battlestar Galactica, anyone?

Well, there is already fanfics and fan games. I don't think Oddworld: Expanded Universe is a very good idea. You see, there are many very precise things about the Oddworld Universe. For example, I remember going to a good Oddworld site called The Oddworld Library, where I read about a mudokon tribe called Mullekton, that kept slogs. Many Oddworld fans, however, are used to slogs being "evil", industrial creatures, and make this 1 mistake that would spoil the universe. I'm sure this Mullekton, and other things not known to some fans, will be important in the future, otherwise Oddworld Inhabitants wouldn't make precise details like this. This is why I think that the Oddworld Universe should only be made by OWI.

Yes. My views on these two things are very much at odds with each other. The best way that I can explain my views on this is "creator's intent". Television and film writing is not the vast genre that literature is. There is a limited amount of programming that will be released in any given year, and someone who has aspirations of one day bringing their vision to the screen has little to no choice about writing in someone else's world first. They have to make a name for themselves.

Now, where "creator's intent" comes in is the fact that these shows are created with the idea of them being a collaborative project in mind. In novels I can point at the 'Wild Cards' series of books. Many of these are written by different authors, but that doesn't make them fanfiction. The series was created to be collaborative.

If I didn't do a good job describing the fine line between the two, I apologize. Mainly, that would be because I'm a bit confused by the line myself.

I dont see the slog problem. If slogs can be tamed by Sligs, why not Mudokons? Surely they just threat the person who gives them food as the master, right?

That's mainly why I voted no... one simple mistake can have bigger repercussions in that fictional world that is suspected. And I'm not sure the "creating" core of OWI would like to go trough all the fan fiction, or worse have some paths closed because of something written by someone else.

That's why the creative core of a franchise, if it is not more actively involved, gets the basic plot laid out for them, and they administer changes or vetoes where they see fit. Or they're all considered non-canon or canon-unknown anyway.

Another thing about Oddworld: Expanded Universe is the fans' different ideas about how to improve the universe. For example, would you want to play an Oddworld game developed by Bungie? Do you think it would be a proper Oddworld game? No. Same with fans: their ideas vary, and they might turn Oddworld into a story where mudokons have blitzpacker guns and big bro armor, and it would be the glukkons and sligs struggling to survive. And that would be the end of Oddworld, or at least what most fans consider Oddworld. Even though most fans might make good Oddworld stories, there will always be those who think Oddworld has too little combat and violence.

Except that all future Oddworld games will be developed by other companies on behalf of OWI.

Valve. Must get Valve on the job.

About the Mulletokon thing, is Ask Alf canon?

yeah, or at least something powered by Source...

The Mulletoken is not canon. I'd like to say that Ask Alf is completely canon but things change too much. I wouldn't call anything completely canon until it appears in an official product.

"Odd wars" and "Two pints of Soulstorm and a packet of crisps"

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

As per previous posts in this thread, they are ‘Oddified’ titles of existing works. The second one is from ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’, a British sitcom, which I used to enjoy, but can’t remember why.

Ahhhhhh. Not as random and strange as I first thought.

Two pints of Brew and a packet of Meech Munchies.

thats much better XD